Masonry Buildings and Dealing with Moisture

Many, many commercial architects and commercial builders appreciate the timeless beauty of brick buildings. It makes a statement. It is solid. It lasts. With virtually no maintenance.

That is, virtually no maintenance if the brick is installed in such a way that it can “breathe” – to release the trapped moisture from the airspace in the cavity behind the brick.

The current prevalent approach to dealing with moisture in commercial construction is rubber membranes and some kind of weep hole. However, weep holes are only effective with the weeping part of the job – meaning that the weep holes only allow liquid moisture to be released from the cavity. And not only must the moisture be in liquid form, but it must be able to run to weep, i.e. leak, to escape from the cavity. Many of the design and construction practices today funnel liquid water to weep it out, however the unfortunate reality is that much of what gets trapped in the air space behind the brick is moisture in vapor form. This water vapor can do a lot of damage when it is trapped. Temperature differences create pressure differences. This creates vapor drives and the moisture condenses where architects, builders and ultimately your owners and tenants don’t want it to…because it can cause damage if not addressed.