Housewrap is a heat bonded polyethylene product that is installed under the cladding of a home or building. Your home's cladding, whether it is brick, stone, stucco, vinyl, cedar shakes, or wood siding, will leak. This added barrier makes your home more weather resistant. Housewrap is an important construction product for any home, but it is especially so for homes in regions with heavy rain or in a wet climate. Consider some of the benefits of using housewrap on your home.

Housewrap's Benefits:

1. Housewrap provides a weather-resistant barrier for your home.
2. It reduces energy loss and subsequent costs.
3. Housewrap protects the frame and walls of your building from water that may be driven in by wind and rain, which can cause mildew, mold, fungus and eventual rot.
4. Because your home will naturally have gaps, holes and cracks housewrap serves a needed air infiltration barrier.
5. This engineered Polyethylene product, while not letting water in, allows moisture from within your home to escape.

Picture at left: Valéron Strength Films®, a manufacturer out of Houston, Texas, has developed a innovate housewrap. The wrap, known as Vortec Drainage Barrier ™, has a bubbled surface that creates an airspace to allow for drainage.

Housewrap - Basic Installation Steps:

• 1) Select a Starting Point. The starting point should be by a corner and at the bottom of your house. Start one to two feet before the corner.
• 2) Staple the beginning of the roll of housewrap with staples that are at least 1" in length. (You can also use button nails.) Insert a staple every foot to every foot and a half.
• 3) Continue unrolling and stapling (or nailing) the product around the corner and along the wall, always maintaining plumb. Cover openings as you go.

• 4)  Once you have gone completely around the building and have come back to your starting point overlap the corner with 2 or 3 feet of housewrap.
• 5) Start a new row of housewrap above the the finished one. This second layer should shingle or overlap the first one.
• 6) You should cover all of the exterior walls of your home with the housewrap, from bottom to top, covering over the openings for windows and doors as you go.
  

• 7) Tape any and all seams with the tape that the manufacturer provides or suggests with their product.
• 8) Cut out doors and windows. Rather than cutting a simple X, cut a Y shape from the top to the middle and a upside down Y from the middle to the bottom. Wrap these flaps through the window to the inside and tape. *

*These steps are a basic guideline for installing housewrap.

Each manufacturer will have their own set of instructions for their product. For best results, and so as not to void any warranties, follow the manufacturers instructions.

Here are some of the housewrap products that are on the market today: DuPont StuccoWrap, Enkabarrier, GreenGuard RainDrop, Home Slicker Plus Typar, Tyvek HomeWrap and Valéron Vortec Drainage Barrier.

Valéron Vortec Drainage Barrier

Valéron has come out with a housewrap product that is the latest advancement in drainage for the side walls of homes. Valéron Vortec's Drainage Barrier is fast and easy to install. It can be installed vertically and diagonally, in addition to horizontally, without hindering water drainage because it is a non-directional housewrap. Vortec is really two products in one: a housewrap and a drainage plane. The multi-directional pattern of bumps and dimples creates an air space behind a home's exterior cladding and its side walls. This air space facilitates multiple drainage channels for wind-driven rain. It is excellent for use behind brick, stucco, vinyl, wood and fiber cement siding.

For more information on this product visit: Valéron® Vortec™.

While some homeowners may wish or be able to install housewrap themselves it is recommended that you get the help of a skilled contractor or home builder that is familiar with installing housewrap. Your contractor may also be able to make product recommendations.