Air-Sealing Strategies for a Remodel
Jon Beer shares air-sealing strategies at wall and roof sheathing connections, top and bottom plate connections, and window and door openings.
Sponsored by Loctite TITE FOAM
For the retrofit of this 1950s home, air-sealing before insulation was critical to limit the potential for air infiltration with any seasonal movement. Jon Beer and his crew used Loctite TITE FOAM products not only to meet the home’s airtightness goals but also to give this old home a second chance with renewed energy efficiency and durability.
Here’s the transcript:
We’re here today in Cornwall, New York, at a retrofit project we’re doing. We’re going to talk a little bit about how we’re air-sealing the house using Loctite TITE FOAM products. We have three primary areas of focus that we are trying to seal before insulation goes in. Those areas are wall-and-roof sheathing connections, top and bottom plate connections, and window and door openings.
Air-sealing the wall plate and sheathing connections
One primary area of focus for us to seal with the Loctite foam was our wall-plate and wall-sheathing connections. Here we focused on the top plate and the bottom plate and, in particular, on areas where the sheathing and the plate meet. Those two items will move during seasonal changes, and the expansion and contraction can potentially lead to air infiltration in those areas. So in an effort to build a pretty tight house, we are opting to seal those areas with Loctite’s Gaps and Cracks. The foam itself will stay flexible during seasonal movement, and we’re ensuring that we’re introducing a flexible air-sealing material there. That part of the wall won’t become subject to air infiltration.
Air-sealing the roof-and-wall connection
Another area that we’re focusing on is where the roof and wall come together. You’ll see behind me that we have installed a pretty nice bead. The idea with that is we are trying to seal that area, which is prone to seasonal movement. We’re putting in a flexible material that’ll ensure that the area stays airtight throughout the year, and it doesn’t depend on the quality of the insulation install to meet our goals for a pretty tight house.
Mechanical penetrations are also often a source of air infiltration, so for holes over 1 in. wide we use TITE FOAM Big Gaps to seal them really well.
Air-sealing window and door openings
The last area we’re going to talk about here is window and door openings. We’re using the low-expansion TITE FOAM Windows and Doors to seal these openings. We install this product as soon as we finish installing the doors and the windows. Generally those are coupled together so that we don’t forget about it and that we’re continuing to dry in the house as we build. We generally start bottom corner; we work left to right and we inject the foam to fill that void between the rough opening and the window or door unit. I mentioned this is low expansion. This foam will expand to fill that void, but not so much that it risks damaging the window or door unit by bowing it or making it hard to open.
One thing we also like is that all of those qualities help us air-seal parts of the existing structure and let us achieve our indoor air-quality goals and general tightness goals and bring an older house into the 21st century. And it gives an existing structure a second chance.
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Most of the spaces being filled in this video are small cracks. In my experience, little foam actually penetrates those small cracks. Rather, the foam really creates a fillet over the inside corner. I have seen this fillet fail. The windows and doors shown here have small gaps created by rough openings that are a close fit to the windows. Normally when we are ready to trim, we carve away the cured foam, and since little got into the space between the window and the RO there will be unsealed holes. Sizing openings to provide 1/4" minimum on all sides allows the foam to actually be in the space, not on top. At sill and plate junctions, applying a gasket material to the face of the frame members before sheathing will provide a superior, longer-lasting, less-disruptable air seal.