Get Trained On Your Job Site to Install Metal Lath Decking Systems By The Deck Expert!

Smart Contractors Are Learning This Highly Prized Skill & Putting Additional Profits In Their Pockets, Instead of Giving It Away

Want to add more skills to the services you already offer? Learn to install the largest selling deck coating systems from me, the Deck Expert, Bill Leys. I have over 12 years of experience and can teach you about selling, estimating and installing a metal lath deck coating system. 

 

ON THE JOB OVER SITE!
Former authorized applicator of Desert Crete, Pli-Deck, Mer-Kote, Dex-O-Tex + more!

 I'll be on the job with you as I was here in Mariposa recently, teaching a contractor how to install a Desert Crete system. I can teach you how to install Life Deck AL system, Mer-Kote Shur Deck and Weather Deck System (former Mer-Kote approved applicator) Westcoat ALX, Pli-Dek and Desert Crete systems among the many available. 

You'll get help in estimating the job, sourcing materials, tips on selling the job and then when it's sold, I come to the job with the specialized tools to help you professionally train and learn to install the system. 

You'll learn about flashing decks, including at doors, edges and walls. 

 The tips and tricks it' has taken me 12 years to acquire are handed down to you! I teach you the secrets experienced installers know. 

I'll teach you the tips and trcks I've learned from 12 years in the field!

 We'll spend time at the back of the truck having discussions and teaching your crew on tools, procedures, safety and more, then we'll be on the deck installing a system from start to finish!

You'll learn how to apply simple finishes that will impress your clients. 

Our clients job in Mariposa turned out great and so will yours! I give you follow up telephone support free! Call today and start on your way to learning how to install a metal lath decking system! I service all of California, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon and Washington. 

Call Bill at 805-801-2380 or send me an email to Bill at centralcoastwaterproofing.com 

See our articles in Journal of Light Construction, Professional Deck Builder & more!

Deadly Berkeley Balcony Collapse - Poor Design, Poor Workmanship in Installation

The six people that died and seven who were seriously injured in the balcony collapse on an apartment building on Kittridge St in Berkeley CA never should have died or been injured. That's my opinion, based on the information and documents I've received and photograph's I've reviewed.

Eventually a jury or a mediator will award the dead and injured money to compensate them. Who will pay and how much they will pay will be the only question.

Broken off joists from dryrot due to water intrusion.
Decks must be pre-sloped, then waterproofed. 

From what my review and discussions with other experts have come up with, the wood cantilevered deck was framed out flat, despite the plans calling for a 2% slope on it. After being built, it was waterproofed using Grace 3000 bithuthene membrane, a peel and stick waterproofing sheet good.

Grace 3000 waterproofing system on horizontal surfaces
requires the use of a sub-surface drainage membrane under the concrete
overburden to allow water to escape unimpeded. 

Waterproofing detail for deck shows Grace 3000 bituthene membrane
but the drawing FAILS to include Grace Hydroduct 660 Drainage Membrane.
We presume water WILL get under concrete overburden and will need a way
 to drain sub-surface water out

After being waterproofed, it appears that sloping materials in the form of concrete backer board type materials were placed on top, then screwed down through the waterproofing membrane. Grace advertises that their membrane is "self healing" but also advises that any penetrations be patched. Near impossible to do in this type of situation. But someone probably thought hey it's self sealing so no problem screwing through it.

Apparently no further waterproofing over the sloped materials was done.

Then a concrete deck was poured over this assembly. Water will leak through concrete. It's permeable unless it's waterproofed. Stucco was applied as the finish under the balcony. One design flaw with the stucco was that no vents were installed on the underside of the deck.

Clearly there are no vent strips on the underside of the stucco covered deck. 

My theory is that water got through the concrete and in at the door area. The fasteners used to screw the concrete board down allowed water to penetrate to the waterproofing membrane. As screws rusted, they provided a channel for water to penetrate into the deck substrate and framing. Now with the wood wet, dryrot could begin.

This pic clearly shows the joists of the deck in a rotted condition.

Now I want to be clear, the design of the waterproofing appears to have been a problem too. I've reviewed details of the waterproofing assembly and the architect appears to have left out on critical piece of the system assembly-subsurface drainage. 

The Grace 3000, like nearly every Grace waterproofing product, requires a drain board assembly to be placed on top of the waterproofing membrane over a pre-sloped substrate. Without the ability to drain water out, concrete will hold the water against the waterproofing membrane, allowing it to sit, especially on a flat deck. The Grace system, if properly designed and assembled, should have worked for years and years without issue. 

