The building stock
Brighton combines substantial detached period housing with boutique apartment development, much of it built to a high specification and much of it close enough to the bay for that specification to be tested. The apartment stock ranges from 1970s walk-ups through to recent developments with podium decks, basement carparks and extensive terraces, all of which concentrate waterproofing risk.
Typical defect profile
Chloride attack rather than carbonation alone. This is the material difference between working in Brighton and working ten kilometres inland. Salt-laden air drives chlorides into concrete, and chlorides destroy the passive layer protecting reinforcement at far lower concentrations than carbonation requires. Buildings within the near-shore band routinely show active corrosion in concrete that carbonation alone would not have compromised for decades.
The practical consequence is that patch repair often fails here where it would succeed elsewhere. Breaking out and reinstating a spall in chloride-contaminated concrete frequently allows the corrosion cell to re-form at the patch perimeter. Chloride profiling during investigation distinguishes a building requiring conventional repair from one requiring galvanic anodes, hybrid protection or a wider strategy; an incorrect assessment at that point produces a repeating repair cycle in place of a durable repair.
Terraces, podium decks and planters. The larger developments have extensive trafficable areas over occupied space, where membrane and detail failures present as ceiling staining below. Planter boxes are a recurring source: permanently wet, frequently detailed as a secondary item, and located directly above habitable rooms.
Balustrade and handrail fixings. Marine exposure attacks fixings before it attacks the structure. Stainless steel of an inadequate grade, or galvanised steel past its coating life, degrades at fixing points carrying fall-protection loads. Pull testing forms part of any balcony or terrace investigation in this area.
Basements and lift pits. Proximity to the water table combined with marine exposure produces below-grade ingress that owners often accept as a normal condition. It is treatable, usually by injection and negative-side systems, and standing water below grade continues to corrode the surrounding structure until it is addressed.
Specification implications
Concrete durability requirements vary with exposure classification, and proximity to the coast changes what a compliant specification requires in cover to reinforcement, concrete grade and protective systems. For remedial work this is relevant twice: it explains why some buildings deteriorated faster than their owners anticipated, and it determines what a repair specification must achieve to deliver a sensible design life.
Where a protection system is recommended in preference to a conventional repair in Brighton, the recommendation follows from the test results, and the supporting data is set out in the report.