Insulation and vapor barriers for backyard studio?

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Mossbak

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DIYer overwhelmed w/ vapor barriers, air sealing, thermal bridging, condensation and what works and what rots out walls. Could anyone give prescriptive directions to seal and then insulate w, let's say, rockwool bats for walls and some type of rigid foam for roof?

8' x 16' backyard office in progress in rainy Portland, Oregon (40" of rain a year, climate zone 4). I've framed it and sheathed the back wall so far.
  • In full shade
  • Want to heat it occasionally w plugin heater
  • 2x4 walls 24" on center. Mono-pitch shed roof with 2x6" rafters 16" OC
  • 3/4 plywood on 16' back wall and roof
  • 1/2 ply on remaining walls
  • Still deciding on exterior cladding. Likely stucco. Could use advice on house wrap behind (building papers vs fluid applied, type of building papers, furring strips, drainage mat...).
Thank you!
 

Dana

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In your climate neither reservoir claddings (such as stucco) nor vapor barriers are a particularly good idea, but rainscreened cladding is. This would be especially true for buildings that are in full shade and not consistently heated, since it has scant help from the sun or heating system in drying it out. Stucco hangs on to rain/dew moisture, which leads to higher moisture content in the structural sheathing.

In residential & commercial buildings with breathing/cooking/bathing mammalian occupants there is a significant interior side moisture drive to protect the structural wood from, but for a sporadically used office the major moisture drives are on the exterior. But even in residential buildings in your climate you DON'T want a true vapor barrier on the interior side, since that would impair the ability of the assembly to dry toward the interior. The most vapor retardent interior sheathing you'd want to use is plywood (which is a "smart" vapor retarder), or standard latex paint on gypsum board, detailed as an air barrier. If you're uncomfortable with skipping broadsheet plastics, go with 2-mil nylon (eg Certainteed MemBrain), which is also an "smart" vapor retarder. Smart vapor retarders have variable vapor permeance, and will block the transfer of moisture as water vapor when the humidity of the proximate air is low, but becomes relatively vapor open when the moisture content is high enough to support mold.

BSI029_Figure_03-450x306.jpg

^^^Standard interior latex on gypsum board runs 3-5 perms across the likely range of humidity, which is enough to protect the sheathing in your climate, but is never as vapor open as 2-mil nylon or damp half-inch CDX or OSB. (The "wet cup" mark in the test.)

WVP_graph.png

^^2 mil nylon is extremely vapor open when the humidity in the wall cavity is high, and the limiting factor on drying rate becomes the interior & exterior wall claddings.

Rainscreening the siding with vented gap between the siding & sheathing provides both a capillary break to keep moisture in the cladding from wicking toward the interior and finding susceptible wood, and greatly enhances the drying capacity toward the exterior.

Huber's ZIP system factory-applied weather resistant barrier (WRB) and tapes are expensive compared to housewrap, but pretty idiot proof. The most important thing to get right with any WRB is to lap the window flashing correctly- bulk water leaks are a far greater risk to the structure than vapor diffusion or air transported moisture from air leaks.

Rock wool is fully fireproof, but doesn't do much for moisture resilience. Using blown cellulose (or cellulose batts, or denim batts) will share and redistribute any moisture burden with the structural wood.

Not that it's a residential building, but the IRC code min would be 2x6/R20 or 2x4/R13+ R5 continuous insulation, but that presumes typical residential interior temperatures & humidity. If going with stucco it's good to use a highly vapor retardent layer on the exterior to prevent the high moisture drives of the stucco from reaching the susceptible wood. A layer of 3/4" foil-faced polyiso (R5) over the sheathing, along with a 1/4" rainscreen gap between metal lath and polyiso with both a weep screed at the bottom and top vents to the exterior to promote convective venting of the gap to the exterior should work pretty well. Using a crinkle type housewrap such as Tyvek Drainwrap would be a good idea if the windows are mounted "innie", which puts the window flashing diverting bulk moisture between the polyiso & sheathing, but with only a thin layer of foam it's pretty easy to just flash the windows to divert moisture into the rainscreen gap, even if the housewrap is between the foam & sheathing. Getting the flashing details right are of utmost importance here, since you don't have sun or space heating to help dry the sheathing out.
 