So a flat deck, with waterproofing on it without slope, allows water to sit on it under the concrete overburden. Theoretically this deck as it began to deteriorate. My question then becomes, were the decks at the property ever inspected by the management company or a building evaluation specialist? My reason for asking is I would think that some signs of distress may have been present and noticeable to an expert. I say this because experts inspected the other decks on this property and determined several were dangerous and were red-tagged. Therefore it's reasonable to assume this deck, had it been inspected, could have been found to be dangerous before this tragedy happened. 

The lawyers will figure it out, the insurance company will pay out and we as a industry in building and protecting occupants, must become better at our trades, in both design and assembly. Someone has to own their work and take pride in it and do it right. 

We can't afford cheap construction.  

Five Days Of Rain = The Ultimate Water Testing!

Well California is drying out a bit after 5 days of rain...I'd call that the ultimate water test for decks, walls, windows and doors...

How did your decks do?

Call Bill at Central Coast Waterproofing if your decks aren't performing up to par! 805-545-8300

A Review of JLC Live's Conference Programs and Building Clinic's

So I got my copy of the schedule of events at JLC Live Long Beach next month. There's a whole host of great clinics and seminars, including of course with all due modesty, my program...but seriously, there are some great things to see and do here. I've decided after looking through my brochure, I'm staying for 3 days minimum to soak in all I can...
For me, I'm interested in seeing Michael Byrne's clinic on waterproofing a Tile Shower, and then I want to attend Waterproof Windows and Doors (I'm interested in the doors more than windows) by Mike Sloggat. I'd also recommend for many of you to attend the Managing Moisture at the Exterior by Andy Engel. Remember, decks and buildings all must be weatherboard built!.

The all day 8-3 sessions have some intense subjects that are very releveant-Automating Your Office With Quick Books and Project management is on Tuesday, on Wednesday the toss up for me is between Managing The Business End of Your Construction Business by Leslie Shiner, or Accurate Estimating and Job Costing by Dennis Dixon.
Then there's the conference sessions like mine, a shorter 1 1/2 to 2 hour event that crams in more with less detailed infor on the bigger subject...can't cover everything in 2 hours, but-Essential Contract Elements is a good one for every contractor great and small, Dealing With Difficult Clients is another and the best one for all of us is Understanding The New Building Code in Ca, including q & a with actual live building officials!

Make sure to save time at 430 pm on Thursday to attend the best ever seminar (sic) my Art of Waterproofing Decks! Forgo the Welcome Party starting at 5 to learn about waterproofing, who needs beer when a subject this interesting comes along?

Friday features a quickbooks short course and then I'll be heading back home to SLO town.
Sign up today for full day courses, it's by reservation.

Deck Drains-Deck Expert Recommends Thunderbird Products

In my many inspections of decks throughout the years as an estimator, I have seen many failed methods that were used in an attempt to install a drain through the floor of a deck coating. I often see drains that came from Home Depot type stores, and also see professional type drains that came from a plumbing supply house.
The drains you buy at these places are not manufactured with deck coatings terminating into them as part of their function. Because of that one flaw, the decks are doomed to fail. The picture above shows a plastic drain system with overflow. The deck guy had the right idea but executed the job with the wrong drain. The plastic deteriorated over the years, the flange is flexible and stepping on it probably damaged it too. As a result, water leaked by the flange and into the ceiling below. We removed that drain and installed copper drains with overflows on them.

The only drain systems I use are from Thunderbird Products, Inc. of El Cajon, CA. They have specific drains for decks and roofs, including tile deck systems, that allow the proper termination of the drain with the deck coating/waterproofing materials. Click the link above to see their online catalog of drains and scuppers or call them at 800-658-2473 to place your order. Tell them Bill Leys sent you their way!

www.deckexpert.com now points to our website

Completing the last stage of the transfer of www.deckexpert.com to Waterproofdeckcoatingadvice.com's ownership, we have finished pointing the DNS servers to our website.
Previous readers of deckexpert.com will find a completely different website, filled with valuable information, advice and links to manufacturer's. We welcome you to our community and hope you'll come back!There is now substance and an actual deck expert behind the name, not just a company reselling a web site name.
New readers probably won't know any difference so welcome to our site as well...

My Meeting With Mer-Kote

I had a nice meeting yesterday with the new management of Mer-Ko, the division of Parex/LaHabra that manufacturer's and sells deck coatings. You probably have seen my emails back and forth with Susan Foster, their business manager.

Well Susan was kind enough to extend an invitation to come in and sit down with her and Buck Buchanan, VP of Sales and Technical Director.

So off I went yesterday, meeting with them at their offices in Torrance.
We had a great discussion on decking and waterproofing, I got some of the history of the purchase of Mer-Kote and subsequent management consolidation, the business goals of Parex for Mer-Ko and vision for the company..

