Four Balconies, Two Failures — Downtown Louisville, KY
August 2026
The coating on these apartment balconies was delaminating and water was getting into the envelope. Straightforward job on paper: strip it, prep it, recoat it. Balconies don't let you work the easy way. No ride-on scraper is getting onto a third-floor deck, so 1,300 SF came off by hand with 35-lb demo hammers and concrete scraper bits — about 400 SF a day with two hammers running. Then an 8" walk-behind shot blaster with a dust extractor to bring the concrete to profile, and a magnet sweep to pick up loose shot before anything else happened. Then Unit 302 got interesting. With the coating off, we found the sloping material underneath had failed too — wrong material for a sloping application, installed over a substrate that was never properly prepped. Most of it came up with the coating. That's a decision point: coat over it and let the owner find out in two years, or tell them what's actually under there. We re-sloped the deck. No manufacturer warranties a system installed over failed slope, and water that can't reach a drain isn't waterproofed no matter what you put on top of it. Final build: Sikalastic-100 VB moisture vapor barrier primer, then Sikalastic-726 Balcony One Shot at 38 wet mils, back-rolled twice in opposite directions. Sikaflex NP1 at the deck details. Dow 795 silicone at the entrance jambs, the underside of the first balcony, and every parapet sheeting seam. If your balcony coating is bubbling or peeling, budget for the possibility that it's not the only thing that failed. What's under the coating decides whether the new one lasts. Performance Waterproofing LLC · TN, KY, AL, GA · contact@performancewaterproofingllc.com
Sikalastic®-726 Balcony One Shot Pedestrian Coating System, Balcony Coatings
Four Balconies, Two Failures — Downtown Louisville, KY
The coating on these apartment balconies was delaminating and water was getting into the envelope. Straightforward job on paper: strip it, prep it, recoat it. Balconies don't let you work the easy way. No ride-on scraper is getting onto a third-floor deck, so 1,300 SF came off by hand with 35-lb demo hammers and concrete scraper bits — about 400 SF a day with two hammers running. Then an 8" walk-behind shot blaster with a dust extractor to bring the concrete to profile, and a magnet sweep to pick up loose shot before anything else happened. Then Unit 302 got interesting. With the coating off, we found the sloping material underneath had failed too — wrong material for a sloping application, installed over a substrate that was never properly prepped. Most of it came up with the coating. That's a decision point: coat over it and let the owner find out in two years, or tell them what's actually under there. We re-sloped the deck. No manufacturer warranties a system installed over failed slope, and water that can't reach a drain isn't waterproofed no matter what you put on top of it. Final build: Sikalastic-100 VB moisture vapor barrier primer, then Sikalastic-726 Balcony One Shot at 38 wet mils, back-rolled twice in opposite directions. Sikaflex NP1 at the deck details. Dow 795 silicone at the entrance jambs, the underside of the first balcony, and every parapet sheeting seam. If your balcony coating is bubbling or peeling, budget for the possibility that it's not the only thing that failed. What's under the coating decides whether the new one lasts. Performance Waterproofing LLC · TN, KY, AL, GA · contact@performancewaterproofingllc.com