Case Study · SB 721 · CSLB #1060736
Balcony Waterproofing — Blue Apartment Building, Vacaville
The coating had not cracked. It had worn thin exactly where the debris line sat — along the wall bases and in the corner with the drain.
WaterproofingProject facts
- Location
- Vacaville, CA
- Service
- Balcony Waterproofing
- Property
- Three-story apartment building
- Units
- 8
- Elevated elements
- 8 unit balconies with solid guard walls and deck drains
- Client
- Owner / property management company
- Scope
- Removal of the worn deck coating, substrate repair at the wall bases and drains, slope correction, re-flashed drains and wall transitions, new waterproof deck coating, repainted guard walls
- Timeline
- 2 weeks
- Completed
- Q1 2026
- Budget range
- $25k–$40k
01 The situation
The challenge
The coating had not split or blistered. It had worn out, and it had worn out in a pattern. The middle of the floor still looked serviceable. The staining ran along the base of the walls and thickened into the corner where the drain sits, and pine needles had been collecting there long enough to leave a mark on the surface. That mark says two things at once: the corner is the low point, and nothing has been washing through it. A balcony that falls properly does not keep a debris line. This one had one, and the coating underneath it was the thinnest part of the deck.
02 Execution
What we did
The work was aimed at where the water goes, not only at what the deck looks like:
Stripped the worn coating and opened up the substrate at the wall bases and around each drain, where the wear was concentrated
Corrected the fall so the low point of every deck is the drain rather than the corner beside it
Re-flashed the drains into the membrane and re-detailed the wall-to-deck transition, carrying the waterproofing up behind the solid guard walls
Applied the waterproof deck coating with a textured finish, then repainted the guard walls above the new termination
03 Outcome
The result
Each deck now falls to its drain instead of to the corner beside it, and the drain is flashed into the membrane rather than sitting in a hole cut through it. The coating turns up behind the guard walls, so the joint that used to collect the debris line is under the surface instead of at the edge of it. The guards were repainted after the termination went in rather than before, which is the order that keeps paint off the part that has to bond. What residents see is a clean deck. What closes the SB 721 item is that the water now has somewhere to go.
Results at a glance
- Eight balconies stripped back and re-waterproofed under one coating system
- Fall corrected so each deck drains to its outlet rather than to the wall corner
- Drains re-flashed into the membrane and wall-to-deck transitions re-detailed
- Solid guard walls repainted after the coating termination, not over it
What the client received
- SB 721 closure covering the walking surfaces and the deck drainage
- Coating manufacturer warranty plus our workmanship warranty
- Photo record of each substrate before the new coating went down
- Drain and wall-termination detail documented balcony by balcony
- Maintenance schedule running through to the next inspection cycle
Transformation
Before & After
The balcony with the deck drain
On site
Project Photos
“I was told the decks just needed recoating. The needles in the corner were the tell — nothing had drained off that balcony in years.”
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