Friday 30 November 2012

SENWiEco continues their test run of the Prosoco R-Gaurd product line

SENWiEco continues their test drive of the liquid applied WRB/AB system called R-Guard from Prosoco. This is a 4 part liquid barrier applied to the exterior sheathing to form both the Water Resistant Barrier and the Air Barrier.

The first part of their system is called Joint & Seam and is used at the  interface between any components that can move (either from moisture or temperature changes).  You would use this product (that contains fibres to provide strength to the joint under movement) at the interface between the plywood sheathing and the stick structure around door and windows, to fillet around plumbing and electrical pipes, to fillet between the wall and floor or between two walls, and along all sheathing seams.

The next product in the R-Guard lineup is the Fast Flash product.  Fast Flash is used in place of a self adhered membrane on the vertical surfaces of the sheathing and rough openings that may see a higher volume of moisture.  Unlike SAM, it is vapour permeable so will not contribute to rotting around the rough openings that is so often seen with dwellings where a high volume of SAM has been applied.  Although the manufacture recommends its use on window sills, SENWiEco cannot at this time recommend this application and instead recommend a water AND vapour tight membrane like PS45 at the window sill.  We will discuss this issue more in a future post and provide our test results where we performed an extended inverted water test using the Fast Flash product.

Once the Fast Flash has been applied, you are then able to treat the field of the walls with the R-Guard Cat 5 roll on product.  The product has gone through extensive testing and can withstand the forces of a Category 5 Hurricane.

Finally, as the final part of the R-Guard system, when the windows are installed you provide a air seal and water shedding surface at the interior face of the window frame using R-Guard Air Dam.

SENWiEco subjected our test assembly to -4500 Pa (equivalent of 185 Mph or 300 Kph winds) and did not experience any leaks through the sheathing joints and HVAC/Electrical/Plumbing penetrations.  We did have two pinhole leaks around window clips and the window frame itself started to leak at that pressure.  We will provide a follow up posting with links to videos of our tests once they are available.

In the meantime, we invite you to watch a series of videos capturing our trial run of the R-Guard system.

1) Application of R-Guard Joint & Seam
2) Application of R-Guard Fast Flash
3) Discussing the application of R-Guard Cat5
4) Detailing an exterior Electrical Outlet
(In hindsight, I would detail this differently to make it more attractive by making the wood 'box' only the width of the electrical outlet plus 3/8" each side for a caulking joint)
5) Detailing an exterior HVAC Termination/Intake
6) Discussing the consideration needed when installing a box style window
7) Detailing Window Sill using a Back Stop
8) Discussing the Head Flashing placement and Head and Jamb Trim considerations
9) Detailing Jamb Trims
10) Installing Head Flashing
11) Seal Sill Back Stop, Window Clips, and install Backer Rod
12) Installing R-Guard Air Dam
13) Discussing Failure at clips and ways to re-detail in a water tight fashion
14) Building a Poly Enclosure to test the Air and Water control layers in a wall assembly 
15) Pressurized Smoke Test
16) Depressurized Water Test 
17) Discuss Failure at Window Clip
18) BCIT BLDC 3060 Water Test - Passed at -1200 Pa 
19) Site built differential pressure gauge
20) Mock up assembly is tested to -4500 Pa or 18" of Head Pressure!

This was phenomenal results for the R-Guard system and for the Cascadia windows.   The only leaks around the windows were are locations where old sealant remnants had not been removed.  We also suspect that the window frame joint was damaged when the window was cut out of the BCIT Mock-up.  Even if it wasn't, this is very little water for a -4500 Pa pressure which represents winds this dwelling will never see!
  






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