A façade ages in full view of everyone and, even so, work almost always starts too late: when a piece falls onto the pavement, when the statutory building inspection forces it, or when the staining has already reached the inside of the flats. Until then the deterioration advances quietly, through the joints and through the reinforcement in the balconies.
At Grupo Construcciones Alicante we refurbish façades on buildings and houses across Alicante and the province. We always start with the diagnosis, because a crack caused by thermal movement is not the same as a structural one, nor is a dirt stain the same as efflorescence from internal moisture. The diagnosis determines the treatment, the access method and a quote the owners’ association can understand and vote on.
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The first reason is safety and liability. A façade with loose material above the public highway makes the association responsible for whatever may happen, and that risk does not fade with time: it grows. Removing anything loose is always the first step, even before the permanent repair is decided.
Then there are the homes themselves: a façade in poor condition lets water in, and that water appears inside as staining, mould and flaking paint, particularly in corners and under balconies. And finally, value: the façade is the building’s calling card and one of the factors that weighs most when someone is considering buying a flat there. Refurbishing properly is the investment that shows soonest from the street.
On a façade, you first understand the defect and then you repair it. This is how we work:
We inspect the façade close up, tapping the cladding to find hollow areas and photographing every defect. From street level you cannot see half of what is there.
A quote broken down by trade and with measured quantities, in the format the owners’ meeting needs to compare it and vote on it with full information.
We install the access system (scaffold, platform or rope access), arrange the highway licence where required and cordon off the area before starting.
We cut back, treat exposed reinforcement with a passivating coating, rebuild with repair mortar and seal joints and junctions before applying any finish.
We check panel by panel before closing out each area, confirming adhesion, flatness and that no hollow point has been left untreated.
We dismantle, clean the surroundings and provide the association with a before-and-after photographic report together with the guarantee for the work.
The most common defects here. The coastal environment accelerates everything: salt penetrates the concrete and corrodes the reinforcement, which expands as it rusts and blows off the cover. That is what produces the characteristic spalling on balcony edges and cantilevers. It is treated by cutting back to sound steel, passivating the reinforcement and rebuilding with repair mortar.
Cracks and fissures. They don’t all mean the same thing. Fine, widely distributed cracking is usually in the render and is resolved with sealing and an elastic finish. A crack that passes through the wall, follows a diagonal or opens over time indicates structural movement, and there the first job is to establish the cause. Filling a live crack only means it comes back.
Cladding and tiles. Very common on buildings from the seventies and eighties in this province. Over time the adhesion fails and pieces become hollow. The whole surface is tapped to find them, loose pieces are removed and then re-fixed or replaced. Where the proportion of hollow pieces is high, it usually pays to strip it all and change system.
Refurbishing and insulating together. If the whole façade has to be tackled and a scaffold erected, that is the moment to consider external wall insulation or a ventilated façade: the extra cost over simply repairing is smaller than it looks, because the access is already paid for, and the building gains in comfort and in energy rating.
Buildings above a certain age must pass a statutory technical inspection, which reviews their state of conservation, including the façade, and an unfavourable result obliges the owners to carry out the necessary works within the period the council sets. Many associations come to us immediately after receiving an unfavourable report, in a hurry and with no budget set aside.
Getting ahead of it works out considerably cheaper. A voluntary façade inspection lets you know what needs doing, prioritise it by urgency and spread the cost over time or through a planned levy, instead of facing it all at once. It also allows you to make use of refurbishment grant schemes, which normally require technical documentation beforehand and do not accept works already started.
A note on quotes: on a façade, most of the cost lies in the access and the cutting back, not in the finish. That is why two quotes can differ enormously depending on how many square metres of repair each one allows for. A quote that doesn’t state how many square metres of repair are included, and what happens if more appear, is impossible to compare.
Façade refurbishment we carry out regularly in Alicante and the province:
The clear signs are: fragments or pieces of tile on the pavement or in the courtyard, rust staining emerging from the concrete, horizontal cracks beneath balconies, bulging render and damp appearing inside the flats always at the same point. Any of these calls for a close inspection. If material is falling into the street, the removal work must be immediate, even if the permanent repair is planned afterwards.
For a medium-sized residential building, between six and ten weeks, including erecting and dismantling the scaffold, cutting back, repairs, sealing and the finish. The programme depends above all on how much surface has to be cut back, which is not known precisely until you are up against it. That is why the quote includes an anticipated quantity and a clear unit rate for anything beyond it.
For a full refurbishment, scaffold or platform: they allow several operatives and materials at the work face and are more efficient over large areas. For localised repairs or façades with difficult access, rope access is quicker and much cheaper, because it removes the erection cost and the pavement occupation. We choose according to the actual area to be treated, not out of habit.
It is the best possible moment. With the scaffold already up, applying an external insulation system is an increment on works that are already under way, and the building gains insulation, loses its thermal bridges and improves its energy rating, as well as ending up with a new façade. It requires the association’s agreement and affects the external appearance, so it should be raised at the outset and not once the scaffold is already standing.
It is the statutory technical inspection buildings must pass beyond a certain age, at intervals set by each council. An engineer reviews structure, façades, roofs, services and accessibility, and issues a favourable or unfavourable report. If unfavourable, the council requires the necessary works within a set period. We can carry out a preliminary façade survey so the association knows what it is facing before the official inspection.
Regularly. We prepare the documentation the owners’ meeting needs in order to decide: quote by trade, quantities, programme and safety plan. During the works we keep a single point of contact with the managing agent and notify residents of the phases that affect them, such as balcony access or the noisiest days. On completion we provide a photographic report that stays as part of the building’s maintenance record.