How We Work

What that means in practice

• We inspect before we quote. No quotes over the phone from a description.
• The finding is written. Cause, evidence, and recommended system, so you can take it to someone else for a second opinion if you want to.
• Prices are published. The price list is on this site. You should not have to book a visit to find out whether you can afford the work.
• Quotes name the system. Product, thickness, number of layers, area measured, guarantee term, and what is excluded.
• We say when you do not need us. Condensation is not a waterproofing problem and we will not sell you a system for it.

Why the diagnosis is the whole job

Waterproofing materials in South Africa are, broadly, fine. The bituminous membranes, liquid systems and DPC creams sold here are manufactured to recognised standards and they do what the data sheet says they do. So when a job fails — and a great many do — the material is rarely the reason.

It fails because a system designed to shed water off a surface was applied to a wall with water pushing through it from behind. Or because a wall was sealed on the inside when the water was coming in from outside. Or because the real fault was a blocked outlet twelve metres away and someone re-coated the whole roof instead.

Those are all diagnosis failures, and they are expensive twice: once for the work that did not fix it, and again for the work that eventually does.

What we will tell you that others might not

• That black spotted mould in the corner of a bedroom is almost certainly condensation, and no waterproofing system will touch it.
• That a wall showing damp only after a wind-driven front does not have rising damp, regardless of how many contractors have quoted you for DPC injection.
• That injecting a DPC and leaving the salt-contaminated plaster on the wall will look like a failure within a year, and the injection will get the blame.
• That sealing an old solid wall with a non-breathable coating will blow the plaster off it. See damp proofing in Cape Town.
• That a leak in a ceiling is often not below the hole, and re-coating the area above the stain is the most commonly wasted spend in this trade.

How we quote

Every quote names the product and its thickness, the number of layers, the measured area or linear metres, the upstand heights, whether stripping and disposal are included, the guarantee term for workmanship and materials separately, and an explicit list of what is excluded.

Indicative rates for all of it are published on waterproofing prices, so you can sanity-check any quote — ours or anyone else's — before you sign it.