Balconies are found everywhere in the Houston area. Who does not want that million-dollar view of the Houston skyline? With million-dollar views comes some costly repairs if your balcony is improperly installed and/or it is not properly maintained.
Basics: The most important thing that a balcony must contain is absolute waterproofing. Balcony leaks can get behind stucco walls causing catastrophic damage. It can then promote water entry into the home. Here are our foolproof recommendations for a sound and waterproof balcony.
1. First, the utilization of proper pans and proper flashing. The pan is the protective layer over the wood decking. We like a liquid-applied waterproofing membrane complete with a mesh fabric to waterproof the joints between each section of wood decking.
2. After the membrane is applied, we provide an overabundance of metal flashing. This includes el flashing, drip edge flashing, door counter flashing and end dam flashing. All are pictured below.
Drip Edge End Dam 6” El Door Counter Flashing
a. The drip edge allows water to properly drain AWAY from the stucco wall connected to the balcony.
b. The end dam diverters are part of the El flashing and will allow water to move from the far wall forward along the positive slope plane. The El flashing extends 6” up the wall and 6” on the balcony floor. The takes residual water from all adjacent stucco walls and forces it to flow forward keeping it off the waterproof decking. The object is to create a ship-lapped drainage system.
Waterproofing: There are many waterproofing products offered to homeowners who have balconies or terraces. While there are many balconies constructed in Houston that contain membrane barriers with faux wood tile, this is one of the products that we see failing over and over. It is not so much that the product is bad, it is the installation of the product that seems to always have an issue.
Our preferred product is an actual cementitious mortar bed. It is the West Coat ALX system. This system allows us to provide an ample bed of cement that has waterproofing properties. After we create the mortar bed, West Coat gives us a topcoat product that we roll over the cement. This is now the third level of waterproofing remembering that we applied a liquid waterproofing membrane on the decking! Once this layer is properly installed and cured, we can then move to tiles. Please see the link below to learn more about West Coat ALX.
http://www.westcoat.com/alx-p-6.html
Tile: Tiles are to be chosen by the owner. While there are thousands of tiles to choose from, only ceramic or porcelain tiles may be installed. They are not porous and will provide better waterproofing. We like to encourage the use of larger format tiles that allow for maximum coverage and minimal grout joints.
There are very few things to avoid with tile selection but cannot include anything that allows water penetration such as slate, flagstone, travertine. Since the balcony will be positively sloped, the tiles must function with the slope. Patterns can be problematic and not look correct so we can advise on that. Here are some quick things to keep in mind.
How: Tiles cannot cover up the flashings. We see a lot of installations where tiles are used to cover the drip edge flashing. This will impede the flow of water getting out and allow the water to stay behind the tile and eventually causing a failure with the flashing.
What Size: We require tiles to be a minimum of 12” X 12” to reduce the amount of grout and thus, reduce the amount of your maintenance. In conjunction with the minimum standard, tiles may not exceed 36” in any direction. Oversized tile may crack or lift hydraulically.
Grout: The last part of our installation will be the grouting of the tile. We always match the right colored grout to the color of the tile while keeping in mind how it will look when it is weathered. We like to use a grout that contains waterproofing. This keeps you from having to see the grout routinely.
ICE Stucco Repair has full balcony replacements and terraces hundreds of times and we continue this trend year in and year out. We are the solution you have been waiting for.