Everybody reads the quotation. Line by line, rate by rate, comparing item four against item four.
Almost nobody reads the warranty. It is mentioned in a sentence — "sir, ten years ki guarantee hai" — and that sentence does more work in the decision than any line in the quotation. Then, three years later, when there is a stain on a ceiling, somebody goes looking for the document behind the sentence.
That is the wrong order, and this article exists to reverse it. Here is the governing idea, and everything below is a consequence of it.
A warranty is a document, not a sentence.
If it is not on the document, it is not the warranty.
Not because contractors are dishonest. Because a sentence has no dates, no scope, no limits and no signature — and every one of those is load-bearing.
The three dates, and only one starts the clock
A waterproofing job produces several dates, and they can be months apart. All three appear on a Weatherblazer certificate.
The work contract date
When the job was agreed and the scope fixed.
The date of application
When the system actually went onto the building, recorded alongside the completion date. This is the one that starts the clock.
The date the certificate is signed
When the document is issued, after completion.
On a real example: contract dated 22 July, work completed 17 August, certificate signed 19 August. The period runs from the application in August — a distinction of weeks here, but on a project where the certificate follows months after handover, it is the difference between the cover you think you have and the cover you have.
Ask any contractor which date starts his period. If he does not know, the document has not been read by the person selling it, and you are one of the first people to ask.
What a limit is — and why a warranty without limits is worse
People treat limits as small print designed to escape. Some are. But a warranty with no limits at all is not a stronger warranty — it is an unenforceable one, because a promise that covers everything cannot be assessed against anything.
Here are the six limits printed on a Weatherblazer certificate — on the same page as the cover, which is where limits belong.
Physical damage or abuse voids it
Drilling, cutting, fixing or damaging the treated application. A membrane with a hole in it is not a failed membrane.
The cover is the repair of the waterproofing system — nothing beyond it
The certificate states it plainly: the warranty expressly excludes incidental and consequential damages, including property damage, interior finishes and loss of assets caused by water intrusion. Your false ceiling, your flooring, your furniture — none of that is covered by a waterproofing warranty, ours or anybody's. A contractor implying otherwise is describing an insurance policy.
Note what is included, because it is not universal in this market: materials and labour, both. A warranty covering material only leaves you paying somebody to apply it.
Structural movement and third-party work void it
If the building moves beyond design or settles, or if somebody else alters, damages or penetrates the waterproofed area, the cover ends. Drilling through a treated terrace for a satellite dish is a more expensive decision than it looks.
It applies exclusively to the site
Named on the certificate, along with the client and the property type. It covers that building and those areas.
Subject to payment received in time
A warranty is a commitment under a contract. An unpaid or part-paid contract does not produce an enforceable one.
Conformance is measured against the scope of work — read this one twice
The warranty covers the work contracted and described, nothing else. If a salesperson said "we will also do the parapet" and the parapet is not in the written scope, the parapet is not warranted.
The first five limits are about facts — damage, quantum, movement, site, payment. The sixth is about what was sold to you, and it is the most common cause of a genuine dispute in this industry. It is also entirely preventable at quotation stage, with one question: is everything you have promised me written into the scope?
Why the same company gives ten years on one job and five on another
This looks like inconsistency. It is the opposite — it is the only honest way to price risk.
| New construction | Remedial work | |
|---|---|---|
| The substrate | We control it from the beginning | We inherit it |
| The sequence | We are part of the programme | We arrive after the finishes |
| Detailing | Every junction detailed before it is covered | Whatever was done before, mostly buried |
| Testing | Flood tested before anything closes over it | Often untestable without demolition |
| History | None | Somebody else's work, of unknown quality |
From the date of application. Material and workmanship.
From the date of application. Material and workmanship.
The difference is exposure, not generosity. So when a company offers the same period on both, one of two things is true: either the number is a marketing figure nobody expects to honour, or the remedial job is being priced as though it carried new-construction risk. Neither is good news for the customer.
It also means the length of warranty available to you is partly a function of when you call. Bring a waterproofing company in while the building is going up and you are eligible for the longer period. Call after the leak and you are not — whatever anyone tells you on the phone.
Transferability, and why it matters more than it seems
A Weatherblazer certificate now carries this in writing: the warranty applies to the site where the work was done, and is fully transferable to any subsequent owner of the site for the remainder of the original warranty period.
If the property is sold, the remaining cover goes with the building rather than dying with the original buyer.
For an owner-occupier that sounds like a detail. For anyone who may sell, or any builder handing over flats, it is the difference between a document and an asset. A five-year-old building with a transferable warranty on the terrace has something to show a buyer. The same building with a warranty that expired at the sale deed has a story nobody can verify.
Ask — and ask for it in writing. Transferability that exists only in conversation transfers to nobody.