Edinburgh · Scotland
External & façade joints in Sciennes, Edinburgh
External mastic in Sciennes from a team with over 20 years’ experience. 180+ five-star Google reviews and a 4.9 rating.
- Joints pointed up with cement by mistake
- Old sealant gone brittle and cracked
- Gaps where render, brick and frames meet
Sciennes: your questions answered
Who arranges sealant work on the shared parts of a tenement in Sciennes?
It usually goes through the owners together, or through the factor if the building has one. The Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 covers the common parts where the deeds do not.
Is external mastic in a coastal place like Sciennes any different?
Near the coast, wind-driven rain and, nearer the shore, salt air make outside sealant work harder. Choosing the right sealant for the frame and wall, laid at the right depth, helps it last.
How often do external joints need resealing?
It varies from wall to wall: joints on exposed walls or with a lot of movement age sooner. A yearly look will tell you when they need doing. Our work comes with a 12-month guarantee.
Where do you work from?
Our base is Crawley. Our area covers South East England, London and Scotland.
Which products do you use?
We choose the sealant for the joint, not the other way round. Movement, water and weather all affect the choice.
Do I have to be there?
If the work is inside, we need someone to let us in. Once we’ve agreed the job, you do not need to watch us work.
Do you seal joints where cladding meets other materials?
Yes. We cut out the old sealant, prepare both faces and reseal with a flexible exterior product. The colour is chosen to suit.
How long will you be here?
Typically it takes anything from a few hours to several days, depending on the building. Larger jobs naturally take longer, and we will say how long yours will take.
External mastic in Sciennes
We’re ARBOMaster approved applicators, and each external joint gets a sealant suited to it. Porous or awkward surfaces are primed where the sealant needs it and we use one wherever it does. We work on copings & trims, concrete & block and façade panels, and the jobs we see most are joints where the bead has come unstuck and gaps where render, brick and frames meet.
Gutters and downpipes on tall city tenements are a long way up, so a leaking joint can run down the stone for months before anyone notices. In Sciennes, access needs planning, and work on shared parts may need the other owners’ agreement.
We guarantee the work for a year. If there’s a problem with our work within the year, let us know and we will sort it.
- Where
- Sciennes (EH9, EH8, EH3)
- Region
- Edinburgh
- Guarantee
- A year, on every job
- Quotes
- Quoted before any work starts
- info@mrmastic.co.uk
- Page updated
- 26 October 2026
Places near Sciennes
What else we do in Sciennes
How to look after the new joints
After the cure time, these simple habits help:
- Fix overflowing gutters above sealed joints
- Check external joints each spring
- Point out the joints to other trades
- Never let anyone fill a movement joint with mortar
Keep pressure washers away from the sealant. High-pressure water can lift the edges and let water in behind.
Leaks behind façade panels and render often go unseen. By the time there’s a damp patch, the damage can be well established so early resealing is worth it.
How the job changes by surface
Joints between dissimilar materials
Where a frame or panel meets masonry, water often finds a way in. The old joint is removed and a sealant that bonds to both sides goes in.
Concrete and blockwork
Blockwork and concrete shrink over time and move with the seasons. Their movement joints are sealed over backing rod with a flexible sealant.
DIY sealant or a professional job?
Too much sealant is as bad as too little. A thick, smeared bead looks untidy and doesn’t move well, and the joint depth matters as much as the finish.
A careful DIYer can reseal a simple joint, such as a straightforward joint indoors. The common mistakes are sealing over old sealant, sealing a damp joint and using far too much.
What external mastic looks like in Sciennes
Sciennes is within about 3 miles of the coast, where wind-driven rain is a fact of life and, nearer the shore, so is salt air. That’s hard on movement joints and outside wall joints, especially on the side facing the sea. Under the Repairing Standard, private landlords in Scotland have to keep homes wind and watertight, and failed outside joints work against that.
If you look after a building such as Sciennes Primary School, movement joints, cladding joints and gutters on larger buildings need the same care as a house’s. Letting a property close to Edinburgh Waverley station? Then outside joints that have cracked can let damp into a rental, so check them between lets. In the older streets around St Catherine's Argyle Church, old and new materials meet at the roofline and walls, which is where sealant earns its keep.
