I am considering using a product new to me called “home slicker” in our new construction. When using “home slicker” should it go over house wrap? Is “home slicker” as good a system as the rain screen wall system?
Thanks for the input.
George Ryan
I am considering using a product new to me called “home slicker” in our new construction. When using “home slicker” should it go over house wrap? Is “home slicker” as good a system as the rain screen wall system?
Thanks for the input.
George Ryan
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Replies
Go to their website http://www.benjaminobdyke.com/html/products/slicker.html If you are using wood or fiber cement siding, then Home Slicker would go over the housewrap of tar paper (whichever you've chosen).
I attended a class at JLC LIVE! in Portland, OR the first part of November about keeping water out of your walls. The speaker (teacher at the university in Portland, phd and an engineer I think. I'll try and find my notes later if you want) did a number of tests and the 2 scenarios that were the best were building with a rainscreen (#1) and the second was using Tyvek stucco wrap behind lap siding. Tar paper was one of the worst because it absorbed the water that got into the wall and then it spread.
Reason I mention this is that his #1 recomendation was using a rainscreen and Home Slicker was mentioned as a good product.
I was also in that lecture (the speaker was George Tsongas, Portland State U--maybe he has some of his work online) and the rainscreen approach was definitely his favorite. He did his experiments with furring strips rather than any of the rolled materials now available, and mentioned 1/8" as the space he would shoot for. If you're doing board siding it would be easy to simply use cedar lath for furring. Shingles would be easiest over a rolled material.
Thank you for posting that info. I haven't had time to find my notes. Today was a hell day at work.
I thought that was an outstanding class. Are you from WA or OR?
i missed JLClive this year, too bad, i might have seen you there!-->
measure once
scribble several lines
spend some time figuring out wich scribble
cut the wrong line
get mad
Ok, I've only seen it at the shows, but I have installed a 'conventional' rainscreen.
I would consider it for wood shingles, which are difficult to hold off with strips or strapping.
For clapboards, it would be difficult to justify. You can create a rainscreen by simply using strips of feltpaper along each stud, then devise an outlet for the drainage plane at the bottom. It's a good idea to use window screening at bottom to keep insects from nesting.
Obdyke suggests ridge vent material to keep insects out of theirs.
My house was built with Homeslicker - the version that came bonded directly to Typar, so it went up as one piece instead of the matrix that gets rolled over/attached to existing housewrap.
I think it's a great product. The sider bitched about it messing his chalk lines up (a valid point...) but managed to get the hang of it after the first couple of rolls.
The reason that I selected homeslicker instead of a conventional rainscreen installation was that the windows and doors were already ordered and did not have the proper jamb extensions needed to deal with the furring strips.
That, and my builder looked at me like I had an eye in the middle of my forehead when I mentioned the word "rain screen" and described the process.
It cost me about $4K in material/labor upcharges, but I believe I will recoup that money on the durability of the stain (solid stain) applied to my cedar clapboard siding (back-primed)... with the drainage plain and the ability to "dry out" the moisture that WILL get behind the clapboards... the stain job should theoretically last a bit longer than if I had gone the conventional tyvek route. Delay that by a year or two for every job... money comes back.
That... and I have the peace of mind that comes with having been a total PITA when it came to proper flashing and house-wrap application. No water intrusion (and hence... mold/rot) worries here!
It's been raining alot around here lately and I think can see where water is coming out of the bottom course of clapboards (yes, we did use insect screening there... sider really hated that too...), over the flashing, down the face of the water table board and down onto the ground..
Petey
Thanks for the reply. Did you use Tyvek also? or tar paper? And, where are you located. We're in Vermont.
It was a "one step" product consisting of rolls of typar with homeslicker bonded directly to one face... applied directly over our sheathing (properly flashed windows and doors first) as you would any other moisture resistive barrier (typar/tyvek/15 lb. builders felt, etc.).
I didn't require our sider (who also applied the typar/homeslicker) to use the plastic cap nails to apply the product... mainly because the homeslicker matrix (it's like little yellow plastic "furrows") would have interfered with the plastic caps. It was stapled on, I believe... can't remember.
Petey