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Moisture Management

From "Best Built Home"
episode DBBH-103F

Durability, according to The American Heritage College Dictionary, is the capability to withstand wear and tear or decay.

Nothing can "decay" your home like moisture problems can, whether it comes from driving rain or the vapors in the air. Moisture can wreak havoc on a home's structure and the health of its occupants. This segment will explore what makes up a good water-management system. The elements of a water management include a house wrap, good flashing techniques, down spouts and French drains -- and proper sight drainage.

The Sterk family home in Atlanta.

Many factors can make a home durable. It's more than just thicker walls and stronger floors. In fact, geography is involved since what's durable in Tennessee may not be so in Montana. Homeowners have to deal with harsh environments throughout the country, but it's vital that you know how to handle the problems in your particular region.

The one common enemy no matter where you live is water!

The Sterck family in Georgia found a builder that takes moisture and durability seriously. Managing moisture is something that many home builders don't think about. "The water system on the exterior was something I had never even considered," Terry Sterck said. "In our old home it came out of the spout and went right into the ground 6" to a foot away from the house."

Whether it comes from driving rain or humidity in the air, moisture can cause major problems for a home, including mold and decay (figure A). In fact, damage can go undetected for months or longer.

Hedgewood Properties takes a lot of measures to manage moisture on both the inside and the outside (figure B). "Bulk moisture leaking in through a roof is going to be a big problem," Rob Johnson, energy efficiency consultant for EarthCraft(TM) Homes, said. "You're going to know when that happens, but what you're not going to be aware of are the other smaller moisture caused by the living environment." Steam from showering is one of those problems, for example. If you have wallpaper in your bathroom what you're not seeing is what is going on to that glue behind the wallpaper. There could be mold spores and growth you wouldn't see for years until the wallpaper comes down.

A ventilation system that exhausts via the outside (figure C) rather than one that re-circulates the air moves the moisture "out" of the house. The same ventilation system should be utilized in the kitchen to vent out humidity caused by cooking. "Just like a bathroom, moisture is building up," Rob said. "All that water and moisture has to go somewhere." It could be building up underneath the cabinets or behind the walls, for example.

Figure A

Figure B

Figure C

Figure D

Figure E

Figure F

Good management of water on your roof is an obvious way to keep moisture out of your house, and a key part is the drainage plane. Here Hedgewood uses an "integrated" metal-roof flashing (figure D) beneath the cedar roof shingles. This keeps all the roof valleys water-tight and creates easy access for water to work its way "down" the roof.

Once the water does work its way down the roof, it's important to keep it from getting inside the walls. But even if moisture does penetrate the walls, Hedgewood uses a house wrap that allows the wall system to dry out while at the same time preventing external moisture from getting in. The wrap is a porous material, which means vapor can move "through" it, but bulk moisture (water) if it gets behind the siding will hit the plane and work its way down to the foundation.

Once the moisture works its way down it funnels out through the foundation drain (figure E), which is made of gravel and perforated pipe. The moisture is directed "away" from the house.

The moisture around the perimeter of the house also has to be managed by the builder. Terry explains that Hedgewood installed 200' of drain pipes alone from the house, including a French drain (figure F) just to make sure the moisture is as far away from the foundation as possible.

Controlling moisture is mandatory for a home's durability, but also for its comfort. When moisture and water prevention aren't part of the initial building plan, you're asking for future problems.

In the next segment see how moisture in the ground has caused damage to basement floors for homeowners in Colorado.