Plan on 5–8 years between recoats, with annual maintenance checks in between. Coastal salt air, UV and thermal movement are harder on waterproofing here than inland, and any contractor quoting fifteen or twenty years is quoting a laboratory figure, not a Southern Cape roof. Inspected and recoated on cycle, a well-installed system keeps working indefinitely. Left alone, it fails somewhere in year six and you find out during the first big front.

Yes — we phase work area-by-area to keep the building usable, protect interiors with drop sheets, and schedule around tenant hours where needed.

Written workmanship guarantee plus the membrane manufacturer warranty. Both are issued on completion with the paid invoice.

Free site inspection first. If the substrate is sound and failures are localised, a targeted repair saves cost. Multiple failures or a system past its lifespan means a full re-waterproof is cheaper long-term.

Yes — balconies, parapets, planter boxes, shower screeds, retaining walls, basements, and below-ground tanking.

Liquid-applied acrylic and polyurethane, cementitious slurries, elastomeric coatings, bituminous damp-proof courses, and torch-on membrane where the roof genuinely calls for it. System choice depends on substrate, exposure and budget — we recommend after inspection.

Yes — waterproofing is only as good as the prep. We strip failed membrane, repair cracks and rising substrate, prime correctly, and then apply the new system.

Liquid acrylic: 24–48 hours to rain-ready. Membrane systems: same day. Full traffic depends on the topcoat — we tell you up front so you can plan.

Skipping surface preparation, applying over damp or dusty substrate, using one system everywhere regardless of substrate, ignoring the falls so water sits instead of draining, and treating the stain rather than tracing the source. Almost every failed job we are called to inspect failed for one of those five reasons, not because the product was wrong.

Only where the wall is actually taking water — a west or south-facing elevation exposed to driven rain, a parapet, or a wall showing damp on the inside face. Blanket-coating every exterior wall is unnecessary, and on a wall with rising damp it makes things worse by trapping moisture in the masonry. We diagnose first, because wall damp and wall water ingress are different problems with different fixes.

Above ground, with a breathable elastomeric or acrylic coating over properly prepared and primed plaster, with cracks cut out and filled first. Below ground, with tanking or a cavity drain system. For rising damp, with a DPC — not a coating. Getting that choice wrong is the single most common waterproofing mistake we see on walls.

There is no single strongest system — there is the right system for the substrate and exposure. A bitumen membrane is tough on a flat concrete roof and wrong on a moving timber deck. A liquid polyurethane bridges movement and cracks beautifully and is wasted on a sheltered wall. Anyone naming one product as strongest for every situation is selling a product rather than solving a problem.