Picture of the Week-Cracked Magnesite and What Lies Beneath

Today I drove to Monterey to see a client whose decks we'll be starting in on in a couple of weeks. We needed to meet the contractor, agree on the final scope of worka nd coordinate the trades involved-a sheet metal man who will be doing the flashings and the contractor doing the repairs to the buildings. I had looke dat it before last year and it was pretty rough looking Magnesite then...

I walked up the stairs at this apt building and the Magnesite didn't look any better after another year of use. I could then see a couple guys working on the walkway from underneath. Walking down the stairs to where they were, I had just walked over this nightmare. Here's the pictures of the top and what it looks like from down below!

The cracked Magnesite has leaked for years, allowing mold mildew and dry-rot to totally detsroy the framing. This work will cost tens of thousands to repair. Lesson, don't let Magnesite go unselaed and cracks un-fixed or it'll cost ya...

Pacific Polymers is Sold to Illinois Tool Works

Saw a search term for Pac Poly that caught my interest, so I dropped on by their website and true enough, they have an announcement that they were acquired by Illinois Tool Works, a publicly traded firm.
Can't find any news about it at Illinois Tool Works site...
It says they have 850 decentralized business units...maybe meaning that each is a separate entity.
Anyway, it seems the industry is rife with big changes yet again. We'll see what changes come in at Pac Poly...

Building Downturn effecting the deck coating manufacturer's and contractors

Having spoken with a fair number of companies, both manufacturer and installers, they are all saying here in California that business is slow. One manufacturer told me confidentially that the manufacturing line may be halted until materials already in inventory are sold..another told me that they aren't seeing any new construction to speak of and that their business has dropped by 40% since last year.

A contractor told me that they were dead down in San Diego county...

Locally, I'm seeing some low bids from my competitors who due to their staying local nature, have to get work here. Fortunately I travel all over and my core business hasn't slowed down on rehab and maintenance work.

I am always grateful to my many repeat customers who remember me...you help keep us going and in turn, we take care of you.

Are the dead condo projects of today the defect nightmares of tomorrow?

Having read in both our local papers and statewide/nationwide publications the dire news of homebuilding sputtering to a stop amongst production builders; I read about several such local projects that was infamously featured in the Tribune when a local hard money lender went belly up, causing numerous projects to come to a screeching halt due to a lack of funding.

This one particular condo project in San Luis Obispo has been framed out, windows in, paper for stucco up and decks just starting to be dried in when it seems the money stopped coming in.

Now it's been sitting for months out in the weather- rain, heat cold, sun all being thrown at OSB siding, plywood and waterproofing materials that aren't designed for long exposure to the elements.

On some decks, there is plywood, delaminating, splitting, checking. On others, OSB, exposed where the work stopped with lath and cement down on most but not all areas.

All these areas and materials-what will be done when this job eventually starts back up again? These waterproofing materials are all compromised by weather and exposure. Mold, mildew and fungus dry-rot spores are all probably about, starting their mayhem.
Will a builder pull the materials off and start anew? Probably not, there's not going to be enough funding to do so-investors wnat their money out of the project, they already have to much in and the builder wants to "get 'er done" as I rip off Larry The Cable Guy's line.

It will be interesting to see what evolves when and if this project gets going again. What will the subs say about the weatherbeaten materials? Will they accept them and go over them? There's a saying in the industry of "You cover it, you own it."

If I was the deck guy on this project, I wouldn't be covering over any of the materials I saw yesterday on this job...

My prediction-today's construction projects like this one will become the new construction defect suits of tomorrow.

Waterproofdeckcoatingadvice.com aquires domain name deckexpert.com

We are happy to announce that as of late afternoon today, we agreed on terms with Web Inceptions, Inc of San Diego to acquire the domain name deckexpert.com.
"This will help strengthen our rankings on web searches and bringing in viewers to our website" said Bill Leys, President of the firm. "Having assumed the nickname "Deck Expert", and a specialty license plate as marketing tools and now owning the more popular dot com extension rather than just the dot info extension is a key aspect to growing the business."
Web Inceptions is a seller of internet websites and domain names, located in San Diego CA. The terms of the sale will not be disclosed, however, we were pleased to aquire the domain name for signifacntly below the asking price of $4,997.00.
We expect to have the name transfer done today and by Monday the web address should point to www.waterproofdeckcoatingadvice.com's website. It was a pleasure doing business with Web Inceptions, they are a very effective and responsive company to make this transaction happen so quickly.

"CONCRETE EXPRESSIONS" Magazine Features a Direct Bond (Metal Lath) Miracote Waterproof decking install

In what is a probable precursor to Crossfield Products Dex-O-Tex introducing a metal lath system, the magazine of www.Concrete Network.com has an article in their most recent issue.
Written by Bill Palmer, a Concrete Network columnist, the article covers a demonstration of the install procedure done at the American Society of Concrete Contractors convention in North Carolina last fall.
A couple of criticisms, the article glosses over the install procedure, making it seme very simple and with the exception a couple of "watch out for's" would make one think after reading the article that they could just go out and do themselves. That's deceiving, because this is a concrete magazine, not a waterproofing magazine and waterproofing is wholly different from concrete decorative overlays.
Miracote rep Trevor Foster is quoted as saying that "flashing is one of the critical elements to making the system work." No Trevor, flashing is the number one critical item to making the deck waterproof. Period. No argument.
The Miracote system as a direct bond system is an interesting install procedure...
The first step is to install the metal lath with 22-28 staples per square foot (the more the better, some systems call for only 15-20) then, prior to troweling in cement into the lath, they prime the lath and plywood with a diluted polymer resin first. Then they Mirecote RM III polymer-modified concrete underlayment fills the lath. Two coats of single component fluid applied waterproofing is then applied at 25 mils wft, drying to 12.5 mils. (Sounds like a Tufflex type product to me)
They say nearly any sort of docorative overlay can be placed over it and at the demo did a 1/2" topping of Miracote's MPC.
I have several concerns and/or questions to get myself answered; one being why the primer of polymer to the lath and plywood? Are their adhesion issues with their cement to the lath and plywood without that step... or is their something they see as advantageous to that step over their competitions methods? Hmmm. Then I do have an issue over the 1/2' of stamp mix-maybe on smaller decks that will work without much cracking, but what about larger decks with a long span of joists. How will they prevent cracking the stamped surface?
Other questions come to mind too such as fire ratings, ASTM testing and such if any has been done and how proven is the system? If it's new, Miracote will need to show why this should go down in lieu of tried and true decking systems.Showing it to a convention of concrete contractors who probably don't understand the nature of waterproofing at all isn't a good move in my mind...Miracote is looking to open new markets up and needs to spend a lot of time making sure their new market can do the waterproofing part of the job.