Our carriage house is built with all brick walls. There is an apt. upstairs, and the furnace and water heater are downstairs in the garage. Consequently, the garage ceiling needs a fire resistant covering.
the problem is that moisture migrates through the brick wall, particularly the one next to the furnace and water heater, because all of the roof (about 34′ by 20′ EPDM) drains to that side and there is no roof overhang. So lots of water runs right down the wall.
Consequently the drywall that is currently installed is disintegrating along the wall. I have to do some other repair work, so I was going to replace at least some of the drywall.
Is there some sort of barrier that I should install between the wall and the drywall? Or should I use something other than drywall, and if so, what? I was wondering about something like Azek, but I wasn’t sure of the fire rating.
Replies
Greetings b,
This post, in response to your question, will bump the thread through the 'recent discussion' listing again.
Perhaps it will catch someones attention that can help you with advice.
Cheers
'Nemo me impune lacesset'
No one will provoke me with impunity
Why not try to solve the moisture problem at the source, with some gutters and downspouts and give the water a better place to go, rather than try to deal with it in other ways that may or may not work?
Not being wise, just asking.
can you get some felt between the brick and the studs if you remove the wallboard?
Edited 2/11/2006 1:22 pm ET by xosder11
There are no studs.
Ahhh. My B. I just read your post again. You said along the wall, meaning where the ceiling meets the wall. I thought you said ON the wall."I'm your huckleberry"
Brian, I doubt that AZEK has the fire rating of Type X drywall. And I think that anything you do that doesn't address the source of the moisture is at best a Band-Aid, and doomed to fail. Is it possible to add an overhang?
Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
I've been mulling over just what to do about the run off. A gutter was once installed, but badly. And there is a very nice walnut tree right next to the building, so any gutter gets pulled off by the weight of those twigs and walnuts.An overhang is what I think would work the best, but would be major construction I think. At a minimum, it is pulling up a section of the roofing and decking and then extending the decking. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to do. That's a spring project.I think even with proper shedding and drainage, some moisture will wick through. Of course it would be a lot less.
I don't know a ton about epdm, but I think new can be glued to old quite reliably as it's a chemical welding process. If that's the case, can a new downhill piece be glued on top of the old uphill piece? Again, I'm out of my depth here, but if that's the case, then adding the overhang might be far easier. It's worth asking. That much moisture, especially if you're somewhere that freezes, is really bad for the brick.
And I'm not at all sure that such a thing as a nice walnut tree exists. I mean, the stuff makes nice rifle stocks and all, but the trees are messier than a teenager and kill everything that tries to grow around them. At least the ones here in the east are like that. Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
Great shade, and the only large tree in either back yard. There are some pictures floating around on BT somewhere. It's very straight-will make good furniture some day. Oh what a mess though. Free walnut stain in even numbered years...Anyway, I remembered something I thought of before (must be the medications taking over). What about forming a large drip edge out of metal, enough to kick the water out away from the wall? What type of metal do you use with EPDM? I'm used to TroCal which has it's own metal that is coated, and you glue the Rubber membrane to the metal. In fact, that is how all the edges are secured. Is it possible to do something in stainless steel and be able to attach the EPDM to it?I'll put up a picture of the roof edge.
A gutter is the answer here, and there shgould already be a metal edge as part of the EPDM roof. You have the gutter made to fit up under that drip lip
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I really don't know much about working with epdm. Mike Guertin and Rick Arnold did an article on the stuff about 8 years ago that might be helpful.
Or you could do the safe thing and listen to Piffin. He's rarely wrong.Andy
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." Robert A. Heinlein
"Get off your dead #### and on your dying feet." Mom
I would not hesitate to trust a carefully welded EPDM seam in a situation like this to extend the overhang, but some water would still blow back against that wall. I hate gutters but this sounds like the right place for one. Of course, the total siolution would be a roof extend with a gutter on it, a screen to keep the walnuts out and a seal sprayed on the brick.Thanks for the compliment
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the building was coated with chimney saver when I had all the ivy ripped off (along with the tree growing in the mortar joint above the electric panel) and had the building cleaned and re-pointed.I hate gutters too. I'm still not sure that having one here is a good idea because of the tree, but I'll keep an open mind.Anyway, do you think it would be possible to form a metal edge to serve as an extension? What type of metal is used with EPDM?
Any metal.But since the EPDM is a 40 year product, I wouldn't use light weight galvanized or AL. Anodized AL or Copper, Maybe even prepainted heavier galvanized - - - which is strong enough to support itself in a self supporting situation like this. Now that I think of it, a piece could be designed such that it is both overhang and gutter so that surface tension of the water leads it into the gutter portion which is shielded from the tree trash by the shape of the OH.
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