Waterproofing consultants are crucial for ensuring the building envelope systems perform as expected and achieve the intended lifecycle. Without expert guidance during design and execution, watertight performance is often compromised, leading to costly repairs. Common issues arise from inadequate design or execution, highlighting the need for specialized oversight. Even if you have existing representation, a peer review from a professional consulting agency is critical as they typically will catch potential errors or omissions in your building envelope system.
Why do I need a waterproofing consultant when I have a General Contractor and / or an Architect?
A waterproofing consultant specializes in building envelope design, specifications, and quality assurance, ensuring predictable performance and lifecycles of the building envelope systems.
In our experience, projects that do not take the building envelope and enclosure systems seriously from design through execution do not achieve watertight performance.
Addressing potential issues early in the design phase can prevent costly fixes later. It’s not unusual for a $1,000 flashing component to cost $100,000 to fully mitigate if not installed correctly with the right detailing, material choices, transitions, fasteners, primers, and adhesion. The damages could be rather extensive.
It’s unreasonable to expect an architect, without specific experience and engineering disciplines represented, to design and execute a watertight building envelope correctly. Just as a general contractor must hire trades with professional training and at least five years of experience on projects of similar size, scope, and complexity, the architect must engage professional disciplines with relevant experience. Ownership should not expect the architect to design the building envelope independently. In our forensic water intrusion investigation division, more often than not, we see new construction residential projects are not watertight upon completion.
What these projects have in common is the absence of expert representation during the design and execution of the waterproofing and/or water management disciplines.
If you believe you already have representation, California consultants can still perform a peer review to identify any errors or omissions in the design of the building envelope system. Contact us today to learn more, or follow the links below
