Your Home’s First Line of Defense
The building envelope is the house’s protective barrier. This includes siding, wrap, insulation, roofs, windows and doors, but also underground portions like the foundation. When properly constructed, the envelope separates the home’s interior from the outside world, while also allowing the house to breathe. When the envelope is flawed, the home is unprotected, and serious property damage can result. A defective building envelope can be tough to identify, because the common symptoms can seem innocuous and unrelated to each other. High heating and cooling costs can indicate that the thermal barrier has been compromised, often by leaks damaging the insulation. Dampness and mold in the basement or throughout the home can be caused by moisture trapped inside the walls. An inexplicable white film or powder on the home’s exterior can be a sign of excess water depositing minerals as it evaporates. Our attorneys work with engineers to identify the construction failures that lead to this pattern of issues. Tears or gaps in the Tyvek wrap degrade its water resistance, allowing water to leak into the walls. A vapor barrier should be installed behind the drywall to keep moisture inside the home from getting into the wall cavity. If that is missing or damaged, the framing and insulation can deteriorate inside the walls. Siding that is installed too close to the ground or too flush with the house wrap, in violation of the building code, can suck groundwater up into the wall and trap it there. Flashing should be installed to seal the gaps around windows and exterior doors, and around structures on the roof. Cheap builders may skip out on this step, botch the installation, or use caulk instead, which gives water a path into the house. Water intrusion from a compromised building envelope is often not immediately obvious. By the time it is noticed, water may have been leaking into the walls for years, rotting structural wood and growing stubborn mold. Builders often blame the symptoms of a poorly constructed envelope on the weather. However, this is often just an excuse for their own substandard work. In order to fix envelope defects, you may be required to strip the entire exterior of your home and redo it. This can be exorbitantly expensive, and even exceed the value of the home, but you do not need to be left holding the bag for your builder’s incompetence.
