Remedies for retrofitting a bad window flashing job?
We’re at the point of our home construction where we have the housewrap and windows in. It’s been pretty wet lately and today we noticed we have water coming in above a lot of the windows.
The contractor may not have flashed these properly. It looks like they ran the housewarap inside on all 4 sides, then put in the window, then caulked and taped the flanges to the house wrap.
Part of the issue may be that we’re using hydrogap housewrap which has a lot of plastic dimples on it.
From what I can tell, water is collecting on the house wrap and getting sucked into tiny gaps between the housewrap that flashing tape via surface tension, which is then following the housewrap into the house.
Question: short of pulling out every window and reflashing/wrapping (which would honestly put a big dent in our budget/timeline) is there anything we can do?
I was thinking of two options:
1) adding another layer of flashing using liquid flashing over the housewrap and tape which I think would probably work better on this housewrap
2) cut back the housewrap above each window a foot or so, flash the flange to the sheating, then tuck another 16″ or so of housewrap under the cut back and flash that on top of the window, that way all of the wrap is lapped properly over the window flange.
Either of those feasible ideas?
Replies
If your budget and timeline are taking a significant hit, get a lawyer- it's almost a civic duty, to protect the community. There's no excuse for the kind of installation you describe. YouTube has lots of installation videos. Google "north american fenestration standard" Ideally, the contractor would be required to remove and properly reinstall the windows, but good luck with that- you're probably thinking more in terms of a restraining order.
I'd do some testing with a hose nozzle to get a clear understanding of the source of the water, ideally on the windy side of the house, to get some positive pressure behind the water. After that, I'd use a J-roller on all the tape. I like the idea of liquid flashing, IF it will adhere well to the tape and the HydroGap- Obdyke ( 800-523-5261 ) ( https://www.benjaminobdyke.com/contact-us ) might be able to give you advice there.
Option 1 would help address water from above, which is good, but wind pressure can drive it in from the sides (and even the bottom,), so you should address that too. Some installation methods run tape directly over the sheathing, then run the housewrap over the tape- you want something like 9" overlap on untaped or unflashed vertical seams.
Housewrap must always lap over proper flashing. FHB has lots of instructional videos, most you can watch without a membership. The guys who did this job will probably be out of business before their shoddy work is noticed. Who knows what other shortcuts they took.