The Details That Keep Water Out

On a commercial building in DFW, the waterproofing membrane gets most of the attention, but the leaks that cause callbacks rarely start in the middle of a wall or a roof field. They start at the edges, the openings, and the spots where one material hands off to another. Those are the places custom metal does its work. TriPoint Fabrication builds the flashings, closures, and transition pieces that commercial waterproofing contractors install to make those details hold.

The Leaks Start at Joints, Penetrations, and Transitions

Membranes and coatings perform well across a flat field. The trouble shows up wherever that field stops. A parapet has to turn a corner and terminate. A pipe, conduit, or structural member has to pass through the plane. A wall has to tie into a roof, a window has to tie into a wall, and dissimilar materials have to meet without opening a gap when they expand and contract at different rates. Every one of those is a discontinuity, and water is patient about finding discontinuities. Custom metal is how you close them. Flashings shed water away from the joint, counterflashings cover the top edge of a membrane termination, and transition pieces carry the waterproofing plane from one surface to the next without a break.

The Metal Fabrication Behind a Waterproofing Assembly

A waterproofing assembly is only as good as the metal that terminates and protects it. The pieces we fabricate for commercial waterproofing contractors and roofers include:

• Through-wall flashing. Formed metal that spans the thickness of a wall assembly, collects water that gets past the outer face, and directs it back out through the weeps. It is one of the few components in the assembly that manages water actively rather than just shedding it, so the profile and the gauge both matter.
• Base flashing. The lower half of a two-piece flashing assembly at a roof-to-wall or roof-to-curb condition, turned up from the roof plane and secured to the wall or penetration on its own. It gets covered by counterflashing, but it is fastened independently, which is why the two pieces are fabricated as a pair and not as one bent part.
• Counterflashing and cap flashing. Cover pieces that lap over the top edge of a base flashing or a membrane termination so water cannot get in behind it. These get surface-mounted or set into a reglet cut in the masonry. The reglet itself is cut on site; we fabricate the metal that sits in it, including the return and hem that make it work.
• Termination bars. Metal that locks a membrane edge into a positive mechanical termination instead of relying on sealant alone. Straight, flat, and consistently pre-punched, so the installer is not fighting the bar to get even compression along the edge.
• Drip edges and edge metal. Formed profiles that carry water clear of the face below instead of letting it run back under the assembly. The hem and the kick are what do the work, and both are easy to get wrong on a brake that is not set up for it.
• Custom closures and transition pieces. One-off parts that bridge the odd condition standard details do not cover. Most jobs have at least a few, and they are usually the parts holding up a detail while everyone waits on a fabricator.

Every one of these is brake-formed to the profile and detail the job specifies, in the gauge and material the job specifies.

Detailing Penetrations and Transitions

Penetrations are where a lot of waterproofing details go wrong, because every pipe, conduit, rail, or structural member that passes through the plane is a hole you have to close permanently. Fabricated metal sleeves, collars, and curb flashings give the waterproofing contractor a clean, formed edge to seal against rather than a rough opening. Where a penetration genuinely cannot be flashed any other way, we fabricate pitch pans to the detail, and we would rather build you a curb or sleeve that does not depend on a sealant pour.

Transitions work the same way. Where a membrane meets a different material, a curb, a deck, or a wall of another type, a formed metal piece gives both sides a defined surface to bond and lap to. Get the metal right, and the sealant and membrane have something to work with. Get it wrong, and no amount of sealant covers for a part that does not fit.

Why Tolerances Decide Whether a Detail Holds

A flashing that is a quarter inch off does not sit down. A counterflashing bent to the wrong angle leaves a gap you have to fill with sealant, and sealant is the part of any waterproofing detail that fails first. That is why we fabricate to the tolerances the detail actually needs. We work from the contractor’s drawings and field dimensions, form parts on CNC press brakes for repeatable angles, and check every part against the detail before it ships.  Prints in, parts out, on time, built right. For a waterproofing contractor working a schedule, a part that fits the first time is the difference between closing a detail in one trip and coming back after the next rain.

Materials for Waterproofing Metal Fabrication

The right material depends on the exposure and the assembly. We fabricate waterproofing metal components in:

If your details call for a specific alloy, gauge, or finish, please let us know before the job starts, and we will confirm we can source it and advise on what holds up best to the exposure.

Working With a DFW Waterproofing Metal Fabricator

TriPoint Fabrication has been forming metal for commercial and industrial clients since 2009 from our shop in Cedar Hill, Texas, central to the DFW metroplex and positioned to serve waterproofing contractors, roofers, and general contractors across North Texas. The waterproofing design and the material spec belong to the architect, the envelope consultant, or your own detailing. We fabricate to it. If something on the drawing looks like it will cause a problem at the brake or in the field, we raise it before we cut.

Our welders carry AWS and ASME certifications, and an ISO 9001 certification is in progress. If you are detailing a commercial project and need a fabrication partner who understands where metal meets a waterproofing assembly, send us the details.

Waterproofing Metal Fabrication FAQ