Mossbak

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Thank you, Dana.
  • Is a vapor barrier different than weather resistant barrier? If so, do you recommend WRB on the exterior in this situation?
  • Does rainscreen always have gaps between boards (like pic below) or can it look like more traditional cladding? The ones w gaps seem like amazing habitat for spiders, wasps, and small things which I'd like to avoid.
  • Back wall is very close to property line and needs to be fire rated w x gypsum on interior and exterior and non-flammable insulation. Any considerations there?
iu
 

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Dana

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Thank you, Dana.
  • Is a vapor barrier different than weather resistant barrier? If so, do you recommend WRB on the exterior in this situation?

Yes they are QUITE different.

A vapor barrier blocks water vapor from passing through the assembly as water vapor.

A WRB blocks liquid water from penetrating the assembly, and is always exterior to the moisture susceptible structural sheathing, sometimes exterior to other layers.

  • Does rainscreen always have gaps between boards (like pic below) or can it look like more traditional cladding? The ones w gaps seem like amazing habitat for spiders, wasps, and small things which I'd like to avoid.

No. The air gap in a rainscreen assembly is between the cladding and the adjacent layer be it the WRB, or insulation sheathing. (Did you look at the page I linked to for rainscreens?) It's normal to install air-permeable barriers such as screen or ridge-vent matrix at the vent openings top & bottom to prevent the thin cavity from becoming a critter condo. There are also non-wicking plastic mesh products (eg Obdyke RainSlicker) designed to establish the gap without seriously impeding air flow.

Rainscreen%20-%20vent%20at%20top%20-%20Fine%20Homebuilding_1.jpg

^^Typical rolled bug-screen approach to blocking access to the rainscreen cavity^^

rainscreen-bottom-of-wall.png


^^Cor-A-Vent is the critter barrier in this assembly^^^

Rain_Screen_Wall1.jpg






  • Back wall is very close to property line and needs to be fire rated w x gypsum on interior and exterior and non-flammable insulation. Any considerations there?

Glass faced exterior grade gypsum sheathing is highly vapor permeable, which will put the paper facers of the interior side gypsum and interior paint at risk if the building is not heated and the siding isn't rainscreened. You're pretty much stuck with rock wool for insulation if non-flammable is required by local code. Metal siding would be a better choice than stucco (or even fiber-cement) on those walls, since it won't store water. If continuous exterior insulation is used, rigid rock wool is a good (if expensive) choice.
 

Dana

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In cold areas, vapor barrier is inside of the insulation. In hot areas, it is outside. I don't know what your area would be treated as.

House wrap, such as Tyvek, is a type WRB. It blocks most air flow, but passes enough moisture to let insulation dry out. https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/all-about-water-resistive-barriers


Portland Oregon is DOE/IECC climate zone 4C (marine), and there is no requirement for vapor barriers in residential or commercial wall assembly. In a only sporadically heated sporatically occupied building in the shade a true vapor barrier on any side of the assembly would increase rather than mitigate risk.

Even in hot areas it's not necessarily useful and often harmful to put true vapor barriers on the exterior of residential wall assemblies. CDX plywood & OSB sheathing behave as smart vapor retarders, and do a reasonable job of rejecting exterior moisture drives unless the cladding is masonry or stucco. The whole vapor barrier notion has been oversold (going back to the 1950s) and have probably caused more moisture problems in US houses than they have avoided. (In the Canadian midwest, maybe not, but even in SW B.C. the details have to be done right for vapor barriers to do more good than harm.)

Air tightness has traditionally been UNDER sold- a house has to "breathe", right? (RONG!!!) A square inch of air leak can transport more moisture than a whole wall's worth of vapor diffusion through standard interior latex paint. The IRC only began including air tightness standards beginning with the release of IRC 2009 barely more than a decade ago.

Almost all versions of Tyvek are extremely vapor permeable- north of 30 perms. Typar is close to Class-III vapor retardency (between 1-10 perms) , but still more than twice as vapor-open as standard interior latex on wallboard (3-5 perms). Either would be fine to use with exterior grade fiberglass faced gypsum sheathing.

In a building that doesn't have consistent interior moisture sources or regular heat, the assembly needs to be able to dry to both the interior & exterior at reasonable rates. A small continuous 10 cfm supply-only ventilation approach (or a room dehumidifier that still works at 35F) would probably help keep the interior from getting moldy in it's unheated state.
 
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Mossbak

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Thank you for the thorough and detailed info, Dana. I'll modify my strategy and materials based on this.
 
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