Install vapor barrier concrete block wall

They have the potential to release moisture into the structure, creating an inward vapor that doesn't exist with vinyl siding. Where is the wall located?

If you are adding an exterior wall, anywhere in the house, and you answered yes, to either of the above questions you should consider using a vapor retarder.

In certain climates vapor retarders can be a vital part of the wall construction. However incorrect use can lead to additional moisture problems. Consult an insulation professional in your area if you are unsure where or how to install a vapor retarder or consider a vapor retarder that provides some degree of additional flexibility, like a smart vapor retarder.

A smart vapor retarder is able to adapt its permeability to allow the wall to dry should moisture get trapped in the wall cavity.

A smart vapor retarder is a vapor retarder material with the unique ability to react to changes in relative humidity by altering its physical structure. This material adapts to let moisture out of the wall whether the humidity levels are higher on the outside of the wall winter or the inside summer. A smart vapor retarder is a good solution for areas of mixed climate. Wall construction is important to creating a healthy, comfortable home. Rinse the brush in the bucket constantly and work over the same area a couple of times to ensure good penetration.

This will clean dirt, grease, and other contaminants from the cement as well as efflorescence. Efflorescence is a powdery white substance that remains when moisture dries, leaving behind salts and minerals. Rinse the bucket and brush. Refill with clean, warm water. Use a cloth or sponge to wipe down the wall with the rinse water. Repeat with a fresh batch of water to ensure all the TSP is removed.

Air dry the wall for a few hours, or until completely dry. Measure the length and height of the wall. Add 12 inches to either dimension to ensure plenty of vapor barrier material if you choose polyethylene sheeting -- a plastic vapor barrier. For rigid foam insulation installed as a combination vapor barrier and insulating product, use the height and width to determine the number of sheets of extruded polystyrene needed.

Cut plastic sheeting to the size needed. Use a utility knife or heavy-duty scissors to cut it easily, similar to how you cut wrapping paper for presents. If more than one piece of plastic is needed, cut each with 12 inches excess in either direction. Cut rigid foam insulation only as needed, such as around doorways. Regardless of whether fiberglass insulation is installed in a wall, attic, or crawlspace; the paper facing should always face toward the inside of the home.

You will need to calculate the square footage of your crawl space, so you can buy the appropriate amount of liner. In climates requiring a vapor retarder on the interior surface, a kraft-faced insulation is usually sufficient. When a loose-fill product such as fiberglass or cellulose is installed, a 4 mil continuous polyethylene sheet or a vapor retarder paint on the interior drywall should be used.

Put up the wall plastic Stick the vapor barrier material to the foundation seal tape and then use mechanical fasteners to hold it forever. Drill holes through the plastic and through the seal tape into the block.

If you drill through the seal tape you will prevent the plastic from peeling off when you remove the drill. Normally interior walls do not require a vapor barrier, but there are some situations where it is highly recommended. A continuous plastic vapor barrier behind the drywall will protect the interior walls of these areas from water damage. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Home Learn. Could this odor be caused from the moisture coming from the cement and trapped in the foam underlayment? This could be a distinct possibility. I am not sure about the moisture being trapped in the foam, but there is a distinct possibility that the moisture could be because of some air quality issues.

It might be worth investigating yourself or having someone out to evaluate. We have a home in Houston that has been flooded with the hurricane, and all flooring other than the travertine tile has been removed.

In a small 5 x 5 toilet room in the master bath, we took up clay tile, In order to tile the whole bathroom Including this separate toilet room with matching tile instead of re-installing carpet. It seems to be more gravel and sand. Initially we thought we could just pour concrete in the small area but in reading your information we are now worried about moisture and vapor barriers.

What do you suggest? It sounds like you may have a traditional mortar bed installation here. I am getting a new home built and the contractor put in a walk in conditioned crawlspace. They put down a plastic Barrier which I discovered the other day had a puncture.

Based on what you have outlined, I would say getting the thickest within reason vapor retarder available is going to be your best bet. Keep in mind that there are varying thicknesses available and with the varying thicknesses you obviously get better performance.

