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Community and Q&A

Tyvek Homewrap or fully adhered alternatives

jollygreenshortguy | Posted in Energy Efficiency and Durability on

Tyvek Homewrap – 16 cents/sq.ft.
Henry Blueskin VP100 – 1.08 $/sq.ft.
Siga Majvest – 1.6 $/sq.ft.

If I go the Tyvek route I’d be taping the wall sheathing first as part of my air barrier. If I use the Henry or Siga products, which are fully adhered, I don’t need to pre-tape the sheathing, right? They would provide similar air barrier capabilities?

Even with the taping, the Henry & Siga products will still end up multiple times more expensive. What is the compelling case for going with one of those?

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Replies

  1. Ryan_SLC | | #1

    I have had my house wrap up on my new addition for a month or so. Taped with name brand tape.

    Horizontal seams flick water at me if a flap the house wrap, days after rain.

    I think Benjamin Obdyk is right, horizontal taping is just going to create fish mouths, even when you can't see them.

    1. jollygreenshortguy | | #2

      Thanks for the information.
      I agree with Obdyke. Why expend labor and materials taping horizontal WRB seams? Just provide a generous overlap, shingle fashion.

  2. Ryan_SLC | | #3

    I was looking at a self adhered. Here is why I landed on, meh. What was the benefit again? Air barrier and vapor barrier? But both are going to get hit by a thousand siding nails right? Liquid weather barrier seems like the future, if a product would come to consumer.

    -Henry actually isn't compatible with much. Pro articles mention it's impossible to find what the secret adhesive is in Henry. That's odd because this one job guy went to their compatibility sheet. Henry says things poorly react to the butyle of 100 and pvc will melt with their 100 line. So mystery solved. Acrylic rains king if you look around, not butyle.

    -Prosoco painted MVP or Cat 5 ruled out because of incompatibility with most tapes. I don't want to flash my windows with liquid flash on the most outside level. Both are not thick mil. Again, what vapor perm tape is compatible?

    -Benjamin Obdyk is too little material at 80ft rolls instead of 100ft. Width is also 4.75' which leads to even shorter with overlap than others. I would have just done their SA product, but it would have required two orders for my small addition. Annoyingly, that 20ft difference makes a difference. I did land on Benjamin Obdyke's house wrap and tape. Their tape is perm rated, black, and seem like a great alternative to Siga.

    -Siga 500 is 700 dollars. This brings the difference between Tyvek regular at double the material and Siga at about 500 dollars. Was Tyvek really so bad it needed a $500 more cost? My experience with 165 dollars of Siga Fentrim 430 just didn't live up to the youtube videos. It stuck, but it wasn't ripping apart the plywood to get off and it wasn't stuck forever on the foundation.

    On tape, my experience has been mixed to reviews. I have so far used four tapes on my small addition:
    -My 3m 8067 weather tape arrived from Amazon yesterday. Super cheap compared to Zip, so why not for taping the sheathing seams.. Not once did I read about the smell. It's horrendous. Even exterior, this can't be good for people. How this gets recommended on a "Green" website, I don't understand. Trapped under house wrap, I'm sure some of that VOC is going inside. Huge disappointment that was obvious on opening the box.
    -Siga Fentrim 430 wasn't magic. It did not become part of the OSB below, even when rolled hard. I think some exaggeration in saying "tenacious" occur.
    -Zip. Has worked great for me. However, lack of perm is curious. And it's curious because there is a similar acrylic that is perm rated (ignoring the new Zip perm rated tape that is pricey and limited)

    -Benjamin Obdyke clear winner. Does great in the "backyard test" here, doesn't smell, is perm rated, is black, and is repetitively priced fine. All of these items are independently winners. Together, no question is a top winner.

    I will say, with my slow progress on my small project, anyone recommending horizontal seam taping on house wrap has no credibility with me. My horizontally tape seams by the general contractor appear to be applied fine. However, the seams are fish tanks for water days after rain.

    Good luck!

    1. Malcolm_Taylor | | #4

      Ryan_SLC,

      "I was looking at a self adhered. Here is why I landed on, meh. What was the benefit again? Air barrier and vapor barrier? But both are going to get hit by a thousand siding nails"

      Neither the vapour or air barrier function of a fully adhered house-wrap should be affected by siding nails. The same arguments apply to roofing underlayments.

    2. tjanson | | #10

      8067 definitely smells a bit, but I don't find it offensive or overpowering.

  3. freyr_design | | #5

    You should be able to order Blueskin online for about .87-.9$/sf. I find it’s easier to detail a continuous air/water barrier with a fully adhered and LF. I have also used proclima solitex 3000 with success, though it’s more expensive. I’m not exactly sure why you wouldn’t want to use the LF for flashing your windows as it felt to me to be a much more continuous barrier than tapes. If you did want to just use tapes you can buy vp100 in a tape roll, just keep in mind that all seams that are reverse lapped need to have Henry 212 applied.

    On thing to keep in mind is I did see a huge difference in adhesion of the vp100 based on where i source it. The local lumberyard was terrible and the online supplier felt like a completely different class of product, not sure if it was age or storage or what.

    The Henry LF product is a bit spendy but I really liked the end product, I suppose we will see in 20 years how it holds up…

    Also is you do go SA definitely roll it, very important.

    Oh lastly vp100 is not a butyl product, they have a roof underlayment that is but their vapor permeable product is not.

      1. freyr_design | | #7

        This is for their roof underlayment, also called blueskin, not their VP product. I can guarantee you there is no asphalt in vp100

  4. Ryan_SLC | | #8

    Well I'm wrong! Thanks for catching that

  5. tjanson | | #9

    I've been using Henry Vp100 as I renovate my house and build a addition. I choose Henry because it's the cheapest of the SA WRBs. I chose to use a SA WRB because:
    1. House was sided in cedar shingles (on bare plywood!) so there are thousands of holes to seal as I re-side the house, which a WRB takes care of.
    2. I don't need to fasten it. Staples aren't correct to use, but cap nails protrude a bit and that interferes with my rainscreen furring strips. The furring strips would hold down a normal WRB too, but it's just easier for me to get the SA WRB on first then when it's time to side the house, add the furring strips when putting up the siding a month later.

    The big downside is its kinda difficult and slow to apply. Sometimes it goes on great and quick, but some pieces in more awkward spots are pretty hard to get on without wrinkles or sticking it to itself. Rolling is tedious.

    3m 8067 and zip stretch tape seem to work great with VP100.

  6. AndyBower | | #11

    The SA membrane is effectively very large pieces of tape, so it replaces the tape you would use on the sheathing.

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