Life Paint Updates It's Website and Life Deck Line of Deck Coating Packaging

I was at Miners Ace Hardware in Atascadero CA on Saturday browsing the paint department and I noticed new labels on the Life Deck products that they carry. Curious, I checked out the new labels and logo (very nice looking BTW)
and then bought a gallon of cement modifier and a bag of white texture to experiment with.
This morning I went to Life Paints website to look at something and lo and behold, a new website has been launched to go along with their new packaging! It's better than the old site and gives you a list of places where you can buy Life paint products, including their lines of paints and coatings.
Check it out and see for yourself.

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!

Deck Expert Buys .info extensions of major deck manufacturer's

Seeking to establish our presence even further on the web, Waterproofdeckcoatingadvice.com has purchased ten additional web addresses ending with the .info extension. "
"We hope that with these purchases we will generate even more traffic to our site and increase awareness in the market place that consumers have choices and now have good information available to them to make good decisions when buying waterproofing." Said Bill Leys, owner of the firm.
Our purchases included www.desertbrand.info, www.westcoat.info, www.pacpoly.info and several other major manufacturer's of deck coatings
While some manufacturer's won't like our owning their domain name in an .info extension, buying .info extensions and using them actively is a protected use. We're not going to squat on them and hope to sell them back to a manufacturer for a profit. We will use them to help increase our presence on the web and direct traffic to us when someone is searching for information regarding their products. Any one could have bought the .info extension url's names, including the manufacturer's themselves...

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...

Why amateurs should not try to waterproof decks

So these pictures are from my vault of horrors...what you are looking at are pictures of a job that I bid to do the waterproofing for a tile deck. The contractor decided he could do it himself in Avila Beach and this is pictures of the results.
Metal lath stapled down with what looked like an Arrow T-50 staple gun, Pac Poly rolled into the lath and whole areas just missed. Flashings, well, that's a joke. A competitor of mine took the redo of the job from me when they apparently agreed to not insist that the flashings all be removed (hope they got a waiver on flashing and leaks) and replaced.
Then there's a picture of the job when after it was exposed to UV for about 6 months, it started to fall apart.
This is another example of a million dollar defect waiting to happen and I'm glad I won't have to have my insurance deal with it, my competitor can.