Paint is designed to coat and protect surfaces, and give it aesthetic appeal.

Waterproofing is applied much thicker and is designed to flex with your building.

Your building does flex and will its entire life.

Paint is not required to flex with it, and so doesn’t. This means when your painted building flexes your paint cracks. These cracks allow moisture in.

The point of waterproofing is to give a building a seamless barrier that doesn’t allow moisture in but also allows the building to breath and move.

If it can’t breathe will have serious moisture build up on the inside, causing many of the interior mold/mildew issues we see today.

Coating your building right is significantly cheaper than fixing rotting wood siding, spalling concrete, and interior mold.

If you have any questions, or if you would like a free estimate please call: (904) 271-2077

One of the most costly issues a building can have is caused from water getting in and causing damage to the various building materials. Water intrusion is responsible for rust, spauling concrete, rotten wood, and mold developing.

caulking can save energy and prevent damage

Krystal Klean is one of Jacksonville's leading waterproofing companies

Although Krystal Klean started as a painting remodeling company, we got into waterproofing on accident.

For years, we were hanging off your buildings in hard to get to areas cleaning, and your engineers would come out with a caulk tube, point to a window, and say, “It’s leaking can you caulk around it”.

Many times we would take the tube of whatever product was handed to us and caulk the perimeter of the window.

As we looked at these joints we realized something was really wrong. There were multiple layers of this caulking and none of it seemed to be adhering to the area addressed, or to the other products that it was getting placed on. As a result we were getting called back to redo work constantly because the windows were still leaking.
Years later, we have spent many, many hours educating ourselves to the proper procedures of caulking joints, and surface preparation.
There are products that are designed to last for 2 years, and there are products designed to last for 20 years. Many building managers or owners don’t know the difference so spend more money than is necessary in the long run if the right product had been used.
The right product can be used and still a joint fail. This is due to improper joint preparation. If the worker just cuts out the old failed product but doesn’t remove all the residue from it, your 20 year product is only as good as the failed surface that it was applied to.

 

Image: luigi diamanti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 Washing windows or anything that contains glass can be a challenging task.  How so?  Well, how many times after washing your windows etc., have you encountered nasty streaks?  Streaks are fortunately easy to prevent with a little attention to detail.  Here are some handy tips to avoid those unsightly streaks according to Handy Household Hints.

Streak Free Tips

  • The best tip I have heard and never knew until today is to never clean your windows while the sun is hitting them.  Why?  Apparently the sun’s heat causes the cleaning solution to dry quickly which causes the streaks to appear.  Makes sense doesn’t it?
  • Always use different strokes on each side of the glass to avoid streaking.  Rubbing all over in every direction is a sure way to stir up those streaks in the glass.
  • What about dirt, grease, or soil on the windows?  Simple, handy household hints tells you to combine 1/4 cup of water and ammonia.  Rubbing alcohol and, ammonia, and water can also do the trick including your car windows.
  • Vinegar and 2 quarts of warm water works great on items that contain glass like fish aquariums.
  • It is also said that just a little bit of baking soda and a damp sponge or cloth will go a long way to getting your glass clean, shiny, and streak free.  You can also polish the cleaned glass with a lint free cloth.

For more tips on how to keep any type of glass in your house clean, shiny, and streak free go to Cleaning Tips.net.

Do you have any household tricks that keeps your windows and glass clean, shiny, and streak free?  Please feel free to share with us what works for you.

Photo: Tony Morgan leads a crew downtown.

You have all seen mold growing on the roofs in Florida. Many of our customers have asked,” is this damaging my roof.” Having cleaned roofs for years I decided to get to the bottom of this topic, but unfortunately there are many proponents for both sides. I will present some of the facts and you can decide for yourself.

algae on roof - before and after

Algae on a roof can cause damage.

This mold is airborne, and grows well particularly on the North side of your building. It feeds on the crushed limestone that is put in your shingles, to give them weight. It stands to reason that if it is feeding on your shingle, your shingle is breaking down, but the mass the shingle is losing is very small and the damage you can cause climbing on your roof or taking a pressure washer to it may be much greater than the damage the mold is causing. (The exception to this comment would be moss, which has roots and does damage your shingles.)

Most shingle manufacturers recommend you use a chlorine solution at low pressure to kill this mold. A high pressure washer will blow off the protective aggregate on your shingle, decreasing its life. There are also alternatives to chlorine, such as oxygen bleach, which is less caustic to your plants, but more costly to your wallet.

With the amount of UV exposure we experience here in Florida our shingles get more and more brittle as they bake on the roof. The older and more brittle your roof is the more likely you will damage it by walking on it.

Those of you who live in gated communities may not have a choice whether you want to clean your roof or not, due to your home owners association’s regulations. For those of you who have a choice, figure out how old your roof is, or how brittle your shingles are. You can do this manually easily by just bending the corner of one. If it breaks off in your hand it is probably not time to wash the roof. Let the roof live out its life and put the money you would have used to clean it towards the time you are ready to replace it. Because the roof is brittle doesn’t mean it doesn’t have many years left in it. It is just a good indicator that if you are walking around on it you could cause damage.

As always estimates and consulting on your projects is free.

Krystal Klean looks forward to taking care of your building maintenance needs. Please don’t hesitate to call (904) 520-4001 with any questions regarding our services. Thanks and have a great day!