Trusted Waterproofing Contractor in Reseda

Rebuilt After the Quake, Ready for Attention Now

The 1994 earthquake had its epicenter between Arminta Street and Ingomar Street, just west of Reseda Boulevard. A great deal of Reseda was repaired or rebuilt in the years that followed, and that shared history shows up in our work now. Balconies, walkways and exterior stairs built or reworked in that period are three decades on, which is well past the point where original waterproofing stops performing.

Occupied housing is split close to evenly, with renters in 48.5 percent of units, so the work runs across both single family decks and shared multifamily surfaces. The San Fernando Valley climate does the rest: long hot dry summers that cycle a surface daily, then short winters where sporadic rain finds every opening the heat created.

Thirty year old waterproofing tends to fail in a recognizable order. The topcoat goes first, chalking and losing its stretch. Then the edges and penetrations open. Then water reaches the plywood and spreads along it quietly for a few seasons. The visible leak is the last event in that sequence, not the first.

Valley summers make it worse than the rainfall alone suggests. Summer days here run hotter than the Los Angeles Basin, so a dark deck surface takes a serious daily temperature swing, and everything bonded to it has to absorb that movement without splitting at a joint.

We start with what is under the surface, not what is on it. Probing, moisture readings at the wall line and post bases, and a test cut where the numbers are bad. On a deck of this vintage that check is the difference between a recoat and a rebuild, and guessing costs more than looking.

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