As energy costs continue to rise, builders and business owners have been looking for ways to help reduce costs and increase sustainability. This means that new homes and buildings are being constructed with a tighter building envelope than ever before, reducing the amount of air transfer between the indoors and outdoors, and minimizing the amount of energy loss.
Unfortunately, this tighter building envelope can lead to a build up of condensation inside the walls of the home. Moisture that is naturally generated indoors can’t escape the home as easily as it can in a building with less rigid insulating properties. As a result, moisture can enter the walls where it frequently becomes stopped: this leads to the growth of mold and mildew inside the walls, as well as an increase in wood rot beneath the exterior cladding.
One of the roles of newer types of building wrap is to help facilitate the movement of moisture from the interior of the home to the exterior, without allowing air infiltration. In other words, any moisture generated from inside the home or building needs to be able to evaporate through the building wrap, rather than becoming trapped inside the walls.
This helps make the home or building more comfortable, healthier and less prone to moisture problems (like wood rot) over time. Combined with properties that help stop air infiltration, the right building wrap can be an excellent solution for preventing condensation build-up in homes and buildings with a tight envelope.