The speaker is a little hammy, but he's doing (more or less) legitimate science, and he laid out a bunch of principles I didn't understand before.
In particular, the different layers of the wall (ballistic, water, insulation, vapor, structure) really need to go in the right order, and at literally every exterior joint in the house you need to match up all five layers. There are also several layers that it is crucial to vent/drain.
It's extremely complicated, and for the most part just obeying code and convention will only get you 80% of the way there.
It seems to me there are also anti-patterns ensconced in code and convention. The idea that insulation goes inside the structural layer for example. You want your insulation layer to be unbroken.
This talk really gave me a foundation for understanding how moisture works in a building enclosure through seasons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld8pzIu45F8
The speaker is a little hammy, but he's doing (more or less) legitimate science, and he laid out a bunch of principles I didn't understand before.
In particular, the different layers of the wall (ballistic, water, insulation, vapor, structure) really need to go in the right order, and at literally every exterior joint in the house you need to match up all five layers. There are also several layers that it is crucial to vent/drain.
It's extremely complicated, and for the most part just obeying code and convention will only get you 80% of the way there.
It seems to me there are also anti-patterns ensconced in code and convention. The idea that insulation goes inside the structural layer for example. You want your insulation layer to be unbroken.