Zuid-Holland · approx. 60 km from Utrecht
Sealant work in Zoetermeer
This city was raised out of the polder in a few decades, and largely in prefabricated construction. You notice that in the sealant work: at the flats, the joint between two facade elements is the water barrier, not the finish. If it opens up, water gets in.
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What matters in Zoetermeer
Here the sealant joint keeps the concrete sealed
The vast majority dates from after 1966: deck-access flats with concrete facade elements, low-rise housing around home zones and raised residential decks, and new-build districts from the eighties, nineties and later. Then there is the old village core along the Dorpsstraat, and there the opposite applies: timber window frames, putty and a different story for every building.
Palenstein and Driemanspolder are the oldest: first pile in 1966, with deck-access flats whose facades consist of concrete elements. There the sealant sits in the element joint. Meerzicht followed from 1969, Buytenwegh and De Leyens from 1974 and Seghwaert from 1976: low-rise housing with timber window frames and bathrooms that are due for their second or third round of sealant. Noordhove and Rokkeveen came in the second half of the eighties, Oosterheem is the Vinex district from after 2000. There, there is more plastic and aluminium in the facade.
In an old city every building is in a different state. Here a whole row is from the same year of construction, with the same detailing and the same joint width. What you find at number 12, you also find at number 40, including the same kind of failure. Added to that, the ground is peat and clay: the city lies in a drained polder, and that is sinking. That movement ends up in the joint.
In Buytenwegh there are raised residential decks: you park underneath and the front doors are one storey up. Materials go up the stairs there. In the home zones of De Leyens the car has just as much been taken out of the street. Say in your request whether we can get to the house. At a deck-access block we can only reach the joints if the entrance is open. Arrange that access with the homeowners' association (VvE) or the manager before we come.
Sixty kilometres by road, and that drive runs along the A12 between Utrecht and The Hague. In rush hour it is congested, so the time of day determines the travel time. When we drive, we agree at the time of your request. Zoetermeer lies well within the seventy-five kilometres within which we also come for a single address, so you do not need to gather a whole block for it.
What we do in Zoetermeer
- Bathroom, sanitary & kitchenSealing of sanitary ware, showers, baths, washbasins and kitchens.
- Window frames & glazingNeat, durable sealant work around window frames and glass.
- Facades & structural jointsFacade joints, connection joints and expansion joints in floors and walls.
- Swimming pool & wellnessSealant work in swimming pools, saunas, steam rooms and spas.
- Renovation & maintenanceSealant work during renovation, repairs and periodic maintenance.
- Specialist sealant workFor specific requirements and specialist applications.
You will hear from us within 15 minutes on working days, and the work comes with a 2-year guarantee.
The work here
What we do most often in Zoetermeer
Element joints in the concrete facades
At the deck-access flats from the first wave of construction, the joint between two facade elements keeps the water out. Concrete is alkaline, so acetoxy silicone sealant loses its adhesion there; a neutral-cure sealant belongs in it. And the width follows from the movement of the element: the longer the element, the more movement the joint has to allow for. What is there now is no yardstick for that.
More about this serviceWindow frames in the new-build districts
The newer the district, the more often the window frame is plastic or aluminium. Plastic expands six to seven times as much per degree as the concrete or sand-lime brick around it, and that whole difference ends up in the connection joint. If it is 5 mm, it is too narrow: below 8 mm elastic sealant does not do its job.
More about this serviceBathrooms from the growth years
The low-rise housing from the seventies has bathrooms that have already been renewed once or twice. There is then often still a bit of old sealant in the joint under the new, and nothing adheres to that. We cut back bare to the tile and fill at least 8 mm wide and 6 mm deep with silicone. Acrylic disperses under prolonged exposure to water.
More about this serviceHow we approach it here
Which sealant on what, and what it costs
The substrate decides the sealant
Which sealant goes in, you can almost read off here from the year the district was built. Untreated concrete in the facade elements is alkaline: acetoxy silicone comes away there, so a neutral-cure sealant goes in, often with a primer. Glazed wall tiling in the bathrooms is smooth and dense; silicone adheres to that fine, provided the joint is bone dry and free of grease. Plastic and powder-coated aluminium in the newer districts call for a sealant with a high movement capability. Such a sealant does not adhere equally well to every profile, so we test the adhesion first on a small section. Painted timber gets acrylic or an overpaintable hybrid, because paint does not go over silicone. And if there is natural stone on a window sill or shower floor, then only natural stone sealant: edge-zone staining is irreparable. OTTOSEAL S 125 is our standard, but the substrate chooses the product.
