Not just any paper – building paper. Or house wrap or Tyvek or any number of trade names. Its the paper-like material that goes under the siding and on top of your sheathing on your house or apartment building.
Why so important?
There are alot of very scientific papers out there that fully explain it, but in essence you building sweats or condensates. This is normal and its the difference in air temperature between two materials. This material also keeps outside moisture from coming in as well. Basically it keeps your building water tight and lets it breath at the same time. Hi-tech NASA stuff
Think cold beer in hot sun.
When your building doesn’t have a house wrap under your siding – especially vinyl siding it can be bad…very bad. As in thousands of dollars bad.
Example
I’ve got a great apartment community client who unfortunately never had Tyvek installed when the property was built. The property is only 12 years old and this was definitely building code back then…. but that’s a whole nother blog post lol. So without Tyvek, water has found its way behind the vinyl siding and makes the windows leak. The property so far has spent tens of thousands getting repairs done. Great for me bad for them?
This is a pic of my guys (Shawn, Brice and Craig – left to right) on end wall temporarily removing all of the siding and trim, installing Tyvek, then installing proper flashings above and around the windows and bandboard, then reinstalling the siding and trim. BOOM leaks solved.
We’ve literally done this on dozens of locations on this particular property and as you can see if they’d just done it the first time the right way you wouldn’t be reading a blog about the importance of paper.
