Understanding and accounting for moisture

By Emma Peterson. 

Moisture in the building industry can be catastrophic, but if managed properly it shouldn’t cause issues.  

Many contractors have faced struggles with damp materials or moisture intrusion on their jobsites. Working with saturated materials can create long-lasting structural issues, but slowing projects down to wait for things to dry out is often not an effective solution in a deadline-based industry like contracting. That’s why VaproShield designed their innovative SlopeShield® Plus Self-Adhering membrane. In this episode of Roofing Road Trips®, Karen Edwards spoke to Dan Clancy of VaproShield about this product and how it mitigates the issues with moisture.  

The core of what SlopeShield Plus does is permeability. Permeability is how much water vapor a material allows to transmit through. So, in addition to being already waterproof like typical membranes, SlopeShield is permeable. Dan elaborated, “If you have rainwater, snow, bulk water, etc., when you put SlopeShield Plus down, it's going to shed that water. It's true waterproofing. But if there's any kind of subsurface moisture, which is really the crux of the membrane, you're giving it that opportunity to escape out through the permeability.”  

This moisture management technology makes SlopeShield one of the best membranes available. It can be used on new installations, but it also shines when used on reroofing projects. Dan explained, “With the re-roof, SlopeShield is designed to go over existing materials... And this isn’t just in theory, we have data, we have specific projects where we've done this. We’ve seen it work to install SlopeShield Plus over existing insulation, existing building materials, that would have otherwise had to have been disposed of.” It is able to do this because the permeability of the membrane allows any water vapor in those existing materials to escape while the waterproofing keeps further precipitation out. Not only does this save the owner money and the contractor time, but it also presents a more sustainable way of reroofing. 

Read the transcript or Listen to the episode to find out more about VaproShield’s SlopeShield Plus!