Hi Jason, I have a basement concrete slab on grade that is 30 years old. Or would a poly modified medium bed thinset be sufficient? There are industry-accepted test methods for determining the moisture condition of the slab, and I suggest you look into this before doing anything. Next, I am not an expert on modified or unmodified thin-sets, but I would think the thin-set manufacturers would have specifications regarding any if any vapor barrier characteristics. I rather suspect that they would have specifications regarding the acceptable levels of slab moisture before you could actually use their products for an application.

I have a home that I did a substantial renovation on 3 years ago. The home 19yrs old has a concrete slab on grade with a visqueen vapor barrier under the slab. I am not sure what product was used. The boards were removed and the slab was found to have a high moisture content. We could find no reason roof leak, plumbing leak, wall leak, etc.

We left the boards out for over a week until the floor was dry. It was tested and found to be fine. The boards were installed again. About a year later the defects showed up again in other boards in the office. The same process was performed. Now another year later and the defects are showing up in the wood in multiple rooms in the home.

The rooms are separated by a marble floor installed in the main parts of the house. It is very weird. Is it possible that a temperature difference between the slab and room above the wood is causing condensation to build up under the floor? In the pieces of wood that have been removed, sometimes it appears that moisture was between the adhesive and the slab and in some cases it looks like the moisture was between the adhesive and the wood.

If parts of the slab got cold enough to reach its dew point, I suppose condensation could form, but to have it be spotty is indeed strange. What type of moisture testing was done on the slab, and then on the gypcrete?

I am pouring a concrete slab under a pavilion. The soil is very sandy and the slab will be subject to occasional flooding both in summer and winter conditions. Should I put a vapor barrier down before pouring???

This question is usually linked to the type of floor finish being installed, so, what type of finish are you installing on the surface of the concrete i.

Is the pavilion fully enclosed with doors and windows? I have a problem with my walk-in-beer cooler located in a convenience store in W.

The slab is butted right against the outside wall of the building which is an old wooden country store with the wall opened up that has the normal reach in doors to the inside of store. The cooler was installed apparently without any vapor barrier between the slab and the outer wood of the floor structure.

My uncle had the cooler installed appx 10 to 15 years ago. The wood lasted for a good while old saw mill type and we replaced the rotted wood almost 4 years ago. We used treated joists but not treated sub flooring and cheap pine hardwood tongue and groove, I hate pine. During the replacement, I attempted to reduce the moisture transference into the wood by installing some tar paper to act as a vapor barrier between the wood and the concrete slab.

Apparently I may have made worse because we just had to replace the sub flooring again here within the last month. I did use treated sub-flooring this time and covered it with a vinyl plank instead of hardwood. It is still too wet on the wood near slab under the crawlspace. I removed any tar paper that I could and placed a crawl space fan under the store to try to help dry it out. I do not want to replace this floor again anytime soon!

The crawlspace is probably only 1. Please help. Any suggestions? You have a lot going on here and many are moving variables. I would say you are on the right track with insulating the break between the cooler slab and the wood.

The crawl space fan is good, but I would also look at how much ventilation there is to the outside. Honestly, since you have an engineer who has intimate knowledge of your specific project, I think I would follow their advice. I really have no recommendations to add. I am replacing a laminate floor with a new laminate floor it sits on concrete.

I am on the 4th floor of a condo. The concrete sub-floor has no direct access with the ground. The condo has had laminate flooring in it for years. I am putting down the plastic barrier on top of the sub-floor, and then the new Pergo laminate on top of that. I have even allowed the new laminate flooring to acclimate to my house for over a month.

Is there anything else I can do to help the moisture level? For example use Damp Rid for a few days? Does anyone know what that is? Well, I can say that having issues on concrete slabs, other than the ground floor, is more common than you would think. Before you can try for a solution, you need to know how big the problem is.

How high are the moisture levels? Once you know this, then you can try to investigate solutions. I, personally, have never heard of Drylok, but I can tell you that there are numerous products on the market that can help with issues like you have described. If Pergo is the finished product, I would start by calling their technical hotline after quantifying the moisture levels and asking them for recommendations or guidance.