Mer-Kote got some good information from me on the industry, the past history of Mer-Kote from my viewpoint and what I do and all.

All in all, a productive meeting that leaves me feeeling better about Mer-Kote's future and it's goals and aspirations. The old guard is gone (Dave Krubinski) and the new guard has it's work cut out for themselves, but I see it all for the better.

Mer-Ko has new ideas, goals and a business model that will make them a stronger company. While I still don't like the Weatherdeck and Shurdeck system compared to it's competitors, improvements to the products are coming, as well as some new lines.

Stand by for improvements and new focus from Mer-Ko!

Update On Mer-Kote warranty program listing of authorized dealers

While we haven't received a copy yet of the Mer-Kote "10 year warranty", we have heard from 3-4 large HOA's who have a "10-year warranty" and are learning the hard way that their "warranty" is going to cost them dearly.

One Association I heard from in the Palm Springs area has Mer-Kote decks that are apx 6 years old; their first reseal was done 3 years ago, apparently at a reasonable cost. Now this year, they get an estimate from their installer that is 60% higher than it was 3 years back.

Another Assoc in Coachella got several bids to reseal their Mer-Kote covered decks, the bid from the original installer was 20k higher than a competing bid. Their dilemmma was that Mer-Kote told them they had to use the original installer to keep their warranty. They wanted to know what to do...as they felt very stuck and taken.

One Association I worked with in the Ventura County area was embarking on a deck renovation project and they were going with Mer-Kote; until a Board member stumbled upon my site and read my articles. They started asking questions, I helped them with developing some questions to get answers on before committing and the next thing I knew, they decided that Mer-Kote was not the product they wanted on their 200+ decks.

Why? The installer told them they would have to reseal every 2 years to get the 10 year warranty, or five times in that 10 year period at an estimated cost of $120,000 if the resealing work was being done "today". That's $600,000.00 in maintenance costs folks, over 10 years in today's dollars. Almost double what the original cost was estimated to install the deck coatings.

That would have meant those deck coatings were worth a MILLION dollars in costs over 10 years, or 100k per year.

My opinion, from what I see is that The Mer-Kote "warranty" plan is a big residual income scheme rigged to benefit only 2 parties, the installer of your job and Mer-Kote.

Now if your willing to let go of the illusion that you have to use the original Mer-Kote installer, I would postulate that any other installer would be willing to provide some type of warranty to help cover you you'll reduce your maintenance costs quite a bit.

Below is a list of approved applicators I got a while back from Mer-Ko; if you have to have Mer-Kote then you might as well have choices, so if there's 2,3 ,4 applicators in your area, call them all, pit them against each other.

Contractor Phone Number

A-1 Deck & Coating
Accelerated Waterproofing, Inc. 951-279-6206
Acoustical Concrete Sys Inc. 805-482-3735
All Weather Coating Company COD
American-Oceanic Coatings Corp. 757-490-0445
Angelus Waterproofing 562-941-7676
Arnel Management Company
Benson Marine 310-832-8662
Best Roofing & Waterproofing 310-328-6969
CWI Courtney 949-222-2050
Cadeco 408-292-3435
Cal Dex
CAMPOS WATERPROOFING *COD* 323-269-4436
Capital Coatings 530-644-7137
Concrete Coatings 909-393-2945
D R Waterproofing 949-515-7678
DECKADE *COD* 949-366-1656
Deck Tech 928-855-5406
DeckRite
Dexcote Inc. 818-759-4821
Eberhard Roofing 818-782-4604
Expert Waterproofing 530-273-7599
FN & Co. W/P & Paint Coatings 909-229-9713
Golden West Veranda 951-244-4321
H&R Construction 818-906-2818
J.R. WATERPROOFING *COD* 626-962-2165
Kish Waterproofing 909-674-5155
Lutes Decking 949-589-1285
Lettner Roofing 714-633-0030
LM Waterproofing 619-448-8285
Mark Beamish Waterproofing 714-575-0018
Marvista Construction 626-806-5659
Mastercrete Construction Prod. 817-430-9187
Masters Surfacing Technology 909-350-1522
McDonald Technical Products 310-372-9427
Misc. Contractor
Morales Waterproofing 909-783-2836
Mr Roofer Co 805-407-4905
Mt. Diablo Flooring Systems 925-473-9500
Patrick Geraghty 936-760-7663
Patrotic Roofings and WP 480-649-0748
PCW Contracting 949-548-9969
Provancha Construction Company 619-239-8363
Robert C Metcalf Inc. 949-497-5482
Roger H. Proulx & Co. 562-630-8313
Roys Masonry 310-539-8023
Saddleback Waterproofing 949-589-3422
SealTech WP
South West Caulking 602-268-0567
SouthWest Waterproofing 623-582-5078
Specialty One 661-252-5040
S & W Waterproofing, Inc. 310-320-0752
Sterling Thomas 562-439-3453
Southern California Decking 661-251-1648
Technicoat Pacific LP 714-894-6464
Weathermaster 818-788-7806
Westtern Waterproofing
W.I.C.R. (Wanke, Indust) 888-388-9427
WATERTIGHT 805-529-4105

