Tensile Structure Warranty
One year on structure and workmanship, five to fifteen on the membrane by grade — and an honest account of what no membrane warranty covers.
What our warranty actually is
Two written warranties, both ours, not a manufacturer’s pass-through.
| What | How long | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Structure and workmanship | One year | The steel, the fabrication, the installation and the tensioning as built. |
| Membrane | Five to fifteen years, by fabric grade | The fabric's tear resistance, seam integrity and colour stability. |
| Motorised and retractable systems | One year on the complete system | Mechanism, drive and controls together with the structure. |
The membrane band is wide because the fabrics are genuinely different products. A light PVC and a PTFE-coated glass membrane do not have comparable service lives, and quoting one number for both would be meaningless. The grade you are quoted determines where in the five to fifteen band you sit, and it should be named in the quotation. See how long tensile structures last for the service life behind those numbers.
The documents that come with it
A warranty is only as good as the paperwork that supports a claim.
As-built drawings
What was actually built, not what was first proposed. Needed for any later alteration and for most insurance questions.
Mill certificates
Traceability for the steel. This is what lets anyone verify the section and grade years later.
Structural stability certificate
Confirms the structure was designed and built to the calculation. Many authorities ask for it.
O&M manual
The maintenance schedule the warranty assumes. Keeping to it is usually what preserves the cover.
What a membrane warranty does not cover
Every warranty in this industry has these exclusions. A supplier who does not mention them is not offering you more cover, only less warning.
Accidental damage, vandalism and impact are not fabric defects. Neither is damage from an event beyond the design case — if a structure engineered to the code for your site meets a wind speed well above it, that is an insurance matter rather than a warranty one, which is a good reason to ask what wind speed yours was designed for. See wind load.
Neglect is the common one. Most membrane warranties assume scheduled inspection, and a claim arriving after five years with no inspection record is difficult to support. Keeping the record is cheap; see the twelve maintenance checks.
Changes made by others also end cover. Drilling the membrane to hang signage or lights, adding loads to the steel, or re-tensioning without the manufacturer are all common and all avoidable — ask first.
How to read someone else's warranty
Is it the installer's, or passed through?
A fabric mill's product warranty covers the fabric. It does not cover the seam someone welded badly or the structure that over-tensioned it. Ask which you are being given.
Is it written, and in the contract?
A number in a sales conversation is not a warranty. It should appear in the quotation and in the order.
Does one number cover everything?
Structure, membrane and workmanship have different lives. A single headline figure covering all three usually means the detail will not survive a claim.
What does it require of you?
Inspection intervals, cleaning method, who may work on the structure. These conditions are where cover is usually lost.
How a claim actually works
Most disputes are not about whether a warranty exists. They are about what caused the fault.
The first question on any membrane claim is whether the fault is a defect in the fabric, a defect in the workmanship, or damage from something that happened to the structure. Those three sit under different cover, and they look alike from the ground. A seam opening could be a weld that was never sound, or a seam being overloaded because the membrane lost tension and started to flutter — the symptom is identical and the responsibility is not.
Which is why the inspection record does more work than the warranty certificate. A structure with two inspections a year on file tells a clear story: when the fault appeared, what the condition was before it, and whether anything changed. A structure with no record leaves everyone arguing from a photograph.
In practice: report it in writing as soon as you see it, photograph it before anything is touched, and do not attempt a repair first. A patched tear is much harder to assess than an unpatched one, and an attempted repair by a third party is itself an exclusion under most membrane warranties.
Warranty period is not service life
A five-year warranty on a membrane does not mean the membrane lasts five years, and this trips people up constantly. The warranty is the period during which the supplier carries the risk of a defect. The service life is how long the material performs, and for architectural fabric it is usually a good deal longer than the warranty — PTFE-coated glass in particular outlives its warranty by a wide margin.
Treat the warranty as a statement of confidence rather than an expiry date, and read it alongside the expected service life of the grade you are being quoted. How long tensile structures last sets out the service life by material; this page covers what happens if something fails inside the covered period.
Warranty FAQ
The questions that come up before a specification is settled.
One year written warranty on the structure and workmanship, and five to fifteen years on the membrane depending on the fabric grade, covering tear resistance, seam integrity and colour stability. Motorised and retractable systems carry one year on the complete system. Both are our own written warranties rather than a manufacturer's pass-through.
Because the fabrics are different products with genuinely different service lives. A light PVC membrane and a PTFE-coated glass one are not comparable, so a single number would be misleading for one of them.
Most commonly: drilling or cutting the membrane to hang things, adding loads to the structure, re-tensioning or repairing without the manufacturer, cleaning with the wrong method, and having no record of scheduled inspection.
Damage from an event within the design case is a different matter from damage caused by an event beyond it. This is one reason to establish what wind speed your structure was designed for, and to keep that documentation.
Not necessarily, but you do need the inspections to happen and to be recorded. An annual maintenance contract is simply the convenient way to guarantee that. See maintenance and repair.
Ask us at the time. It is a reasonable request and we would rather answer it in writing for your specific project than publish a blanket rule here.
As-built drawings, mill certificates for the steel, a structural stability certificate and an O&M manual. If a supplier cannot produce these, the warranty behind them is hard to rely on.
Repairs and recoating carry cover on the work we do, but we cannot warrant someone else's original structure or membrane. We will tell you plainly what we can and cannot stand behind after an inspection.
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