Building-envelope

BUILDING ENVELOPE DIVISION

Washington’s Preferred James Hardie Siding Experts

What is the Building Envelope? Many people may not be familiar with this process. For contractors this is crucial.

A building envelope is the physical separator between the conditioned and unconditioned environment of a building including the resistance to air, water, heat, light, and noise transfer.

This is the process you see to your right – in order to protect what is in the structure, it is important you keep out the elements that may harm your structure. In siding or often referred to as cladding – water and air is the most important element to keep out of your structure. That is the purpose of installing siding/cladding.

Air Barriers

Air barriers control air leakage into and out of the building envelope. Air barrier products may take several forms: Mechanically-attached membranes, also known as housewraps, usually a polyethylene-fiber or spun-bonded polyolefin, such as Tyvek is a generally accepted moisture barrier and an air barrier.

Rainscreen System

A rainscreen is an exterior wall detail where the siding stands off from the moisture-resistant surface of an air barrier applied to the sheathing to create a capillary break and to allow drainage and evaporation. The rain screen is the siding itself but the term rainscreen implies a system of building.