Tag Archives: waterproofing

Villa Carmen 3 by Josep Enric on Flickr

Seven Reasons to Be Afraid of Your Office Space

Opening Scene:

Your awesome real estate broker has found the perfect building or suite for your company. So you go to lease or buy a building and it has a fantastic amount of office space.

Looks good to you, so no problem. Right?

Sign on the dotted line.

Boom.

So where’s the parade, band, and champagne?

We hate to be the bearer of bad news, but when people come to us later (if you didn’t get a survey before), that’s often our role. (We’re nice people, we promise.)

Here are some common issues:

1. You’re under-parked.
2. Your bathrooms are too small to meet ADA code and/or things don’t measure up. Continue reading

Is your building watertight? Creative Commons Attribution Seaglass by Ken on Flickr

Is Your Building Watertight?

 

There is more to a building’s waterproofing than its roof.

Now, the roof is important don’t get me wrong, but there are other areas that should be carefully monitored.

We’re talking about a force of nature whose erosion created The Grand Canyon. Water is not to be ignored. Remember, water always travels the path of least resistance.

Water is great for cooking, cleaning, and drinking. Who doesn’t love a cup of coffee? But you do not want it invading your building. Its damage isn’t limited to rusting steel rebar within concrete. The smallest amount of moisture can allow mold to grow. Yikes. Who wants to breathe that?

In Southern California we are spoiled with a Mediterranean climate and an average annual rainfall of just under 15 inches (Seattle is 37 inches). This weather dynamic gives us beautiful days and awesome sunsets but the lack of rainfall causes us to forget and possibly neglect these waterproofing issues.

Roof

Depending upon your roof type, there are many areas of concern. These areas can be caught during regular roof maintenance (see more detailed blog post here).

HVAC Condensate

Condensate from roof-top equipment is required to exit to an approved receptor through approved piping. In no way do you want any kind of water, condensate or otherwise, just dripping and pooling on your roof. Continue reading

Fix your concrete panel cracks with epoxy injection.

How to Fix Cracks in Concrete Tilt-Up Panels with Epoxy Injection

Does your concrete tilt-up building have cracks? Are those cracks simply cosmetic? Is it just chipped paint? Chances are, it’s not.

Because both concrete and the earth tend to move, concrete tilt-up panels will develop cracks.

These cracks are not merely at the surface. They are not cosmetic.

Rather, they crack through the entire thickness of the wall panel. Thus the mnemonic: “cookies crumble, concrete cracks.” We call them “through-wall cracks.”

What are through-wall cracks?

Through-wall cracks not only compromise the structural integrity of a building but they’re a neon sign advertising water intrusion. And we know that’s not a good thing, right?

Epoxy Injection is a Structural Repair.

“What this does is welds the concrete back together, protects the rebar that’s running across the cracks, and waterproofs the building for water intrusion.” Art Dodge

This weld is a structural repair.  Once the epoxy is cured its strength is 15,000 pounds per square inch (psi). In fact, the weld is stronger than the concrete was originally.

What will epoxy injection do to my building?

I interviewed Art Dodge of Dodge Concrete Waterproofing Surfaces about the steps involved to structurally repair these cracks with epoxy injection.

Continue reading