Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

[Martin Holladay]

Re: Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

Ted,
With a spray rack you can get any installation of brick veneer to leak. It takes about 30 seconds for water to show up on the back side of the bricks.

All brick veneer installations leak. That's why they all need an air gap, weep holes, and a good WRB to protect the sheathing. Ideally, they should also have ventilation -- but ventilation is often lacking.

[Dancing Dan]

Re: Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

I just never imagined that a builder could be so stupid.

It's good to know that, after all these years covering the industry, you're still capable of being surprised by its practitioners.

[Ted S.]

Re: Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

Well I know that - I mean I could get the thing to leak as in saturating the interior components of the wall as in failure. When we did the building at UMass I had it leaking so bad you could lie on one of the dorm room beds and watch the water flow under you. It all came across the ties and mortar droppings. If there was 3 feet of cellulose or whatever in the wall what a mess that would have been, half the campus probably would have had hives and nose bleeds too.

[Ted S.]

Re: Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

Hey Dan we all go through it at one point or another. We have to mess a few up to reach perfection.

[Mark Parlee]

Re: Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

Getting in here way late

Here is a house built in 96 torn down 07

Brick solar, vapor drive.
WRB stops bulk water but is designed to pass vapors.
rot and mold on framing side of WRB is so bad the house is torn down.
Possilby ventilating the brick cavity top and bottom would have helped.

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[hank mavery]

Re: Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

Rear Addition Siding.jpg

Ted,
With a spray rack you can get any installation of brick veneer to leak. It takes about 30 seconds for water to show up on the back side of the bricks.

All brick veneer installations leak. That's why they all need an air gap, weep holes, and a good WRB to protect the sheathing. Ideally, they should also have ventilation -- but ventilation is often lacking.

This is a 100 yr old home. The brick veneer has held up well in a north-eastern climate that easily has over 50 freeze-thaw cycles/year and a lot of rain and snow.
It has a brick veneer over 1" thick sheathing boards. No insulation. Plaster and lathe interior walls.

[NW Architect]

Re: Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

Martin,

They make good beer in Belgium. Let's get hired to fly over and fix something, and you can buy me a beer there!

[Martin Holladay]

Re: Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

The plot thickens: it turns out that the type of fiberboard sheathing used in Belgium is wax-impregnated. It resembles Zip Sheathing -- if you tape the seams, the surface of the fiberboard is an acceptable WRB.

So evidently the builder screwed up in many ways -- but omitting housewrap was not a problem. This house did not fail because of liquid water entry; it failed because of inward solar vapor drive and a lousy HRV system.

Mark Parlee: the photos you shared seem to be a case similar to the Zaring Homes failures in Cincinnati.

Hank Mavery: the 100-year-old house doesn't fail for two reasons: it has solid board sheathing, and it has no interior polyethylene.

[Ted S.]

Re: Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

The plot thickens: it turns out that the type of fiberboard sheathing used in Belgium is wax-impregnated. It resembles Zip Sheathing -- if you tape the seams, the surface of the fiberboard is an acceptable WRB.

From what I understand this has been accepted in the industry as fiberboard was approved as a "water repellent" sheathing which allows the omission of the WRB. But, I would never do it.

Mike, your pictures are very interesting, typically there are plumes of moisture damage originating at the corners of the widows and other penetrations, those defects look pretty random, even above the insulated ceiling line in the attic. Did you ever nail down exactly what happened?

[Ted S.]

Re: Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

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This is a 100 yr old home. The brick veneer has held up well in a north-eastern climate that easily has over 50 freeze-thaw cycles/year and a lot of rain and snow.
It has a brick veneer over 1" thick sheathing boards. No insulation. Plaster and lathe interior walls.

I think there are a lot of factors, and combinations thereof. I put a Rilem Tube on a building in Montana and it drank water like nothing I ever saw before, but the 5 story building has never had a leak. Apparently it was local low fired clay, and when I checked the weather from what I remember it looked like a desert.

Your building has one thing going for it, it was built by the Dick Seiberts of the world.

[DWBuilder]

Re: Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

Mike, your pictures are very interesting, typically there are plumes of moisture damage originating at the corners of the widows and other penetrations, those defects look pretty random, even above the insulated ceiling line in the attic. Did you ever nail down exactly what happened?

Very interesting indeed.

Mike said it was solar vapor drive. Looking at the damage patterns, it makes sense.

You can see there isn't any damage directly under the eaves where the sun would be shielded. Also looks like the end of the house was either approximately East or West facing because the pattern is symmetrical--the sun exposure was straight on in morning or evening. On the room on the front of the house it looks like the eave on the left side shielded the sun somewhat because the pattern is asymmetrical.

Wonder if the ceilings were vaulted so the insulation line was pitched? That would explain why the damage didn't stop at the T.O.W. level.

I'm guessing with no plumes at windows and penetrations, the WRB and flashing was done fairly well, they just didn't plan on vapor drive through the WRB. Poly on the inside?

[NW Architect]

Re: Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

The plot thickens: it turns out that the type of fiberboard sheathing used in Belgium is wax-impregnated. It resembles Zip Sheathing -- if you tape the seams, the surface of the fiberboard is an acceptable WRB.

So evidently the builder screwed up in many ways -- but omitting housewrap was not a problem. This house did not fail because of liquid water entry; it failed because of inward solar vapor drive and a lousy HRV system.

I had a feeling the fiberboard would have some sort of treatment. BUT wouldn't wax impregnation tend to make the product lean towards vapor IMpermeable? And even if the sheathing were water-resistant and vapor-permeable, that leaves all the cut edges vulnerable around doors and windows, with whatever flashings they may or may not have had, held to the sheathing with tape, at best.

I'm still not willing to rule out a liquid water component to the failure . . . among the many other failures present

[Ted S.]

Re: Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

DW,

Good post, I like your observations and agree.

Considering Mike's photos show the brick removed, I'm actually liking that failure better than the Belgium Waffle.

[John B]

Re: Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

I think you guys meant to say "Mark's Photos"
I agree that Mark's example is more interesting than the Belgian example

Mark... do you have any more photos and or details about "the tear down"

DW,

Good post, I like your observations and agree.

Considering Mike's photos show the brick removed, I'm actually liking that failure better than the Belgium Waffle.

[Mark Parlee]

Re: Failed house in Belgium--vapor drive from exterior?

Ned.. I mean Ted,

Mike here.. I mean Mark

John, thanks

I have seen a few of these; the pictures were not one of my consults but came into play at one of mine in the same city. This one was more severe than mine.
There was a vapor coming in at the window perimeter to the interior of the home. The issue appeared after a rain would wet the brick and mortar then the sun would shine intensely on this wetted surface. The occupants would notice an increased mildew odor after the rain and sun event.
I did a Rilem test on quite a few areas and found the tubes draining in 3 to 5 minutes. This would allow vapor drive to push a lot of moisture into the cavity and some of it in a vapor as opposed to liquid. We removed a couple of windows and found the yellow fiberglass perimeter insulation to be a nice hue of green. We found the same greenish color at the latex expanding foam on other windows (should be a lesson to those of you using latex foam).
We need to start a new thread. I will post a picture and others post in as to the visible defect/s. Where would this belong