Waterproofing in Cape Town

What we waterproof

Every service below is a separate page with the detail, the method and an indicative price.

• Roof waterproofing — flat, low-pitch and pitched roofs, full systems and re-coats
• Roof leak repair — trace the leak first, repair second
• Torch-on waterproofing — two-layer bituminous membrane, the Cape Town flat-roof default
• Damp proofing and rising damp — DPC injection and salt-retardant replastering
• French drains and drainage — sub-surface water moved away from the structure
• Shower and wet-room waterproofing — bonded membrane under the tile bed
• Balcony and deck waterproofing — trafficable membranes and corrected falls
• Basement and cellar tanking — cavity drain membrane and cementitious tanking
• Wall crack repair and façade sealing — the usual route for wind-driven rain

Why waterproofing fails in Cape Town specifically

This city puts a particular set of loads on a building envelope, and they explain most of the failures we are called to.

• Winter north-westers. Rain arrives horizontally, not vertically. Water gets into elevations that a vertical-rain assumption leaves unprotected.
• The summer south-easter. Months of dry wind-loading opens hairline cracks in plaster and lifts membrane laps that were never properly bonded. Two-layer torch-on wants 100mm side laps and 150mm upstands; anything laid short is a future leak.
• Flat concrete roofs. A large share of the metro's housing stock has them, and a flat roof only fails at the details — upstands, outlets, laps and penetrations. Laid properly, a two-layer torch-on system gives 15–20 years of service; a liquid acrylic re-coat gives 8–12.
• Coastal salt. On the Atlantic Seaboard, Blaauwberg and the Helderberg, salt-laden air attacks coatings and corrodes fixings much faster than inland.
• A high water table. Parts of the Southern Suburbs and the Cape Flats sit on sand with water close to the surface, which is a drainage problem before it is a waterproofing one. The wet season runs May to August and the table moves with it, so a wall that was dry in February proves nothing.
• Old solid-wall stock. Victorian and Edwardian houses in Woodstock, Observatory and Wynberg were built with slate or bitumen DPCs that have long since failed. Replacing one means injecting a chemical course and hacking the contaminated plaster off to 1m before the wall can be rendered again — R450–R850 per linear metre for the injection, R280–R480 per m² to replaster.

Find out what you actually have

Most people arrive here knowing a symptom, not a cause. The two are not the same thing, and the wrong conclusion costs real money.

Use the damp & leak diagnosis tool →

It takes about thirty seconds and tells you the likely cause, the system that fixes it, and roughly what that system costs.

What it costs

We publish indicative ranges rather than making you request a quote to find out whether you can afford the work. Torch-on membrane runs about R220–R380 per m². Rising damp treatment runs about R450–R850 per linear metre before replastering. A roof leak trace-and-repair callout is about R850–R1,900.

See the full waterproofing price list →

How we work

Free inspection and written quote anywhere inside the greater metro, published prices, and the cause in writing before any system is proposed. Domestic, sectional title and commercial.

Everyone in this trade buys membrane from the same three or four manufacturers, and the material is about a fifth of what you pay. What decides whether your roof is dry in five years happens before anyone opens a roll — which is why we inspect first and quote second.

The full method, and what we will tell you when the answer is that you do not need a waterproofing system at all, is under how we work.

How to judge a quote, and what separates a diagnostician from a product seller, is set out under waterproofing contractors in Cape Town.

Where we work

We cover the greater metro — the Southern Suburbs, Northern Suburbs, Atlantic Seaboard and City Bowl, Blaauwberg and the West Coast, the Helderberg, the South Peninsula and the Cape Flats.

Six parts of the metro have distinct enough building stock to have their own guide:

• Waterproofing in the Southern Suburbs — high water table, Victorian solid-wall stock, the metro's highest rainfall
• Waterproofing in the Northern Suburbs — Parow, Plattekloof and Brackenfell: flat concrete roofs and parapet detail failures
• Waterproofing in Durbanville — post-2000 estate stock, flat garage and patio roofs, clay-soil retaining walls
• Waterproofing in Bellville — 1950s–80s face brick and the one part of the metro where rising damp is genuinely common
• Waterproofing in Somerset West — coastal salt, south-easter driven rain, estate balconies
• Waterproofing in Blaauwberg and the West Coast — extreme wind exposure, salt spray, sandy ground

Full service area →

Start here