Sealing exhaust and intake to exterior of home
Hello,
I recently purchased a house that was built by a local home builder. I noticed that the siding is cut open where any pipes exit the house ( furnace exhaust, intake, and sump drain). By looking at the hole I can tell the tyvek is also open and I can even see exposed wood. The contract has a one year warranty but I want to make sure the issue is properly fixed.
Looking at other houses (all built by the same contractor) it looks like they just put some caulking around the pipe. The hole is obviously to large to be sealed with caulking and doing some research I found out that vinyl siding should be allowed to expand and contract so this would not be a lasting solution.
From what I found, the tyvek will need to be sealed with tape or flashing then a j mount would need to be installed and that should be caulk ed to the siding.
I am wondering what the standards are when dealing with holes to the exterior of the house and what I should expect the contractor to do to fix this.
Thank you for your help!
Replies
What can you expect the contractor to do? Not much.
I guess a better question is what is the right way to do this?
Here is a picture of what I am talking about. I am wondering what the standard practice is for these types of things.
Alas, "standard practice" is
Alas, "standard practice" is not necessarily what you want or need, or what code and good building practices calls for.
I would want to see the penetration sealed to the sheathing and housewrap somehow (perhaps with a purpose-made "boot"), and then some sort of flashing over the vinyl (eg, a short piece of the same vinyl, with a tight-fitting hole bored in it).
Note that simply sealing to the vinyl is not sufficient, as air (and some rain) blows behind the vinyl. The primary seal should be to the sheathing and housewrap.
Pete
I would call or look at the site of the maker of your siding. You should be able to get a detail sheet on how decent siding contractors deal with all sorts of penetrations.
then get hold of your builder, who is evidently pretty far out of touch on what his jobs look like.....and you and him/her take a walk around the house both inside and out. If your picture is any example of the quality, you are in for a treat.
best of luck.
schools out
so maybe he vinyl guy had his elementry age kid helping that day and he was on cutting duty.
we need to start a wall of shame forum to keep photos like these.
As a disclaimer I am nowhere near the level of workman as many of this forum's regular respondants, but I will give you an idea of how I would handle a penetration like you show here. To seal the penetration through the house I would utilize an elastomeric caulk that is ideally fire rated around the pipe at the house wrap ensuring good contact between both elements. To provide a finished product the vinyl siding manufacturer should have a fixture block of varying sizes with cutouts that would match the pipe diameter and be color matched to your siding. If the spacing between the pipes is too small for the use of two fixture block often times the will have large rectangular blocks that could accommodate both pipes. I would complete by sealing around the pipe at the fixture block with a thin bead of clear caulking.