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Warning: 6 months of building with the wrong vapor barrier location
I was putting the vapor barrier on the outside of the insulation on a house in Portland last spring. An inspector walked by, took one look, and said "you're trapping moisture against the sheathing." Turns out in our climate it should be on the interior side. I had already buttoned up two walls on my own house. Has anyone else had to rip out work because of a code inspector catching something simple?
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the_patricia3mo ago
Oh man, that's rough. A buddy of mine did the exact same thing on his cabin up near Seattle last year. He had the vapor barrier stapled right to the outside of the insulation, thought he was doing it right. Then his building inspector showed up and basically said the same thing, that warm air would hit the cold sheathing and cause condensation. He had to pull down all the drywall he had just hung and flip everything around. It was a whole weekend of work and a lot of swearing. He still gets grumpy when someone brings up vapor barriers.
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kaid593mo ago
Two walls in, I feel ya, I once framed a whole shed door backwards and nailed it shut.
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