I held off saying this until I was sure
Removing the risk from the hardest part of your build – Atal Insights
By Dominic Thew, Managing Director
I’ve been in this industry for over adecade and I’ve learned one thing more than anything else: don’t tell people you can do something until you’ve done it.
That’s why I kept quiet about Gateway 2 for a long time. I could see what was coming, the Building Safety Act, the new documentation requirements, the level of design accountability it would demand. And I could see that most businesses in structural waterproofing were hesitating.
We went the other way. We invested the time, absorbed the design resource, and got on with it.
We’ve now passed five Gateway 2 submissions. Five from five. A sixth project is due to start in the coming weeks, and we have a strong pipeline behind it as Gateway 2 rolls out nationally, Wales from this summer, the Midlands and North to follow.
I’m not saying that to show off. I’m saying it because I think it tells you something important about how we work.
What Gateway 2 actually demands
Gateway 2 isn’t just about submitting a waterproofing design. It’s documentation, material traceability, design accountability. Every material you specify, every detail you draw, has to be right, and demonstrably right, before a project can proceed.
For architects, developers and engineers, that’s a significant amount of extra pressure. Our approach has been simple: take that pressure away. We carry our own PI insurance, take full design responsibility for the waterproofing and ground gas element, and stay involved at every stage. When designs change, and they always do, we’re already in the conversation.
Five from five tells me the approach is right. But it’s the same approach we’ve always taken, Gateway 2 has just made it more visible.
The number that drives everything we do
Structural waterproofing is roughly 2% of your total build cost.
But if it fails, wrong design, wrong product, missed installation, follow-on trades damaging work that’s already been done, it can account for 80% of your problems. I’ve seen it. You’re not talking about a patch job. You’re talking about finished walls, completed floors, sometimes entire completed buildings, all having to come apart to find the source of the issue.
That number is why we do everything we do.
It’s why we come to site, not to tick a box, but because water doesn’t always come in where you think it does. It travels to the lowest point, and the actual source of the problem might be ten metres from where you’re seeing the damage.
It’s why we run toolbox talks with the ground workers installing our systems, because a great product installed badly is still a failed system.
It’s why we provide free bespoke design rather than handing you a generic template and hoping it fits.
It’s why we source our products from German manufacturers we’ve tested ourselves and trust completely, and provide full datasheets as standard.
And it’s why, when you call us, you get a person. Always. No bots, no queues, no two-week wait for someone to reply to your email. When you’re on site and something has changed, you can’t afford that.
Feedback from site
I’ve been out visiting customers a lot this month, and I won’t pretend the market is easy. Rising material costs, labour shortages, developers holding back on starts. We had one supplier put up raw material prices by 19% with two weeks’ notice. Everybody is feeling it.
Which is partly why we’ve just launched a shop on our website. The idea is simple: when we find a saving on products, and we do, because we work closely with our suppliers, we pass it straight on. No fanfare, no complicated process. Just limited time offers that means you pay less. To start you can claim 5% off with this code.
It’s aimed especially at smaller jobs, where every pound of materials matters and the big design-and-supply conversation isn’t always what’s needed. You still get the same quality products, the same technical support if you need it, and yes, still a human being if you pick up the phone.
Whether it’s a Gateway 2 project, a housing site, or a smaller job where you just need the right product at the right price, the goal is the same. We want your build to go well. That’s it.
If you’d like to talk through a project, or take a look at what’s in the shop, you know where we are.
The best part of my month is meeting customers. Set up a time for us to meet below.
Always a human. Always available.