Waterproofing for Coastal Buildings

Water is the root cause of nearly every structural problem we're called in to fix. Waterproofing is the least expensive work you will ever do on your building — and the most expensive to skip.

Where water actually gets in

Almost never through the middle of a wall. Water finds the joints, the transitions, and the penetrations — the places where two materials meet and something flexible was asked to bridge them.

Every one of these is a small detail with structural consequences, because the concrete behind it is reinforced with steel and the steel is what water is looking for.

What we do

• Balcony, terrace and walkway waterproofing
• Deck and plaza waterproofing
• Expansion joint waterproofing
• Building envelope protection
• Leak investigation and repair
• Preventive waterproofing maintenance

The case for prevention

A leak is never just a leak. Water that gets past the envelope finds the reinforcing steel, and what starts as a stain on a ceiling ends as a structural repair. Preventive waterproofing is the difference between a maintenance line item and a special assessment.

The arithmetic is unsentimental. Recoating a balcony deck on schedule is a planned expense. The same balcony after chlorides reach the rebar is concrete removal, steel replacement, structural rebuild, and only then the waterproofing you were going to do anyway.

Chasing leaks versus fixing systems

Chasing single leaks with caulk is how buildings spend twice.

A leak reported on the ninth floor is rarely coming from the ninth floor. Water travels laterally along slabs and down through penetrations, so the visible stain and the actual breach are often several floors and many feet apart. Sealing where the water appears buys a few months and moves the problem.

So we inspect the full envelope, not just the wet spot, and where the source is not obvious we use targeted water testing to find it before anyone specifies a repair.

Manufacturer-certified systems

We install manufacturer-certified systems, which qualifies the completed work for material-and-labour warranties rather than a handshake.

That certification also constrains us in a useful way. These systems come with written requirements for surface preparation, moisture content and cure times, and the manufacturer's inspector can decline to warrant work that skipped them. Anyone can put a coating on a wall. It lasts because of what happens first.

Where waterproofing sits in a restoration project

If concrete repair is part of the same project, the order is fixed: unsound concrete comes off, reinforcing steel is cleaned or replaced, the section is rebuilt, and only then does waterproofing go on, with coatings last.

Boards under budget pressure sometimes repair the concrete and defer the waterproofing to a later year. It is the most expensive saving available — concrete repaired and left unprotected in salt air begins the same corrosion cycle again. If the budget genuinely will not stretch, phase the building and do fewer elevations completely rather than the whole building incompletely.

Work that happens around residents

Nearly all of our work happens on occupied buildings. We phase by elevation and stack so a resident loses the use of a balcony for a defined window rather than for the length of the project, protect walkways and entries, and coordinate access with management.

Rope access and swing stage crews reach every floor without standing scaffolding across your entrances for months. Throughout, the board receives photo documentation and progress reporting the property manager can forward straight into the board packet.

Tell us about your building. We'll come look at it, and tell you honestly what it needs.