Review of 'An overview of hydrophobic treatments and their application with Internal Wall Insulation'

A very comprehensive piece of work indeed. Worth while reading. It compiles a range of relevant aspects and gives insights in the challenges at hand. It reads like an introductory chapter in a textbook and I would happily recommend it to a lot of people. However, it does not provide a complete state of the art literature review with adequate detail for what has been done before, and it does not add new data to the field. In that respect I would consider it as a very good conference paper, but it would not qualify for a high-ranked scientific journal.

I have no major remarks, just some minor editorial remarks and little points of discussion:

Section 3.1, the last sentence is just “Lubelli”, whereas a reference to literature was probably intended here?

Section 4.1.1 typo error in the first word.

Section 4.1.2 Reason 4: Although I agree with the processes that may affect capillary absorption tests, the impact of these phenomena should not be overestimated. Ideally, this section would also comprise a quantitative discussion on the topic to put these effects in the right perspective.

Section 4.1.2 Reason 5: it should be noted that in cup test measurements there can be some liquid moisture transfer, but that does not compromise the validity of the measurement (in contrast to reason 4). It only highlights the artificial separation of liquid and vapor transfer. Next to that, this entails that the typical decrease in water vapor resistance of materials at higher moisture contents may be less evident for materials with HPT.

Section 4.2.1 In the first sentence there is a single “ which is confusing.

Section 4.2.1, page 9, 4^th paragraph. “In the capillary tube experiment” = Karsten tube?

Section 4.2.2 2^nd paragraph. The last sentence states that the impact of surface roughness “contradicts the previous statement”. However, it is not clear which aspects contradict each other.

Section 4.2.2 Last paragraph: some materials do not display the first drying phase. It would be relevant to provide practical examples.

Section 5. 3^rd paragraph: “the wall is generally direr” => drier

Section 5. 3^rd paragraph: last sentence is incomplete

Section 6. 4^th paragraph, 1 sentence: ad > and

Section 6.2 It seems rather obvious that out of the three modelling approaches, the one in which different material properties are adopted for the thickness of the treated layer is most reliable. The paper seems to accept the approach where the whole masonry is assumed to be hydrophobic.

Section 7. 6^th paragraph. “The risk of frost damage can indicated by” > be indicated by