If you’re adding on to your house or building a house from the ground up, your structure will eventually be ready for house wrap. While this might not be the most exciting aspect of your project, it may end up being one of the most important. In the next few minutes, you’ll find out exactly why.
House wrap is thin, synthetic material used to cover the outside of the house, over the sheathing and behind the siding. It has several important jobs.
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It acts as a strong moisture barrier, keeping rain, snow, and humidity out of your walls and preventing air from getting into the house from the outside.
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It protects your home from wood rot and keeps mold from starting to grow in the walls because of moisture.
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It also helps your home to be more energy efficient and temperature-controlled.
Although water-resistant, house wrap is also vapor permeable. It has microscopic holes to let the air and water vapor pass out of the house. This is important for keeping condensation from building up in your walls. Condensation can lead to mold and wood rot, damage to drywall and window frames, and other expensive issues. Good house wrap is designed to be both breathable and waterproof so moisture gets out but doesn’t get in.
However, not all house wrap is created equal. For years, most house wrap was installed by cutting it to size and then nailing, stapling, and taping it into place. This process works well enough, but every nail or staple hole is a possible place for water to enter, and also for inside air to leak out. If the tape isn’t installed perfectly, water can get behind it, or even behind the sheets of house wrap. If your house wrap is compromised–water gets behind it, there is a rip, tear, or puncture, or something similar–the damage can be extensive and the repairs can be expensive. Now there’s a great product on the market that does away with these problems once and for all.
Best For Your Home
Meet Henry Blueskin VP 100, a different kind of house wrap. It is self-adhesive, similar to peel-and-stick wallpaper, which means no staples, nails, or tape are necessary to install it. Your contractor will peel the backing off and secure the wrap to the house, smoothing it out to prevent wrinkles, and rolling over it with a tool designed to make it bond securely to the house. Because it’s not installed with nails or staples, there are no punctures that could let water in or air out, keeping your home more secure from the elements.
When siding is installed over Blueskin, there’s no need to worry about nail holes from the siding puncturing the Blueskin. Remarkably, Blueskin seals itself like a gasket around the nails, making a tight seal that nothing will get through. Blueskin promotes building longevity, meaning your home or addition will last longer, because the wood is much more protected from moisture and water than it would be with a traditional house wrap. Your home will be well cared for with Blueskin.
Best For the Environment
If you are like most of today’s homeowners, supporting the environment ranks as a high concern for you. It’s important to you that your home is energy efficient, both to reduce your impact on the planet and to save you money as energy costs climb. Here again, Henry Blueskin VP 100 performs better than traditional home wraps as an energy-saving product. Its water-, moisture-, and draft-proof features, as well as its adhesive properties that keep nail or staple holes from being a concern, mean that less energy is needed to heat and cool your house.
And Blueskin can prove it. How? Home energy professionals use a process called a blower door test to see where a home is not airtight, and how much air is leaking through. A blower door test involves setting up a specific type of fan in an open, exterior doorway, and sealing it in. The fan is turned on so that it pulls air out of the house, making the air pressure in the house lower than it is outside. This causes air to be pulled into the house through any openings, cracks, or poorly-sealed places. Using computers and infrared technology, the analyst can see how much air is leaking through and what locations are a concern.
Experts tested two houses in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, built next door to each other at the same time and in a similar way, using the blower door test. One house was wrapped in Blueskin, and the other in traditional house wrap. The results were clear: the Blueskin house performed markedly better, many times better in fact, than the traditionally wrapped house.
Henry Blueskin VP 100 is an environmentally sound, energy-saving product that produces excellent results every time.
Best For You
Your home is your haven, and you want it to be a place where you and your family can thrive. Not only does Blueskin protect your house and keep energy usage down, but it also makes your home a more pleasant place to live. It’s like putting a light, weather-proof rain jacket on your house–water vapor can get out, but no water or wind can get in, keeping your home snug and protected. By cutting down on drafts and keeping the warm air inside in the winter and the cool air in the summer, Blueskin helps you regulate the temperature of your home better than traditional house wrap can. And because the moisture vapor can get out, but no water can get in, Blueskin curtails mold growth–a dangerous health hazard to you and your family.
Regardless of the weather–from hot and humid summers to wet and cold winters–Blueskin will keep your Virginia, Maryland, or DC home secure and your family comfortable. It helps your interior insulation perform at its intended R-value (its thermal resistance, or its ability to reduce the flow of heat), which means that even if your house doesn’t have great interior insulation, Blueskin could make a noticeable difference for you.
Peace of Mind
At BOLT Build, we are trained to install Henry Blueskin VP 100, and we take pride in offering you such a great product. Its clever, self-adhesive design, its ability to form gasket-like seals around punctures, its breathability, and its moisture protection make it an excellent choice for your next project. We’d love to install Blueskin on a remodel, addition, or whole-home building project for you. Contact us today!