From www.contractorsfromhell.com comes this story about deck leaks and more

From a great website, named appropriately, contractors from hell comes this not so funny story...beware the idiots out there and do your homework first.

Late February, we got the scratch and brown coat. Shortly thereafter, it rained. We leaked just as before but now it was spreading itself out. We told this new supervisor that we needed to address this now - he says he'll talk to the contractor. He called back, and the contractor had just left out of town for the weekend and when he got back, he’d speak with him. He gets back in town and says he'll send the Pro Deck guy out. Deck guy doesn't show up-says it's not the deck, probably the drains. We ask the contractor to open a section of the wall/ceiling so we can do a water test to determine the source-he says we have to wait until drywall. We argue....

It’s now April and this started New Years Eve-actually, in mid-October when it first rained. With camera in hand to document, we cut out a 4 x 4 opening in the ceiling, exposing the drains and immediately see some mold. Then we performed the water test on the deck, expecting the drains to fail-nothing.

Ten-fifteen seconds pass and suddenly the ceiling begins to leak-we see it coming from the deck. So it was the deck that had failed. Yet we endured so much unnecessary water damage and stress because of his refusal to open the ceiling and do a simple water test.

The substrate put down was incompatible with the decking material that was applied over it. Now the Pro Deck guy knew it, but still went ahead with it. The contractor should have ordered plywood for the flooring system, not OSB, which is flake board and basically much more porous.

So we lost carpeting, ceilings and walls damaged as a result of both their negligence and shoddy workmanship. The workers report back to the contractor and now he and the ProDeck guy go at it.

We call the contractor and tell him that he needs to get over to the house today-no more putting us off. We demanded that he gets one of his workers over to open the ceiling to do a water test and get those damn French doors installed...

We were overwhelmed-how many more screw-ups does it take before it's over? I felt like I was smack in the middle of a Three Stooges movie. A worker showed up the next day to open the ceiling.

A few days go by, the Pro Deck guy shows up and inspects the deck and says, "I told him not to use that OSB board, it's cheap and not right for this application.. .there goes my reputation." Your reputation! What about all the damage we've sustained?? I asked him why he went ahead and put the material down even though he could clearly see it was the incorrect substrate? Just shakes his head and says something about contractors' insurance paying for the damages and gets on the phone. This is around the 12th of April 2000.

I talked to the contractor and he stated that the Pro Deck guy would be coming back when there was a break in the rains for at least several days. But he needed to get his workers over to the house first to tear out the floor and replace it with the correct substrate He promised that the plans for the exterior stairs were being done by the engineer as well as the footing issue (still from the previous year and unresolved) but will be ready for his supervisor to pick up at the City the following day.

Oh, and by the way, he's talking to me on his way to the airport for yet another vacation-two weeks. Gee, I'd like to take even a week's vacation but I have to run this project while the contractor either screws up, does a no-show or takes a vacation.

I drilled him on what he has and has not done-promises (yeah right) that he's given his supervisor very specific instructions on handling the engineer and getting the plans over to the City. How many times have I heard this now?

It had been nearly a month that any work has been performed with the exception of taking care of leaks. The contractor was lying on a sunny beach in Cabo and we were mopping up water in the house-and freezing...

READ THE WHOLE STORY AND FIND OUT HOW IT ALL ENDS AT
WWW.CONTRACTORSFROMHELL.COM

We were pleasantly surprised to see...

That our article on SB-800 and it's effects on deck coating warranties, is the feature article for ECHOJournal's September 2007 issue.

Kudo's to Oliver Burford for the fantastic cover picture and the lead in for the article! It's so perfectly an illustration of what Associations have (and other properties too!) laying on their decks-MONEY!

Spend a little maintaining them, or spend a lot replacing them.

Subscribe to ECHOJournal today, even if you are not in Nor Cal; ECHO's magazine brings it to the HOA community...Call them today at 408-297-3246 for your subscription. Tell Dorothy I sent you.

Check your CC&R's, see if you need to do inspections and documentation, call us if we can help-805-801-2380. We can help you write rules/regs for deck use, care and maintenance guidelines, inspections, we will save you money.