Have you ever had a building that no matter what you did to remedy active leaks, it would just not stop leaking? Due to extreme weather patterns affecting Central Ohio in recent years and poor building design, this is more common than you might think.
A few years ago, this was happening to a building at the Columbus International Air Center owned and managed by the Schottensteins and its property management company. The head of the company and facility manager contacted me to once and for all provide a long-term solution to stopping water from entering the exterior masonry facade and windows on an office building on their complex at the airport.
We first repaired all masonry – including patching and replacing block, concrete sills and headers, tuckpointing old open or failed mortar joints, and re-caulking all masonry expansion joints and windows. Then we applied a silicone-based decorative waterproofing membrane called “All Guard” from Dow Corning that comes with a minimum of a ten year material warranty and guarantees no water intrusion whatsoever. This acts as an elastomeric paint that protects from water intrusion, allows the substrate (in this case block) to breathe and moves and stretches with the building during freeze-thaw cycles. Thus, it is by design “elastic”. The process included cleaning the existing masonry to get rid of any dirt, objects, loose paint, pollutants, etc., applying one heavy coat of primer and two coats of paint.
We also removed 100% of the old urethane window caulking and re-sealed or “wet-sealed” using Dow Corning 795 silicone sealant. The client received a twenty year material warranty known as a “WeatherSeal” warranty from the manufacturer and we provided a five year service warranty in which if a leak occurred, we would respond in less than 24 hours to make all necessary repairs at no charge to the client. This is unprecedented in the industry.
Nearly five years later – no leaks and it still looks great! Needless to say, our customers are very pleased with this outcome. Odds are that this solution will provide another ten to fifteen years of no leaks before it’s time to reapply the product used to make this building watertight and keep their tenants completely happy.
If you have a building with active leaks and causing you problems, call on the experts at Utmost Renovations to resolve it.
Mark Huffer, is President of Utmost Consulting and Utmost Renovations. He is a BOMA (Building Owners and Managers Association) Instructor on building envelopes and is a leading authority on Building Restoration and Historic Preservation.
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