If that fails, I would track down a flooring sundry distributor in your area and ask them about concrete moisture mitigation options. And is a vapor barrier under the new to-be-poured concrete needed? I have no idea if one was originally installed, but my guess is, for s construction, probably not. Today I was sitting in a chair, cleaning tools and putting them in the toolbox… I felt somewhat of a movement, and then my chair began to rock, I kept hearing cracking noises and the floor under me began to lift my chair up.

I was really scared, I thought I was in a movie and dreaming too… I called the fire dept. They came out and said there were no earthquakes reported here… Under the concrete is 21AA crushed concrete I did not put a vapor barrier in before concrete was installed… Every blue moon, the floor used to sweat. I popped up 1 of the tiles, it was really moist under there…can you please tell me what has happened here?

What are the solutions? Wow, what an experience. I hope you are ok. I would call a local building professional to evaluate the situation.

We have had carpet with a mold resistant pad for the past 6 years. My installer was half way through the job laying the tile when I realized some of the tiles were hollow to the tap…i pulled up some of these tiles to see that the thinset was not adhering to the slab brittle actually and in other areas it seemed to adhere fine…under one area of tile we noticed that the thinset adhered but the was some beading water in some of the thinset groves.

I had heard of vapor barrier problems and wondered if this could be the reason behind these problems…. But I worry that sealing my floor will cause more problems with trapped moisture underneath?!

Thanks for writing. Using an epoxy membrane to encapsulate the moisture in the concrete is one of the traditional methods of dealing with excess moisture in concrete. You will need to do research though to make sure warranties for these types of products are applicable to basement settings where hydrostatic pressure may be at play.

Here are a couple of good products to start your research on:. Obviously, I am not endorsing any of these, but they are products that come up in daily discussions. Size is so ft. Does that sound right to you? Prepping for polyurea coating…. These surface meters are meant to be used to identify suspect areas on a floor, not to make installation decisions. That being said, there are some coatings companies that use these devices in their installation documents.

Your best bet is to have the installer provide the installation guidelines for the polyurea that will be installed. This may help you understand better. Great questions. I will send you an email shortly with some additional information and attachments. Hello Jason We are creating a footing for a large piece of equipment that we are installing within our facility.

Rebar framework and equipment mounting studs will be built into the hole and then the hole filled with cement. The current slab has a vapor barrier already installed. The floor is epoxy coated. My question is whether a vapor barrier should be installed under this footing, I assume so, but do we need to bring the barrier up the sides of the hole also?

Being that this is a very specific, unique question, I am enrolling help from one of my industry counterparts from Stego. I just hit him up on Twitter and I am hoping he will help us out. He then closed up the hole with concrete and she put down bamboo flooring thoughout thehouse. We called in a leak detection co and they preformed all their tests and there were no leaks. Then we called the flooring people in and they pulled up the wood where the black was showing and there was moisture between the moisture barrier that was put down and the wood.

We had a moisture test done on the concrete with calcium chloride 72 hrs and that showed no moisture in the concrete, it was just between the moisture barrier and wood. Any ideas? Based on how you outlined the scenario of events, I am assuming that the new bamboo was laid shortly after the floor was patched with fresh concrete? This being said, I have a hard time believing that the concrete was dry enough for flooring installation.

I would want to test in the concrete section in situ relative humidity testing , not just the surface of the concrete. Another possibility, or it could be some combination of both, you may be dealing with is some type of condensation issue, but I would think there would be signs on the rest of the floor if that were the case. Hi Jason. We had a slab poured in the crawl space below our house this summer. The contractor removed the visqueen, poured the cement on the dirt in the crawl space, and then put the plastic back on top of the cement after it cured.

Water is puddling up in the low spots less than an inch and is appearing as a thin layer everywhere else. My understanding is that we need some kind of vapor barrier to protect against radon even though from my research it seems the Pacific NW has a low radon hazard , as well as needing some means of keeping the cement dry. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks much for your help. The downstairs had 12 x 12 tile, I replaced with 30 x 30 porcelain tile in November. In May I noticed small droplets of water seeping out of the grout lines in several areas, by August there was grout discoloration in several areas as well as water seepage.

