You probably won’t realise you need the services of one until leaks start appearing in the most unexpected parts of your home, and with all the rain that we get here in the tropics you’ll likely be meeting one of Malaysia’s waterproofing specialists at some point – so we short-listed all the contractors with the necessary know-how to ensure that your home never leaks again and listed them here for your reference.
The swimming pools and other wet areas of Seni Mont Kiara are waterproofed with Pentens materials. Image Credit: Seni Mont Kiara
Some of us who have spent time cruising along highways in the country would have seen that billboard with the visage of a certain local athlete endorsing the Pentens brand of flexible waterproofing coatings. Distributed by the DJI (Dong Ji International) group via hardware stores in the country, and installed at commercial projects around the region, Pentens is a brand known to both construction industry professionals as well as homeowners who have conducted their own repairs.
The substructure and roof at KL Sentral are waterproofed by Hydrocon. Image Credit: Hydrocon
The past few decades of construction have pruned the local landscape of waterproofing contractors, leaving behind only a handful of entities with proven track records. Hydrocon is one of these contractors left standing, with a 20-year history and the added advantage of a partnership with the locally-manufactured brand of waterproofing materials known as Chemind. While one may have difficulty getting a representative from a larger firm to appear on site for a consultation, Hydrocon does not shy away from taking on the kind of waterproofing problems that the average homeowner would encounter.
The floors of the Marina Bay Sands Intergrated Resort are waterproofed by Mapei. Image Credit: Mapei
A family-founded, owned, and operated entity with a humble beginning as a paint manufacturer in Milan in 1937, Mapei – short for Materiali Ausiliari per l’Edilizia e l’Industria (or Auxiliary Materials for Construction and Industry), is now a name that is widely known and trusted across construction sites around the world – thanks in part to the time-tested quality of their proprietary concrete admixtures, tile adhesives, coatings, and specialty materials designed for underground structures. While large waterproofing companies like Mapei would prefer to focus their attentions on industrial or high-density commercial projects, their consistent investments into research and development ensure that some of the most dependable waterproofing materials and expertise of tomorrow would be bearing their name.
Image Credit: Nano-G
While waterproofing materials based in cement may crack with time, and most liquid coatings tend to carry an inherent risk of exposure to obscure carcinogens, Nano-G works with a revolutionary water-based coating, composed of nano-sized particles of silica, which purportedly penetrates porous surfaces and repels water as long as the coating is not worn away by prolonged abrasion. While both Nano-G and their nano-particle coating are recent additions to the landscape of waterproofing, their coating presents a significant improvement over some of the methods currently in use as it is simply sprayed onto existing surfaces – unlike most other ad hoc waterproofing solutions that entail the removal and subsequent replacement of architectural finishes.
RNC oversaw the waterproofing of foundations for The Cove at Tanjung Bungah, George Town (Penang). Image Source
When the urban skyline of Kuala Lumpur underwent one of its major growth spurts in the late 1990s, RNC was on the ground to ensure that the structures would be able to endure our tropical climate for decades. Consequently, few other contractors in Malaysia can boast a history or range of expertise similar to RNC’s. Coupled with their lengthy experience in Malaysian construction, RNC has a long-standing partnership with Xypex – another widely-known name in the realm of waterproofing materials.
* Brands / names are listed alphabetically
