Curtain wall repair explained: common causes of failure, how each type is fixed, and when refurbishment is the better option. Contact GLRE to arrange a survey.
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A curtain wall is a non-load-bearing glazed envelope hung off the building structure, and it is designed to drain rather than to be sealed. That single fact explains most curtain wall repair work: water gets in past the outer line by design, and the failures that matter are the ones that stop it getting back out. GLRE delivers curtain wall repair service across the UK.
What a curtain wall is and how the system types differ is covered in what curtain wall glazing is.
By inspection at close quarters, not from the ground. Most of the failure modes below are invisible from street level, and by the time they are visible internally the damage has usually spread beyond the original defect.
A survey records the condition of the sealant, the gaskets, the drainage, the glass units and the framing on every elevation, and produces a prioritised schedule rather than a list of observations. See glazing inspections and rope access glazing for access.
The most common single cause. Sealants harden, shrink and lose adhesion with age, UV exposure and the movement they are there to accommodate. An over-filled or incorrectly backed joint fails sooner than one that was sized properly.
EPDM gaskets at the glass-to-frame junction perish, shrink back from corners, and lift out of their channels. A gasket that has pulled back at a corner leaves a direct path into the system at the exact point where water collects.
The failure mode that gets missed. Drainage channels and weep holes silt up with debris and sealant residue, and the system loses the ability to discharge what it was designed to collect. Resealing the outside of a curtain wall with blocked drainage behind it makes the problem worse, not better.
Edge seals fail and units mist. Where a cohort of units of the same age fails together, the rest will follow. See high-level glass replacements.
Corrosion at fixings and brackets, thermal movement working joints open, and in older systems, degradation of the thermal break. This is the category that decides whether a system can be repaired at all.
Repair addresses identified defects. Refurbishment renews components across the whole system, whether or not each one has failed yet, and it is the right answer when the failures are no longer isolated.
The decision framework is in refurbishment against replacement, and the ongoing programme in curtain walling maintenance. Full refurbishment is covered under commercial glazing refurbishment and glass cladding and building envelope.
Then trace it before repairing anything. Water enters at one point and appears at another, so the visible damage is rarely above the defect. The method is set out in water ingress in glazed facades and the service in leak resolution.
Workmanship on glazing is covered by BS 8000-7:1990, the code of practice for glazing, which remains listed as current although it is now an old document and should not be treated as the only reference.
Where a building contains dwellings, the Building Safety Act 2022 may apply. A higher-risk building is defined as a building in England at least 18 metres in height or with at least 7 storeys, and containing at least 2 residential units: see the government definition of a higher-risk building. A purely commercial curtain wall building does not meet that definition.
All work at height is planned and supervised under the Work at Height Regulations 2005.
Seeing leaks, misted units or failing sealant on a glazed elevation? Book a curtain wall survey.
Refurb House,
11 Minton Enterprise Park,
Oaks Drive,
Newmarket,
CB8 7YY
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