Waterproofing Solutions

The Sugaring of History I stood last Tuesday in front of a 1890s limestone courthouse, running my thumb across a decorative corbel. What should have been sharp, crisp architectural detail felt like a pile of wet granulated sugar. This is the ‘sugaring’ effect, the physical manifestation of a building literally dissolving in the rain. Most […]

The Forensic Scene: A Facade in Mourning I stood on a swaying scaffold thirty feet above the pavement, looking at a historic limestone facade that was literally shedding its skin. The homeowner called me because they saw ‘a few flakes’ on the sidewalk. To the untrained eye, it looked like old age. But when I […]

The Anatomy of Basement Decay Walk into any pre-war basement in the humid sprawl of the Northeast or the river-fed valleys of the Midwest, and you will smell it before you see it. It is a sharp, mineral scent—the smell of a building slowly dissolving. When you look at the base of the walls, you […]

The Autopsy of a Suffocated Facade The homeowner called me out because the ‘flipper white’ paint she’d applied two years ago was beginning to bubble and peel in large, ragged sheets. She thought it was a product defect. But when I pulled my borescope from my kit and peered into the void behind the brickwork, […]

The Forensic Scene: When ‘Waterproof’ Becomes a Death Sentence I recently walked onto a job site where the homeowner was frantic. They had a gorgeous 1920s Tudor-style home, but the interior plaster was bubbling and the basement smelled like a swamp. ‘I had it sealed last year,’ the owner told me, pointing to a shiny, […]

The Ghost in the Limestone: A Forensic Look at Masonry Decay The homeowner thought it was just a hairline crack, a minor blemish on a pristine limestone portico. But when I put my scope inside that fissure, the reality was a gut-punch. I saw the structural steel was rusted to dust, expanded to three times […]

Why a Commercial Roof Leak Often Starts in the Parapet Walls | Masonry Rescue Why a Commercial Roof Leak Often Starts in the Parapet Walls As a field consultant for Benchmark Inc., I have spent years walking the gravel-strewn and membrane-covered expanses of commercial properties across the country. One of the most frustrating phone calls […]

The Forensic Scene: When Protection Becomes Poison The homeowner thought it was just a hairline crack running across the header of the limestone porch. But when I put my scope inside the core of the lintel, I saw the structural steel was rusted to dust, expanded to three times its original size, and literally pipe-bombing […]

The Forensic Scene: When the Face Lies to You The client called me out to an 1890s industrial loft conversion because a single soldier course of brick looked slightly ‘damp’ after a light rain. To the untrained eye, it was a cosmetic nuisance. To a man who has spent forty years chasing leaks through brick […]

The Forensic Reality of the Facade I was standing on a suspended scaffold seventy feet above a city street, staring at a commercial smokestack that looked solid from the sidewalk. To the owner, it was just a chimney. To me, it was a ticking time bomb. I took my hammer and tapped a few units. […]