Waterproofing Solutions

The Forensic Scene: When Good Intentions Kill Great Walls The homeowner thought it was just a hairline crack, a minor blemish on a 1920s Tudor facade. But when I put my borescope inside the cavity, I didn’t see structural integrity; I saw a graveyard. The structural steel lintels were rusted to red dust, and the […]

The Forensic Reality of the ‘Fixed’ Chimney I recently walked onto a roof where a homeowner had spent three thousand dollars only six months prior to stop a persistent leak around their fireplace. The ‘contractor’—and I use that term loosely—had smeared a gallon of silver roofing mastic over the flashing and injected a tube of […]

The Anatomy of a Slow-Motion Disaster I recently stepped onto a slate roof in a historic district, the kind where the houses have stood for a century and should stand for another. The homeowner was frantic because a $30,000 plaster ceiling in the master bedroom looked like a topographical map of the Everglades. They had […]

The Hidden Danger of Trapped Water Behind Commercial Brick Veneers The facility manager called me because he saw what he termed ‘a little white dust’ on a six-story commercial facade. He thought it was a cleaning issue. I climbed the scaffolding, pulled my fiber-optic scope from my kit, and threaded it through a hairline crack […]

The Forensic Scene: When Copper Hides a Corpse The homeowner was adamant. She had spent four thousand dollars on custom lead-coated copper flashing just three seasons ago, yet the ceiling in the master bedroom looked like a topographical map of a swamp. I climbed the scaffolding, my boots crunching on the loose grit of failing […]

The Forensic Scene: A Microscopic Ecosystem Behind the Brick The homeowner thought it was just a hairline crack near the ceiling. A nuisance, perhaps, but not a disaster. But when I put my borescope inside the cavity behind the chimney breast, the reality was grim. I saw structural steel that had been rusted to dust, […]