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Home You'll be Shocked by how quickly this leaks...
Taking a stone wall and simulating a rainstorm, how long does it take the water to penetrate the wall? In this video, Matt Risinger, master builder, took over and feels that there is an inferior housewrap. They used a woven pin-punch product that is very susceptible to damage and not even waterproof. When penetrated with nails and normal site damage, this becomes a perfect test site. Running a hose on the outside of the stone wall, even though there is an overhang, the bae of the wall will get wet in a rainstorm. There's also a window with a windowsill and its very difficult long term to keep water from penetrating behind the masonry façade when there's an opening, such as the window.For the test, they prepared the inside by taking out some of the foam that was in place and cut out the OSB and cut out the housewrap in one area. How long will it take running the hose on the outside, before liquid water is seen? Within approximately 40 second the water becomes visible in a void area inside the wall. In one minute, it begins to drip. Besides the liquid water issue, when the stone gets soaked in a rainstorm, the front of the stone may look dry once the sun is out, but this is a 5" stone that soaked up a lot of moisture. The moisture will be driven towards the inside of the house. Using an inferior housewrap with holes in it, air and water will come in. Eventually, there will be damage on the back side of the sheathing. What the cavity has going for it is that there's an air gap and mortar droppings did not fill the cavity. Water will probably not hit the face of the face of the house wrap. Water does penetrate this stone. How fast would it penetrate with a window above it? The test involves cutting an inspection hole just below the window. There is packed mortar and packed stone at the sill, so there is a direct connection to the housewrap. At this point, liquid water would actually be running down the face of the housewrap. A tunnel quickly develops, it's raining inside the test area. In fairness, they did break the housewrap, but a nail penetration brings in water as well. Once the OSB gets wet, there's zero chance it will dry. There will be rot issues within a couple of years and the owners may not know for 10-20 years or more and then all of a sudden, the hardwoods or the trim on the bottom will be buckling. This house did not even have weep holes. Using the correct housewrap, flashings and week holes would be mandatory with this stone wall.

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