Exterior Wall & Facade Waterproofing

When rain soaks through an exterior wall, the problem is not always the wall itself — it is the way the wall is handling the water. A wall is designed to keep the water out, but it is also designed to let the moisture that is inside the wall escape. If the wall is sealed with a coating that does not let the moisture out, the moisture is trapped inside the wall, and it will eventually find its way through to the inside, bringing the salts and the stains with it.

The first step is to understand the wall. We need to know what the wall is made of — brick, block, stone, or render — and we need to know how the water is getting in. The water can be coming through the wall itself, through the joints, through the cracks, or through the details at the windows, the doors, and the parapet. We also need to know whether the wall is being saturated by the rain, or whether the water is coming from the ground, the gutters, or the downpipes.

For a wall that is being saturated by the rain, we use a water-repellent coating that is applied to the outside of the wall. The coating is a penetrating silicone or siloxane that soaks into the wall and lines the pores, so the water is repelled from the surface while the wall is still able to breathe. The wall is protected from the rain, but the moisture that is inside the wall is still able to escape.

For a wall that is cracked, we repair the cracks and the joints before we apply the coating. The cracks are filled with a flexible sealant that can move with the wall, and the joints are repointed where the mortar is failing. The coating is then applied over the repaired wall, so the water is stopped at the surface and the wall is protected.

We also look at the details. The windows, the doors, the parapets, and the penetrations are the most common points of water ingress in a wall, and they are often the cause of a problem that looks like a wall problem. We check the flashings, the seals, and the details, and we fix the ones that are letting the water in.

The result is a wall that is dry, a wall that is protected, and a wall that is able to breathe. We give you a written specification of the system, and we stand behind the work.