The seepage continues. Could this be caused by moisture in the slab or no vapor barrier? I ruled out plumbing by a pressure test, and ruled out AC by diverting the drain.

Obviously, there could be other culprits, but these are the two that come to my head immediately. They are a network of flooring inspectors. Have one of them evaluate and give you some input. Building a Lake house and we are concerned that our builder forgot to place the vapor barrier down prior to the pour of the slab. The house is framed, but before we go any further would like to know how we can go about getting objective proof of having a barrier. Should we cut a hole core in order to verify?

If we do this, is there a specific location that is best? Usually performing a core test is the best way to confirm the presence of a vapor retarder. I would consult a local geotechnical company for additional information regarding performing the service. We currently have hardwood flooring 12mm installed on our slab foundation. We do not know if a moisture barrier was utilized or not. We have a very long run of approximately 34 ft.

Several areas including the center of the 34 ft run have become separated and have quite a lot of play in them. Two shorter run areas have screws that we have discovered that are supposedly to keep the floor from buckling and the screws are in about 24 ft runs. We are wanting to replace the flooring. We know we will need a moisture barrier, but because of the issues feel we need to use engineered hardwood vs. Do you have any recommendations? What barrier type is best? We were looking at a lumber liquidator barrier with pre-applied adhesive and would possibly glue the boards in the area where the runs are greater than 27 feet… And is natural hardwood not an option?

And is engineered hardwood any better? AND finally does it matter what we choose if we place a high performing barrier?

Thank you for your time. Always read the warranties. Hi Jason We are laying a new basement floor for bedrooms and new lounge downstairs we are doing the footings 1st — would you recommend laying the plastic barrier in the footings trench also before we do the entire floor?

I would always have to defer back to your local building code on this. They have stated that a pea gravel underlay is enough to take care of any possible moisture issues. However, the build location is next to the retention area for the neighborhood and was making squishy noises when I walked on the ground today.

I refer to the American Concrete Institute Great information. I have a client that owns older apartment communities ranging from units each. Would vinyl planking be a better choice due to fact it would allow for vapor permeability.

There are huge failure issues with bottom up staining, i. Your thoughts would greatly be appreciated. I would also look to see if potentially doing one of the planking systems that allows for a floating installation may not bring something positive to the table.

Good luck! Hi Jason, I live in Las Vegas where it is hot and dry. Do I need to seal the concrete before I install? If so, what would I use?

I think you may be best served contacting nwfa. Although this is not specific to them, they have a recommended installation process for hardwood flooring that utilizes installing plywood on the concrete, prior to the finished product. This may help you in your process. Thanks for any time and insight you may have it is appreciated. This could actually be a dew point issue, instead of a concrete moisture issue. Once you have done this, it will show you what the dew point temperature is, based on those inputs.

You can then measure the surface temperature of the concrete. There should be more than a 5 degree temperature variation between actual and calculated temperature to avoid condensation sweating.

As far as installing the laminate, I would contact the manufacturer of whatever product you chose and have them give you some recommended solutions. My fear would be more about the floor being ruined than mold.

Just my opinion. I have a concrete slab on grade with a plastic vapor barrier below. Should I put a 2nd vapor barrier above the concrete floor before putting down floating laminate floor? Thank you for the question Gary. If you are unable to find the answer in their written documentation, I would call their technical center. Can you please provide further clarification? Sorry you are having these issues.

Unfortunately, the re-purposing of areas, whether commercial or residential, can lead to problems like this. Now that being said, people re-purpose all the time.

So, in my opinion, you have two options:. I have a living room that used to be a garage. We put down laminate flooring that is now warped. We put down the recommended barrier with the plastic backing before laying the floor. We had thought about the vinyl laminate flooring but we are afraid it will mold underneath. My son has severe lung disease and cannot have any mold or mildew. Please help!! I need advice on a product that I can paint or apply to a cement floor on a porch that is being converted to a sunroom.

The building inspector for my community says I need to apply a vapor barrier to the cement it has none underneath to avoid future mold problems. I need a product that will allow me to put down tile, wood or laminate products. Your email address will not be published.