For years people have insisted that we have good vapour barriers to protect wall and attics from condensation. But others have railed against vapour barriers, claiming they cause condensation problems inside the house.Now the facts are known -- both groups are wrong and most people confuse v...
Tradition and the building code have always said that a vapour barrier (properly called a vapour retarder) should be placed on the warm side of the insulation. This is actually an oversimplification of the scientific reasoning on the placement of a vapour barrier. With modern, energy-effici...
False. Vapour barriers do help to protect the walls from moisture accumulation, but the help they provide is almost insignificant compared to that provided by air barriers. Moisture gets into walls and attics by two paths: air exfiltration through cracks and vapour diffusion through the wa...
No, but don't worry about it; they are no longer available in Canada anyway. It was impossible to seal the joints, which let through more moisture than the paper ever stopped. They were actually eliminated in Canada because their fire ratings required them to be covered with special materials. ...
Styrofoam (which is actually a Dow Chemical brand name of extruded polystyrene) is a fairly good vapour barrier. It will not cause problems in the Canadian climate if you put on at least 1-1/2 inch thick and preferably in 2 ft. x 8 ft sheets applied horizontally. This actually permits some ...
Joan insulated her basement using dense insulation made for steel doors, then discovered moisture behind the vapour barrier and is worrying if it is the insulation that is causing the problem.No Joan, there can be lots of reasons for moisture in a basement wall, and even the researchers are tr...
False.
Vapour barriers, together with air barriers, prevent moisture from escaping into the walls.
In this sense vapour barriers make you more aware of the quantity of moisture you have generated in your house.
Condensation problems are caused by generating too much moisture and/or having too ...
Insulating hot water lines that run through a heated basement or crawl space sounds logical, but in fact it will same you little or no money. The infrequency of their use lets them cool off whether they are insulated or not, and the heat is converted to useful room heat anyway.
The exception is ...
This article deals with a block wall above grade. For a below grade block wall see Basement Perimeter Drainage and Leaking Foundations.
Bryan is faced with a totally un-insulated cinder block wall with 1x2 strapping and a plaster covering. He is thinking about stripping it back to the block...
It's become very important to understand the difference between a vapor barrier and an air barrier.
If we completely seal a polyethylene sheet on the warm side of the insulation, we call it a combined air/vapor barrier.
But it's possible to put the vapor barrier on the warm side of the insulati...
