Cheapest weather rated tape that will last
blamus20
| Posted in Green Products and Materials on
Just wondering what people are using as a general purpose exterior tape. Preferably less expensive than foil or zip tapes. My application is for taping foil faced polyiso to become the WRB. I know just about anything sticks well to that. But what’s the cheapest good option?
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Replies
You can try some 3M All-Weather Flashing tape (https://amzn.to/3My19wE) which is cheaper than ZIP for a comparable product. It's rubbery and requires a very sharp knife to cut, but it's very sticky and will indeed create a weatherproof seal. But this will create some dead spots on your foil face where you don't benefit from the radiant barrier effect. If you want to keep that shiny surface working as one, you can use radiant barrier tape, ideally from the same manufacturer as the Polyiso boards themselves.
This past season, I did a project with Polyiso and sourced it from Home Depot, which carriers Everbilt as their own-brand for this kinda stuff. The rolls of Radiant Barrier Foil Tape (https://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-1-88-in-x-150-ft-Radiant-Barrier-Foil-Tape-1-88x150RFT/328298878) are even cheaper than the Flashing tape and can be torn by hand. Not as sticky, though.
3m-8067 is fantastic. I have gone through numerous roles when foam sheathing my house, replacing all the windows/doors, encapsulating the crawlspace, etc. I hope to be buried with a roll of that stuff.
The best price/inch I've have found as a homeowner is to buy the larger 6,9,12" wide rolls off ebay. Then make a 'jig' like below where you place the shim for the width (if not 12") and then hold boxcutters in the slots while another person pulls the tape through. Works great.
The home Depot foil tape you linked is probably the cheapest I've seen per ft. If you think it's effective as a Foam WRB tape then that's what I'll do for! Thanks!
I am doing (2) layers of 2" exterior rigid insulation on top of my Zip sheathing. I was just going to use 150psi XPS and tape the top layer. Now I am wondering if top layer should be foil faced. Cannot seem to find an answer. I tagged onto this because was just searching for the exact thing you asked about tape for it.
This is a good start:
https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/backyard-tape-test
There is also a follow-up with some more long term tests.
There is also Tyvek seam tape that is reasonable costs and sticks pretty well. In the great white north, we have Blue Tuck tape that also holds up pretty well.
Foam will shrink over time so I would get tape that will not tear too esaly.