Case Study · SB 721 · CSLB #1060736
Balcony & Walkway Waterproofing — Sunset Park Apartments, Sacramento
The concrete had never been coated. Water sat on it, worked through the cracks and ran to the doors — where residents were stopping it with rolled towels.
WaterproofingProject facts
- Location
- Sacramento, CA
- Service
- Balcony Waterproofing
- Property
- Two-story apartment community, exterior walkways serving the upper floor
- Units
- 104
- Elevated elements
- Exterior walkways and balconies across the community
- Client
- Owner / property management company
- Scope
- Surface prep, crack repair, sealed penetrations, reinforced traffic coating system, threshold detailing
- Timeline
- 7 weeks
- Completed
- Q3 2026
- Budget range
- $140k–$180k
01 The situation
The challenge
Nobody had ever put a coating on these walkways. The concrete had been left to do the job on its own, and concrete does it badly — it holds water, it moves with the seasons and it cracks, and every crack becomes a route down into the structure. The evidence was all at foot level: white efflorescence tracking across the slab where water had been passing through it, hairline cracks running the full width of the deck, and dirt packed hard against the railing where runoff had nowhere else to go. The clearest sign was at a front door, where a resident had rolled a towel along the threshold to keep water out of their apartment.
02 Execution
What we did
A coating is only as good as what goes under it, so most of the work happened before the first coat:
Ground and prepped every walkway back to sound concrete and opened the cracks up for repair
Repaired and bridged the cracks, then sealed around every railing post and penetration through the deck
Installed a reinforced traffic coating system with a textured non-slip finish, coved up the walls and carried out over the deck edge
Detailed the thresholds at every unit door so water stops short of the doorway instead of at a towel
03 Outcome
The result
The walkways now have an actual system on them rather than a slab and good intentions: a bonded, reinforced membrane that sheds water to the edge, coves up the wall so nothing collects at the base, and is sealed everywhere the railings pass through it. The cracks that had been carrying water into the structure are bridged rather than skim-filled, the thresholds are detailed, and the SB 721 finding on the missing waterproofing was closed with a documented installation and a warranty behind it.
Results at a glance
- Every walkway and balcony surface coated with a reinforced traffic coating system
- Cracks repaired and bridged rather than skim-filled and painted over
- Coating coved up the walls and carried over the deck edge, sealed at every railing post
- Textured non-slip finish across all walking surfaces
What the client received
- SB 721 closure on the missing waterproofing system
- Manufacturer warranty on the coating system plus our workmanship warranty
- Photo record of the crack repairs before the coating went over them
- Residents kept access to their units throughout
- Re-coat schedule aligned to the next six-year cycle
Transformation
Before & After
The walkway along the units
The deck corner at the guardrail
On site
Project Photos
“One of our residents kept a towel by the door and put it down every time it rained. That is what I remember — it was never a dramatic failure, it just never got dealt with.”
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