A Maintenance Item Nobody Budgets For

The cheap response to a failing joint is to apply new sealant over the old one. It bonds to a failing material, it hides the condition, and it fails within a fraction of the life of a proper replacement. It also makes the eventual proper repair more expensive because everything has to come out.

Sealant joints are the shortest-lived component of most building envelopes and the least likely to appear in a reserve study. They have a defined service life, they are exposed to the full ultraviolet and thermal load, and they are doing the work at exactly the transitions where the building moves most. Their failure is quiet and progressive rather than sudden.

Because the whole building was sealed at once, the joints also reach the end of their life at once. A board that has never replaced sealant on a planned cycle typically discovers this as multiple simultaneous leaks rather than as a maintenance item, and by then the water has usually been getting into the wall for some time. Replacing joints on a schedule is unglamorous, predictable and far cheaper than the alternative it prevents.

1. 01Remove old sealant completely rather than overbanding.
2. 02Prepare substrates properly before installing.
3. 03Install backer rod so the joint can actually move.
4. 04Select sealant compatible with both sides of the joint.
5. 05Tool the profile properly.

Put joint replacement in the reserve or maintenance budget on a cycle. A program every several years costs a fraction of the water damage it prevents, and it is almost never budgeted until it has already failed.

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