The footings of the basement and retaining walls are critical. It’s usually the “live” joint as we term it. That’s the joint between the slab or the footing and then the wall is in place on top of that.

This is usually where a leak will occur if it’s going to leak. Particular attention is paid by all our applicators. FEW methodology is to get down on that by hands and knees basically and get right in to that joint with brush on material. This is then applied thoroughly in to that joint to make sure that that joint will not leak. Even if you don’t put another membrane on it that joint will not leak. This is important.

What we do is we get right down, get it coated, get two or three coats on there, and prepare it up. If it’s a nice clean junction, we’ll actually use a polyethylene fabric on that as a reinforcement barrier as well that’s embedded in to the liquid rubber. Then once that’s done, the overall membrane is applied over the top.

Effectively on that joint, you patch over about five or six coats of membranes. You can understand it’s a very substantial part of the job and a very substantial coating that goes on it in retrospectively.

After that’s done, the coatings are on and they’re all cured, we then use a protection sheet to protect that beautiful work that’s all just being done. The protection sheet that we use is a sticky back material, which means it’s a peel and stick. You rip the backing of it, stick it on the membrane so that it doesn’t shift and move about when the excavators are coming back in to backfill those areas.

This is critical because otherwise, vines, stones, and things can get down the back of conventional type protection sheets that will cause an amazing amount of damage to the membrane. This will puncture the membrane and start to leak.

Quite often, I’m being faced with builders who think they know what they’re doing. They’ll put the protection sheet in, backfill with scoria or crushed rock, and so on. Then after it sets out, it’s leaking. Why?

Once it’s dug out, we understand why because you pull the protection sheet out. It’s full of stones and everything behind, lots of little holes in that membrane that’s all going on there. It’s not just our membrane, this is other membranes as well. It’s critical to protect the membrane, very often overlooked.

Findlay-Evans Waterproofing

A Waterproofing Company That Thinks Construction

Registered Building Practitioner & Certified Waterproofers

P: (03) 8812 2918

E: info@waterproofingfew.com.au

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