What Is Facade Sealant & Joint Inspection?
Every facade is built from separate components — cladding panels, curtain-wall units, windows, precast elements — and the gaps between them have to be sealed against wind and rain while still allowing the building to move. Those flexible seals are the sealant joints, and they run everywhere a facade has an edge: between adjacent cladding or curtain-wall panels, around every window and opening perimeter, along movement and expansion joints, and where the wall meets the structural frame. They are the facade's primary weather line, and they are the single element most responsible for keeping water out.
Facade sealant and joint inspection is the focused assessment of that weather line. Rather than treating the facade as one continuous surface, it examines the joints in their own right: the condition of the sealant bead, whether it is still bonded and elastic, whether the joint is wide enough to accommodate the movement acting on it, and whether the concealed backing behind it is still doing its job. In Singapore this sits within the mandatory Periodic Facade Inspection (PFI) regime under the Building Control Act, because sealant is exactly the kind of element that fails quietly and admits water long before anyone notices from the ground.
The reason joints deserve a dedicated survey is that a facade is only ever as watertight as its weakest seal. A single metre of debonded sealant on an upper elevation can channel monsoon rain into the building envelope, and the source is often invisible from street level. Reading the joints deliberately — across every elevation, at high resolution — is what turns a vague "the building leaks" complaint into a precise, mapped list of the joints that need to be re-sealed.
Why Facade Sealant Matters
Failed sealant is one of the most common causes of facade water ingress in Singapore, and the reason is simple: sealant takes the full force of wind-driven monsoon rain across joints that are, by design, discontinuities in the facade. When a bead loses adhesion or splits, that rain is pushed straight through the joint and into the wall build-up, where it drives internal damp, corrodes embedded fixings and cladding anchors, and over years contributes to concrete spalling behind the facade.
Sealant also carries a structural role in some systems. In structural sealant glazing (SSG), the silicone is not merely weatherproofing — it physically bonds and holds the glass onto the aluminium frame with no mechanical capping. Here a sealant failure is no longer just a leak: loss of that structural bond risks a glass pane working loose and detaching from height. This is why any competent inspection must distinguish weatherseal sealant, which keeps water out, from structural sealant, which bears load, and grade the two on entirely different risk scales.
Crucially, sealant has a finite service life. Under Singapore's relentless UV and thermal cycling it hardens, shrinks and loses elasticity over time, so even a facade that was perfectly detailed on day one will eventually need re-sealing. Periodic re-sealing is therefore a normal, expected maintenance outcome — not evidence of a defective building. The value of inspection is timing: catching joints as they begin to fail, before water has already tracked into the interior.
Sealant & Joint Defects We Detect
Our inspections are structured around the specific ways sealant joints deteriorate. Each defect is identified, photographed, mapped to a facade grid and joint reference, and passed to your competent person for classification.
| Defect | Cause | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Adhesive failure | Sealant peeling cleanly off the substrate — poor priming, contaminated or incompatible surfaces | Opens a continuous gap along one edge of the joint, a direct water path into the facade. |
| Cohesive failure | Sealant splitting internally as it loses elasticity or is over-extended by movement | A crack runs through the bead itself; the weather line is broken even though sealant is still attached. |
| Hardening & loss of elasticity | UV degradation and thermal cycling curing the sealant brittle | The bead can no longer flex with building movement, so the next thermal cycle tears it. |
| Shrinkage & gaps | Solvent loss and ageing reducing bead volume over the years | Visible voids and thinning at joint ends admit water and signal end of service life. |
| Failed or missing backer rod | Incorrect backing depth, three-sided adhesion, displaced backer rod | Without correct backing the sealant cannot form the right profile and tears prematurely. |
| Over-painting & incompatible coatings | Paint or coating applied over flexible sealant | The rigid film cracks as the joint moves, masking the true condition of the seal beneath. |
| Under-designed joint width | Joint too narrow for the movement it must accommodate | The sealant is repeatedly over-strained and fails early regardless of workmanship. |
| Gasket degradation & structural sealant loss | EPDM/silicone gasket hardening; SSG bond breakdown under UV | Weatherseal loss drives ingress; structural sealant loss is a falling-glass safety risk. |
How Drone Sealant & Joint Inspection Works
We survey sealant joints under BCA's TR 78 technical reference for drone-based facade inspection, which sets the camera, flight and reporting standards a compliant inspection must meet. A drone flies pre-planned paths across every elevation at a consistent standoff, so image scale stays uniform and the fine joints read clearly from the podium to the crown of the building.
