Immediate performance and long-term resilience start with the building envelope at VISION House Transcend.
VISION House Transcend, a net-zero, all-electric, solar-powered prefabricated home in the Colorado Rockies, built by California-based prefab homebuilder Dvele in partnership with Green Builder Media, provides a living case study in resilience and healthy living. The project showcases some of the most innovative technologies on the market today that support smart energy management and decarbonization, including a building envelope constructed with air and water barrier products from PROSOCO.
“Partnering on the Transcend model home was a no-brainer for us, because we’re interested in things like energy costs, indoor air quality, thermal comfort, thermal consistency, and how quiet a space is,” says Demian Weaver, director of product strategy for PROSOCO’s Building Envelope Group. “Beyond being a visually beautiful home, our hope is the Transcend home will also be a comfortable and energy-efficient space to live in.”
In addition, Weaver says they “geek out about performance metrics on buildings,” so they are excited about the opportunity to access post-occupancy data on one of their projects.
Contributing to Net Zero, Resilient, Healthy Living
Regardless of the number of panes on the windows, the thickness of the walls or the inches of insulation, houses are made of multiple building materials which meet up to create transitions, Weaver explains.
“Around and between those transitions are opportunities for air and water to leak, even in cracks that span mere millimeters,” he says. “Paper goods or house wraps simply don’t cut it if your goal is net-zero. Our fluid-applied Cat 5 system creates a monolithic, continuous membrane that is vapor-permeable. When condensation forms on the inside of a wall, as it naturally and always does, it needs to be able to exit the wall assembly. Our silyl-terminated polymer (STP) products easily allow vapor molecules to escape a wall, instead of becoming trapped inside and causing mold and other water-related deterioration and damage.”
PROSOCO’s Cat 5 system was optimized for Passive House, LEED, WELL and Living Building Challenge projects and are Red List Compliant. The Cat 5 system of products (including Cat 5, FastFlash, AirDam, and Joint & Seam Filler) have also all been awarded a Declare label by the International Living Future Institute, which enables manufacturers to communicate their product ingredients to promote transparency and accountability, according to Weaver.
While homebuyers may not always have a detailed technical understanding of the importance of the building envelope, they prioritize safety, resilience and durability, according to Green Builder Media’sCOGNITION Smart Data™ surveys. Additional top concerns include energy bills and savings, as well as health and indoor air quality.
At VISION House Transcend, PROSOCO’s full Cat 5 system of products to waterproof and air-tighten the building envelope supports all those priorities.
The Cat 5 system includesJoint & Seam Filler to fill in any seams, tiny holes and penetrations through the exterior sheathing;FastFlash around window and door rough openings;Cat 5 as a coating to cover the field of the wall; andAirDam as a weather-tight interior sealant that prevents air movement around window and door assemblies, Weaver explains.
Standing Up to Climate Challenges
PROSOCO founded their air barrier systems on silyl-terminated polymer (STP) chemistry to help contractors deliver structures that perform even in severe weather conditions such as in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
“We’re proud to say our R-Guard products have helped thousands of buildings meet and exceed their performance expectations in coastal regions with some of the harshest weather conditions imaginable throughout the country,” Weaver says. “The Cat 5 System got its name because it will withstand positive and negative pressure beyond 155-mph wind driven rains, which is equal to a Category 5 hurricane.”
The system provides this level of climate resilience for several reasons.
“First, the Cat 5 System is fully comprised of STP products,” Weaver says. “That means they are all intimately compatible and will cure into a monolithic coating that is resilient over time, unlike other systems made up of dissimilar chemistries that will degrade at different rates in the wall cavity due to heat, moisture and wind pressure.”
Second, Cat 5 is a system of layers that build up to provide thickness and protection where it counts, Weaver says.
“We have Joint & Seam Filler going into board seams and gaps at approximately 30 mils [mils are one-thousandth of an inch thick], then the transitions have FastFlash coming over that at approximately 15 mils, and then the Cat 5 field coating is applied at 12-15 mils,” Weaver explained. “All of this provides a system of 40-plus mils of STP material in the most compromised areas of a structural backup wall.”
Third, these products are all fluid-applied, which means they have intimate contact with all components of the backup wall and become part of the structure, Weaver added.
“Most air barrier options are designed with flashings that can suffer air bubbles, fish-mouths and delamination, or house wraps that can tear and are integrated with flashings and tapes that suffer from those same problems,” he says.
An Invisible Hero in High-Performance Homes
Immediate performance and long-term resilience start with the building envelope at VISION House Transcend.