Sciennes is about 1 mile south-east of Edinburgh, in Edinburgh. Our applicators cover external mastic for homes and businesses in Sciennes and the surrounding area. We cover 175 towns and villages across Edinburgh, from the larger towns to small villages.
We work across EH9, EH8 and EH3 for external mastic and the streets around it. Streets in the area include Lauder Road, Meadow Lane and Grange Road, all of which we cover. Sciennes is on the A700, which makes it straightforward to reach with everything needed for external mastic. Other places close to Sciennes include The Grange (1 mile south), Marchmont (1 mile west), Newington (1 mile east), Burgh Muir (1 mile south) and Buccleuch (1 mile north). We also work in nearby towns such as Leith (3 miles north), North Leith (3 miles north), Queensferry (9 miles west), Timber Bush (3 miles north), South Portobello (3 miles east) and Southhouse (3 miles south-east).
Local landmarks in Sciennes
In Sciennes, that means homes and buildings near The Meadows, St Trinnean's School and James Gillespie's High School. Also close by are 15-16 Argyle Place pub (less than half a mile west), St Cuthbert's Church (1.1 miles north-west) and National Museums Scotland Library (0.6 miles north). The closest station to Sciennes is Edinburgh Waverley station, about 0.9 miles north of the centre. Well-known places in the area include Meadows Dental Clinic (less than half a mile south-west) and Edinburgh Castle (0.9 miles north-west). The countryside around Sciennes includes Dunsapie Loch and The New Leaf Co-op.
How the visit works
Our applicators work methodically: protect, prepare, seal, tidy. Typically it takes anything from a few hours to several days, depending on the building, and the area is left clean. In a Scottish city, a lot of jobs are in tenement flats, up a common stair from a shared close. In Sciennes, it helps to know the floor, the door entry arrangements and the nearest parking.
- Each joint is checked and the colour of the new sealant agreed.
- Failed sealant is removed back to clean, sound faces.
- Closed-cell backing rod is pushed in so the sealant bonds to two sides only.
- Primer is applied wherever the sealant needs it.
- A low-modulus exterior sealant is gunned in and tooled to a neat finish.
Before we arrive
- Try not to wet indoor joints just before the visit
- Mention if the joints have been sealed before
- Plan for the work area to be out of bounds to pets and children
Ask for a quote
For a quick quote, get us on the phone, or send an email if you’d rather. Tell us about the joints that need doing and we’ll talk you through the work before giving you a price.
Read more
What sealant work cannot fix
Honest advice matters more to us than a booking, so here’s what new sealant won’t do:
- Structural movement, which needs a surveyor or engineer
- Damp that isn’t coming from the joint
- Cracks in the bricks or render themselves, away from the joints
If in doubt, send an email to info@mrmastic.co.uk and we will say what we think before booking.
What we seal
- Render & cladding joints
- Copings & trims
- Joints between brick and frames
- Concrete & block
- Façade panels
- Brickwork movement joints
Leave it or put it right?
The longer a joint stays open, the more water the wall takes in. Wet masonry is more easily damaged by frost near the open joint, so the problem grows beyond the joint itself. Private landlords in Sciennes must meet the Repairing Standard, and damp or leaks can fall short of it, so it’s worth fixing failed sealant before a tenant reports it.
Instead of a standard rate, we look at what your job involves: the amount of work, the old material and the access. The price is agreed before we begin.
Why book with us
- Neat joints and a tidy finish
- Sanitary silicone with an anti-fungal additive in wet areas
- Old sealant always removed completely
- Trusted Arbo and Everbuild sealants
Take a look at how sealant jobs are priced and customer reviews.
Work for landlords, hotels and businesses
If you manage several properties in or around Sciennes, jobs at different addresses can go on one quote. Just tell us the addresses and what each one needs, and pictures by email help.
From a single let to a portfolio, you get the same standard of work: the old material taken out, careful preparation and a 12-month guarantee.