General Civil Maintenance in Al Ain

Civil work is the fabric of the building — the block, plaster, concrete, screed and waterproofing that everything else is fixed to. When it fails, the finishes fail with it, which is why painting over a civil problem never lasts.

We carry out civil maintenance and repair for villas, residential buildings and commercial premises across Al Ain.

What we do

• Crack repair — plaster, render and blockwork, repaired according to what is causing them
• Plaster and render — patching, re-rendering, external render repair
• Blockwork — new walls, openings formed and closed, boundary wall repair
• Concrete repair — spalling, exposed reinforcement, patch repair
• Waterproofing — roofs, terraces, wet areas, planters, retaining walls
• Roof maintenance — parapets, upstands, outlets, ponding
• Screeding and levelling
• External works — paving, kerbs, steps, ramps, drainage falls
• Making good — after mechanical, electrical or renovation work
• Demolition and reinstatement — non-structural, as part of residential renovation

Cracks: what yours probably is

Cracking is the single most common reason people call us, and most of it is not structural. Understanding which kind you have determines whether it is a morning's work or something that needs proper assessment.

Fine hairline cracks in plaster or render. Shrinkage or thermal movement in the finish coat. Cosmetic. Repaired by cutting out, filling with the right material and finishing. Very common in this climate.

Cracks following a straight line along a material junction — where block meets concrete, or around a column. Different materials expanding at different rates. These need to be treated as movement joints, not filled rigid, or they simply reopen.

Stepped cracks following the mortar joints in blockwork. Worth investigating properly.

Diagonal cracks running from the corners of doors and windows. Often thermal. Sometimes not.

Cracks that are widening over time, wide enough to insert a coin, that pass through blocks rather than around them, or that come with doors and windows binding. Stop. These need proper assessment before any cosmetic repair.

Where we believe a crack may be structural, we will say so and recommend a structural engineer's assessment rather than repairing it and hoping. Filling a structural crack hides the evidence and makes the eventual diagnosis harder.

Waterproofing and why it fails here

Roof and terrace waterproofing does most of its aging on clear, hot days rather than in the rain.

UV degradation. Exposed membranes and liquid coatings break down under sustained intense solar radiation. Al Ain has clear skies for most of the year. An unprotected membrane ages considerably faster here than the same product under cloud cover, which is why UV protection or a covering layer is not an optional extra.

Thermal cycling. Daily expansion and contraction stresses membranes hardest at their weakest points — upstands, corners, penetrations and terminations. That is where nearly every roof leak starts, not in the open field of the roof.

Infrequent but intense rainfall. The region gets little rain, and much of it arrives in short heavy bursts. A drainage outlet blocked with a year of accumulated dust and sand will not cope with that, and water backs up over the upstand. Clearing roof outlets before the cooler months is genuinely worth doing.

Ponding. Water standing on a flat roof after rain indicates falls that are not working, and standing water finds every weakness.

How we work

1. Survey and diagnose — what is failing and why, before quoting a repair
2. Written quote — with any exclusions stated, and anything we could not see noted honestly
3. Prepare properly — cutting out to sound material rather than filling over failure
4. Repair — with materials appropriate to the substrate and the exposure
5. Make good and finish — including plaster and paint, all in-house

What we will not do

We will not cosmetically repair a crack we believe is structural.

We will not patch waterproofing where the membrane has failed generally. Patching a system at end of life is money spent twice.

We will not carry out structural alterations without the appropriate engineering input and approvals.

Related

Painting and wall repair · Tiling and flooring · Plumbing · Villa maintenance

Get a civil issue looked at

Send photos to 00971 56 391 3800 · Request a quote