Poor quality work by Proud Construction (Cape Town)

This review is to help you make an informed decision when considering PROUD ARTISANS (PTY) LTD trading as PROUD CONSTRUCTION, owned by Mr. AUBREY RAS, as the contractor on your building project.

** Please note we have a written and photographic record of the full project, including the resultant damages due to poor workmanship. **

We employed Mr. Ras and Proud Construction to redo the waterproofing at our property in Cape Town in January 2020. Mr. Ras is a general building contractor, but he guaranteed us he can also do waterproofing. Our property has a flat, concrete roof and Mr. Ras recommended a product called Eco Rubber.

- The existing torch-on waterproofing was removed, and Eco Rubber was app**** on the entire roof area and pa****ts (roughly 180sqm).

- The contractor did not clean the residue Bitumen properly before applying the Eco Rubber and this caused the rubber to form large “blisters” across the entire roof area. We contacted Eco Rubber to inspect the blistered areas and advise on the way forward.

- Eco Rubber’s representative instructed that all the blistered areas must be cut out, the areas thoroughly cleaned to remove any dust and residue torch-on, and the Eco Rubber must then be reapp****. He also pointed out that the contractor did not use the required membrane on several areas where the pa****ts and the roof join.

- The contractor attended to the snag areas, but when the heavy rains came earlier this year water started seeping through the concrete slab, resulting in substantial damage to the ceilings inside the house. The water also seeped down the electrical conduits and affected the dimmer switches, so now our lights turn themselves on (imagine my surprise after being away for a month).

- We realized there are major issues with the waterproofing and Eco Rubber sent one of their professional applicators to inspect the waterproofing.

- The professional applicator found several areas where the Eco Rubber was not app**** thick enough or failed due to the contractor’s poor workmanship. We provided the contractor with enough Eco Rubber to cover 340sqm and our roof with pa****ts is only 180sqm?

- The professional applicator also said what he learned through experience is that flat roofs should be fully membraned to prevent any cracks in the slab tearing the Eco Rubber.

- The contractor provided us with a 10-year guarantee on his workmanship but refuses to take the professional applicator's advice. We also offered that he refund us for the material we provided, and we will pay the waterproofing specialist to fix his mess, but he refused this offer. When we asked the contractor what he suggests we do to fix the waterproofing and resultant damage, he absconded and stopped answering emails.

We are of the opinion that Mr. Ras never intended to honor the guarantees he provides on his workmanship. Unfortunately, we were not only left with waterproofing issues - most of the other building work we employed Mr. Ras to do was also of poor quality.

If you still choose to use this contractor after reading this review, we wish you all the best for your project.