The Buckingham

The Buckingham is a four-story senior living community located in the center of Houston, Texas. Due to unknown issues during original construction, the waterproofing and flashing details installed on the balconies failed, allowing water infiltration that caused extensive damage over the years. A nearly two-year-long project kicked off to fully restore and waterproof 144 balconies at The Buckingham.

Chamberlin used chipping hammers and jackhammers to demolish the concrete topping slab of the balconies followed by the plywood decking. After demolition, Chamberlin repaired and replaced damaged framing and columns, as well as installing new through-wall flashing. Next, new wooden decking was installed with an eighth-of-an-inch drop per foot to create the proper drainage slope. Then a W.R. Grace Bituthene 3000 sheet waterproofing system was applied and covered with a Wausau paver system. Finally, metal retaining flashing was installed.

Each balcony included one or two columns consisting of four-inch steel tubes concealed with a decorative fiberglass cover. Accessing the wooden decking beneath the columns and replacing columns that had been completely removed from the balconies prior to Chamberlin on the site proved to be quite challenging. With a new innovative system, the crew could remove the damaged wooden decking substrate, as well as the column base plate, and replace them while the column remained intact.

Dive deeper into the process, approach and quality assurance on restoring The Buckingham balconies here.