Fake Guarantees in Facade Maintenance — Always Check Your Contractor

In the facade maintenance industry, an unpleasant trend has been spreading over the past few years. More and more domestic companies are offering customers a service guaranteeing facade maintenance with an attractive warranty of 10 and sometimes even up to 14 years.

"There would be nothing so strange about an extended warranty period, if these so-called experts had not started increasingly making the absurd claim that washing or painting a facade once every ten years means you will never need to intervene during the warranty period and will not spend a single penny on its maintenance for the next ten years," says Marek Volejníček from Umyjemto, putting his finger on the problem.

Do you really believe a facade will stay in perfect condition for 10 or even 14 years?

These fraudulent companies claim that during the warranty period it is sufficient to wash your facade and coat it with two layers of paint. But nobody tells you that this is an extremely thin layer (approximately 0.5–1 mm) that merely covers the original insulation render — without even considering what substrate, brand or type the original insulation was. And yet they hand out warranties for it as if on a conveyor belt. Experts are left baffled as to how such a quality of maintenance could possibly keep a facade in perfect condition for more than a decade.

Unfair practices: a 10 or even 14-year warranty from a company that has existed for 6 years

"No quality company manufacturing and supplying materials for contact insulation systems — such as Keim, KABE Farben or Caparol — will give you a warranty of more than 5 years on facade insulation. And even for those 5 years, the warranty is conditional on you taking care of the facade, treating it regularly and washing it," warns Jiří Vahalík, representative of ETICS manufacturers and exclusive representative of KABE Farben.

The facade is the crowning feature of the entire building. If regularly maintained, even a building that is decades old can look modern and its value increases. On the other hand, those who underestimate facade care not only devalue their property in the long term, but also frequently gamble with their health due to algae and mould spores. Throughout the year, the facade is exposed to snow, sun, acid rain, dust and smog.

Do you think a facade can stay in perfect condition under these conditions for 14 long years?

"Imagine how you take care of your car. If you bought a car and for 14 years never set foot in a garage, never went through a car wash and never changed the oil, it is hard to imagine that car would still exist after ten years. And it is exactly the same with a building's facade," says Ladislav Janíček, construction specialist at TechTop s.r.o.

Companies focused on facade maintenance are springing up like mushrooms after rain. Would you really buy a service with a 10-year warranty when the company itself has only been on the market for 6 years or even less?

"When choosing a company to take care of your facade maintenance, use your common sense and never trust marketing promises that none of these companies can logically keep," adds Boris Rozsa, facade coating specialist at the Slovak branch of Umyjemto.

It is quite easy to wind up such a company and set up a new one. In the past we have already witnessed similar behaviour during the period when apartment buildings began to be insulated en masse — these companies cheated on both materials and warranties, and even though the warranty was supposed to run for years afterwards, the companies no longer existed. Clients had no choice but to seek professional help, and in many cases it was us they turned to. On the surface everything looked excellent — a warranty on paper — but in the end you are left with a facade without a warranty because you can no longer reach the original owners of the defunct company.

Do you know the "Čistá fasáda Programme"?

For ten years, Umyjemto has been working to improve the situation on the market and explaining to customers how to care for the facades of all types of buildings effectively and over the long term. That is why, years ago, they developed the Čistá fasáda programme together with one of the highest quality facade paint manufacturers, the Swiss brand KABE Farben — a programme that offers the longest warranty on the market without any marketing gimmicks. The experts at Umyjemto do not promise the impossible, but provide reliable service throughout the entire duration of the programme.

"In the case of the Čistá fasáda programme, it is not simply a matter of an extended 13-year warranty. Both we and our partner KABE Farben are aware that without regular inspections and partial interventions — such as periodic facade washing — we cannot provide a thirteen-year warranty. That is why we have committed to a fair approach to our customers, who can rely on quality ongoing service," describes the company's approach Marek Volejníček.

We play fair

"Compared to the competition, our Čistá fasáda programme may appear more costly at first glance. But in the long run, our approach will certainly pay off for customers. With us, they can be confident that both their facade and their finances will be under control. We do not promise the unrealistic. But within our programme, we are able to keep the facade in excellent condition even longer than the stated warranty period," says Martin Herman, director of Umyjemto.

Every paint produced using modern technologies is mixed with special chemistry designed to prevent the formation of organic contamination in the form of algae, mould, moss or lichen. Hand on heart — no such paint will retain its function for long if the facade is not regularly cleaned of atmospheric dirt and treated with a functional impregnation. A number of competing companies exploit this by providing customers with warranties only against organic contamination. They know full well that if atmospheric contamination appears on the facade — and it certainly will — customers will have a very hard time winning any legal dispute.

Guarantee timeline and warranty inspections of the Čistá Fasáda programme — more at https://programcistafasada.cz or 800 221 227

That is why the experienced experts at Umyjemto inspect facades during the extended warranty period typically every three years and, in addition to washing off atmospheric dirt, also use effective types of impregnation.