The Role of Parapets in Protecting Your Facade
In our last blog entry, we shared with you some common tips on how to avoid severe damage to your home or business from the rough monsoon winds and rain. While that article focused on water flow and leak/mold prevention on the inside of your business, there are other things you can do to prevent unsightly cosmetic damage to the exterior of your building fairly inexpensively. We’ve all seen grocery store or strip mall storefronts that have large yellow to brownish water stains coming from the top of their buildings; sometimes this is merely painted over, however, the same thing happens after the next big rain storm. Painting over the stains is merely a cosmetic band-aid on a deeper wound.
The underlying cause of these stains is due to uncontrolled water leakage on what is known as a parapet. The parapet, at its most basic, is a short façade wall above the roof. From the street, it not only makes the building look larger, but it also serves a cosmetic purpose in hiding air conditioning units and a safety purpose in acting as a guardrail for rooftop workers. While attention is paid to prevent water stagnation and waterproof the roof, the flat tops of the parapets are often overlooked. This seemingly insignificant amount of space can catch water and lead to large, unsightly stains on your building.
There are two methods to dealing with this. The first is a metal coping that can be installed atop the parapet; various coping styles are slanted so that the rainwater runs off, and groves underneath prevent water from leeching onto the parapet sides. Besides the material and labor expense necessary to install, coping can also significantly alter the appearance of your building and add extra weight to the parapet walls (which they may not be designed for). They can also catch wind easily, making them a less-than-ideal choice for monsoon storms. An extremely effective alternative method that we (highly) recommend is to create a water barrier using high performance coatings. The system involves coating [buttering] the top of the parapets with an elastomeric compound that provides a protective waterproof surface that keeps the water from seeping in, and actually repels the water from the top of the surface. This highly cost-effective method not only keeps the stagnant water and mold from forming, but does so without altering the appearance of your building or adding any extra stress to the structure.
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