VISION House Transcend, a net-zero, all-electric, solar-powered prefabricated home in the Colorado Rockies, built by California-based prefab homebuilder Dvele in partnership with Green Builder Media, provides a living case study in resilience and healthy living. The project showcases some of the most innovative technologies on the market today that support smart energy management and decarbonization, including a building envelope constructed with air and water barrier products from PROSOCO.
“Partnering on the Transcend model home was a no-brainer for us, because we’re interested in things like energy costs, indoor air quality, thermal comfort, thermal consistency, and how quiet a space is,” says Demian Weaver, director of product strategy for PROSOCO’s Building Envelope Group. “Beyond being a visually beautiful home, our hope is the Transcend home will also be a comfortable and energy-efficient space to live in.”
In addition, Weaver says they “geek out about performance metrics on buildings,” so they are excited about the opportunity to access post-occupancy data on one of their projects.
Contributing to Net Zero, Resilient, Healthy Living
Regardless of the number of panes on the windows, the thickness of the walls or the inches of insulation, houses are made of multiple building materials which meet up to create transitions, Weaver explains.
“Around and between those transitions are opportunities for air and water to leak, even in cracks that span mere millimeters,” he says. “Paper goods or house wraps simply don’t cut it if your goal is net-zero. Our fluid-applied Cat 5 system creates a monolithic, continuous membrane that is vapor-permeable. When condensation forms on the inside of a wall, as it naturally and always does, it needs to be able to exit the wall assembly. Our silyl-terminated polymer (STP) products easily allow vapor molecules to escape a wall, instead of becoming trapped inside and causing mold and other water-related deterioration and damage.”
PROSOCO’s Cat 5 system was optimized for Passive House, LEED, WELL and Living Building Challenge projects and are Red List Compliant. The Cat 5 system of products (including Cat 5, FastFlash, AirDam, and Joint & Seam Filler) have also all been awarded a Declare label by the International Living Future Institute, which enables manufacturers to communicate their product ingredients to promote transparency and accountability, according to Weaver.
While homebuyers may not always have a detailed technical understanding of the importance of the building envelope, they prioritize safety, resilience and durability, according to Green Builder Media’s COGNITION Smart Data™ surveys. Additional top concerns include energy bills and savings, as well as health and indoor air quality.
At VISION House Transcend, PROSOCO’s full Cat 5 system of products to waterproof and air-tighten the building envelope supports all those priorities.
The Cat 5 system includes Joint & Seam Filler to fill in any seams, tiny holes and penetrations through the exterior sheathing; FastFlash around window and door rough openings; Cat 5 as a coating to cover the field of the wall; and AirDam as a weather-tight interior sealant that prevents air movement around window and door assemblies, Weaver explains.
Standing Up to Climate Challenges
PROSOCO founded their air barrier systems on silyl-terminated polymer (STP) chemistry to help contractors deliver structures that perform even in severe weather conditions such as in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
“We’re proud to say our R-Guard products have helped thousands of buildings meet and exceed their performance expectations in coastal regions with some of the harshest weather conditions imaginable throughout the country,” Weaver says. “The Cat 5 System got its name because it will withstand positive and negative pressure beyond 155-mph wind driven rains, which is equal to a Category 5 hurricane.”
The system provides this level of climate resilience for several reasons.
“First, the Cat 5 System is fully comprised of STP products,” Weaver says. “That means they are all intimately compatible and will cure into a monolithic coating that is resilient over time, unlike other systems made up of dissimilar chemistries that will degrade at different rates in the wall cavity due to heat, moisture and wind pressure.”
Second, Cat 5 is a system of layers that build up to provide thickness and protection where it counts, Weaver says.
“We have Joint & Seam Filler going into board seams and gaps at approximately 30 mils [mils are one-thousandth of an inch thick], then the transitions have FastFlash coming over that at approximately 15 mils, and then the Cat 5 field coating is applied at 12-15 mils,” Weaver explained. “All of this provides a system of 40-plus mils of STP material in the most compromised areas of a structural backup wall.”
Third, these products are all fluid-applied, which means they have intimate contact with all components of the backup wall and become part of the structure, Weaver added.
“Most air barrier options are designed with flashings that can suffer air bubbles, fish-mouths and delamination, or house wraps that can tear and are integrated with flashings and tapes that suffer from those same problems,” he says.
To see PROSOCO’s Cat 5 System perform, check out their capability to test products to extreme weather conditions in one of our storm chambers.
By Michele Lerner, Associate Editor
Michele Lerner is an award-winning freelance writer, editor, and author who writes about real estate, personal finance, and business.Also Read