Costs and lead time
The price is per linear metre, with a sliding scale on the size of the job, and with this kind of construction that sliding scale works out favourably. At a deck-access block the same element joint runs on over the whole height of the facade, and in a row of low-rise housing every house has the same window frame size. Many metres in a row and setting up once: that is where the price per metre comes down. One bathroom in a mid-terrace house is at the other end of that sliding scale. You will not read an amount here; it follows from the metres and the state of the old sealant. And here it is almost always about replacement and not about new application. This city is young, but the sealant work in it is due for its second or third round. That old sealant has to come out completely first, and that cutting out is most of the work: that is why replacement costs more than new. For a bathroom, count on one working day, and then two days without showering. A sanitary joint is at least 6 millimetres deep and sealant cures from the outside in. In cold or very damp conditions that takes longer, so allow those two days generously. If you only have one bathroom in the house, say so: then we do that joint early in the day, so the two days start early too. If you ask on a working day, you get a reply within 15 minutes. That reply says what we need to be able to calculate, and whether a site survey is needed for that. The work comes with a 2-year guarantee. That covers our work: the adhesion and the build-up of the joint. Movement of the structure is not covered, and here that is not a footnote. If the building sinks along with the polder, the joint opens further than it was made for, and no guarantee covers that. What does help is measuring the joint against the movement that is there and making it wide enough for that, up to a maximum of 30 mm. If more is needed, a sealant joint is not the solution and we say so beforehand.
Two routes
Business or homeowner in Zoetermeer
Business sealant work in this city is in three places. In the stock of housing associations and homeowners' associations (VvE) from the growth years, where whole blocks fit into one specification and the price per metre makes the difference. In the repainting cycle, because the sealant joint is part of that and then the order matters: paint does not go over silicone, so the sealant goes in after the paint or an overpaintable hybrid is used. And on the business parks along the A12, from Rokkehage to Lansinghage and Dwarstocht, where it is about expansion joints in concrete floors and facade cladding. If you outsource the sealant joint as a painter, maintenance company or contractor, we work as a subcontractor and the invoice goes to you with the VAT reverse charge.
For businesses
Contractors, painters, homeowners' associations, property managers and interior fit-out.
See what we do for businessesAlso near Zoetermeer
As the crow flies from the centre. By road it is further.
- Benthuizen 5 km
- Nootdorp 6 km
- Bleiswijk 5 km
- Leidschendam 5 km
- Pijnacker 6 km
- The Hague 14 km
- Delft 11 km
- Leiden 10 km
Is your town or city not listed? See the whole service area.
Questions from Zoetermeer
What people in Zoetermeer ask most often
Our block of flats has a facade of concrete elements. Do the joints between them need sealing too?
Yes, and that is the most important sealant work on such a building. Such a joint may adhere on two sides only and not to the base, otherwise the middle cannot stretch and it cracks. That is why a backing rod goes in behind: outside and under exposure to water, closed-cell PE. And no acetoxy sealant, because on alkaline concrete it comes away. If there is cladding over it, we first check what it is before we cut into anything.
Our row was put up in one go and at the neighbours the sealant around the window frames is coming away in exactly the same place. Is it worth tackling that as a block?
That is the smart approach here. Homes from the same construction wave have the same joint width and the same substrate, so one site survey says enough for the whole block. We charge per linear metre with a sliding scale, so more metres in one trip means a lower price per metre. Submit it as one request with the addresses, and you get one price per metre instead of a quote per house.
Our glass still sits in the frame with the original sealant edge and putty, in a home from the first construction wave. Can that edge simply come out?
Not as long as you do not know what is in it. Glazing sealant and putty from before 1994 are suspected of containing asbestos, risk class 2 as standard. Most districts here were already standing before that year, so that cut-off affects more homes than you would expect in such a young city. In the districts of the first construction wave there are still windows that have never been replaced, and there we cut nothing out until it has been tested. That testing and the removal are for a licensed asbestos removal company. If the frame has since been replaced, it is not an issue and we simply redo the connection joint.
The sealant around our window frames keeps cracking open. Why?
That depends on where it opens up, so look at that first. If the crack runs along the side, against the frame or against the brickwork, the sealant is coming away from the substrate and the cause is in the preparation or the choice of sealant. If the crack is in the middle of the sealant, the joint is too narrow for the movement it is subject to and refilling solves nothing. That second case is the obvious one in the newer districts, because there the frame is more often plastic: that expands far more than the brickwork around it. And factor in the ground here. The city lies in a drained polder that is sinking, and that movement also ends up in the connection joint. Then the joint needs to be wider, not fuller.
In our bathroom the mould keeps coming back. Does chlorine help?
No, chlorine makes it worse. Chlorine-based and aggressive cleaners wash the anti-mould agent out of the sealant and make the edge porous, so after that it comes back faster. Clean with a neutral cleaner and look at the ventilation: for a new bathroom the requirement is 14 dm³/s, and a little vent grille from the seventies rarely manages that. If the black goes right into the sealant, replacement is the only solution and silicone with fungicide goes in.