Two capabilities run in parallel. High-resolution visual capture resolves the condition of the sealant itself — cracking, peeling, shrinkage gaps, missing sealant, and the tell-tale wash-out and staining marks that streak down the wall directly below a failed joint. Radiometric thermal imaging then adds what the eye cannot see: water actively tracking through a failed joint changes the surface temperature of the surrounding facade, revealing live ingress paths well before any staining appears inside the building.
The advantages over rope access for a joint survey are decisive:
- Complete joint coverage — every metre of sealant on every elevation is imaged, not just the drop-lines an abseiler can reach on each descent.
- No contact, no risk — the facade is never loaded by climbers or anchors, and there is no work-at-height exposure for inspectors.
- Active-leak detection — thermal imaging finds joints that are letting water through right now, distinguishing live failures from cosmetic ageing.
- A re-sealing map — every failing joint is geo-tagged and located, so the maintenance contractor knows precisely which joints to renew and where.
After capture, the imagery is assembled into a full facade mosaic. Each joint defect is annotated, described and located to a joint reference, then compiled into a data package your competent person uses to produce the professional assessment and PFI report.
Joint Types We Inspect
Sealant joints do different jobs in different parts of a facade, and each type has its own characteristic failure mode. Our methodology covers all of them.
Panel-to-Panel Joints
The vertical and horizontal seals between adjacent cladding or curtain-wall panels. These carry the bulk of the weather line and are where adhesive and cohesive sealant failures most often begin.
Window & Opening Perimeters
The seal around every window frame where it meets the surrounding wall. A very common ingress point, especially where original perimeter sealant has hardened and pulled away from the frame.
Movement & Expansion Joints
Wider joints that absorb thermal and structural movement across the building. Because they flex the most, their sealant is the most highly strained and the quickest to reach end of life.
Structural Sealant Glazing
Joints where structural silicone bonds glass to the frame in SSG systems. Here the sealant is load-bearing, so its condition is the single most safety-critical item and gets close visual and thermal review.
Sealant Under Singapore's PFI Regime
Under the Building Control Act, buildings more than 13 metres tall that obtained their Temporary Occupation Permit more than 13 years ago must undergo periodic facade inspection every 7 years. Sealant and joints are part of the external facade, so they are assessed alongside every cladding type when BCA issues a facade inspection order and the appointed competent person examines the building.
Sealant defects are among the most common findings in any facade inspection. Under BCA's three-category system, minor hardening or cosmetic sealant ageing that is not yet admitting water tends to fall into Category 1 (monitor). A joint that has debonded or split and is letting water in, or causing internal damage, typically escalates to Category 2 (repair within a set timeframe). Structural sealant issues in SSG systems — where a failing bead threatens glass detachment — escalate higher still. Across almost all of these, periodic re-sealing is the standard maintenance outcome, and complete, defect-mapped drone data lets your competent person grade each joint accurately and defend that grading in the BCA submission.
Why Choose SG Drone Inspections
We are a specialist drone facade inspection provider in Singapore, focused on delivering the accurate, fully-mapped joint data that competent persons and maintenance teams need to seal a leaking facade the first time.
CAAS-Permitted Operations
Our drone operations run under the required CAAS operator and activity permits, and we manage the airspace approvals — including coordination in controlled airspace near Changi, Paya Lebar and Seletar — so you do not have to.
Visual + Thermal in One Flight
We combine high-resolution visual capture with radiometric thermal imaging on the same sortie, so active leaks through failed joints are caught alongside the visible sealant defects.
TR 78 Methodology
Flight planning, image scale, overlap and reporting follow BCA's TR 78 technical reference for drone facade inspection, keeping the data package aligned to what BCA expects.
A Re-Sealing Map, Not Just Photos
We locate every failing joint to a facade reference, so your competent person can grade it and your maintenance contractor knows exactly which joints to renew.
Frequently Asked Questions
Get a Sealant & Joint Inspection Quote
Send us your building address, height and PFI deadline, or tell us where the facade is leaking. We reply with a scope and quote within 24 hours — no obligation.