Site Built Windows and Water Management

Hi, I'm Jake with Arrow Building and today we're at our Cantercourt project. This is just a window replacement of some site built windows that our firm's working on and I wanted to discuss with you best practices for water management when it comes to site built windows. And so the water management details of this window actually start in the rough framing process. The sloped sill that we we add in the rough framing process pitches to the outside meaning that if anything gets past anything else that we've done here, any water or anything like that, it has to hit that sill and feed to the outside. If it comes to the outside then we're not worried about what happens. If it goes to the inside then we have water issues that we have to deal with, mold, moisture, anything like that. So the first part is that sloped sill. The next step is this air and water barrier from Prosico. So the weather barrier that goes on the wall is their Cat 5. It's a roll-on product but inside the sills we have a red product and a pink product. So we actually have three products. The first one is the joint and seam. It's pink. It comes in a sausage tube or a caulking gun. You fill all the seams and nail heads. You tool it out just a little bit. It's a really high fibrous product so it has the flexibility to deal with change of direction, change in materials, things like that. After that then we have the red product. It's their Fast Flash. So it's made to go in all the rough openings. So on the sill of this window we have our joint and seam wherever we transition from one product to the other, you know, framing to OSB or nail heads. Then we have the red Fast Flash that pitches, that follows the pitch and out to the outside. So the sill is waterproof. So literally we could just block off the inside, spray it with a garden hose, all the water still comes to the outside. Then we move on to the framing of the window. When it comes to the framing of the window, these are site-built windows. We built them out of western red cedar. They are put together entirely with stainless steel fasteners for longevity. The glass is installed from the outside meaning that the stop on the inside is completely continuous. So there's a dam behind the glass as well in our sill. Everything is primed and painted on all six sides before it gets installed. Nothing is exposed to the elements. So not only do we use western red cedar that's going to have good longevity, but it's also primed with a great exterior high stick oil-based Benjamin Moore primer. And then we're putting two to three coats of Benjamin Moore's Moore Guard exterior paint on the outside. So we should have an assembly that's going to last a super long time with just the wood of our frame. After that frame goes in, you can see our black zip tape here. So we have two different manufacturers, which is not ideal normally, but Prosico doesn't make a tape that we can flash from our frame over to their air barrier. So on a traditional flange window, you'd have a flange there that then bridges the gap between glass and frame and the weather barrier. Since we don't have that here, we have from the edge of our wooden frame over to the Prosico. Prosico is okay with this. We double checked with them before we used it. It's a sticky product on a sticky product. They're not worried about the pressure sensitive tape adhering long term. We aren't either because we love the zip products. The tape is put on and then rolled so that it will stick long term. It would be optimal for us to use a vapor open tape here because the zip tape is not, so that we had a little higher drying potential, but we're not too terribly worried about it because we're vapor open to the inside. So any moisture that gets into this opening can drive its way in, or it can find its way into the wall cavity and then into the inside. Because this was a almost emergency repair for all this, we didn't have time to come by a vapor open tape in Columbia, which is not a problem. I don't think this is ever going to be an issue. We consulted with a couple different architects and building science people to make sure that we're in the right here, and they all agreed with us. Next, purely for aesthetics, we have a brick mold. Brick mold manufacturers, for some reason in our area, they make it entirely out of finger jointed yellow pine or PVC. So we use PVC. It's going to last longer. We have a gap at the bottom, so it's not going to hold or wick any water. It's back cut on the back so that it doesn't hold any water up against our zip tape. And then our stops will go in holding the glass in today, and everything will fish all the water to the outside. We're not worried about what happens. We think these windows are going to last way longer than the original windows that were here because the water management system that we've put in place. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook. Thanks for your time.