Housewrap 1

While waiting for the roofing order to arrive, I decided to move on with other things. I spent two whole days dubbing around with the sheathing on the north and south walls--closing gaps between the trailer and the sheathing, finishing off the sheathing on the north wall, etc.

I began the process of wrapping the house by putting on a layer of the radiant barrier on the longest stretch of the southern wall. (The gap you see in the photo below--where the upper layer of radiant barrier is not well tacked down--is where the large window is located to the west of the door.) Then I snapped a line to guide my installation of the housewrap.

Having spent probably way too much time researching the possibilities for housewrap, I ended up deciding to use asphalt felt rather than one of the newer wraps (like Tyvek or Typar). While the newer plastic wraps are supposedly easier to work with, I found a lot of testimony online from carpenters who say that, if they were going to install cedar shingles on their own home, they would use asphalt felt as the housewrap. The felt will not react with the tannins in the cedar, and apparently the felt will do a better job of handling any drops of water that may infiltrate behind it. I am using 30# felt, which exceeds building-code requirements.

Installing housewrap is a challenge when working alone. I concluded that the felt is actually easier to manage than the radiant barrier because it is stiff enough to stay rigid, rather than crumpling into an unmanageable lump. I do not hold the entire roll of either material against the house and unroll it; I do not have enough hands and strength to do all that. Instead, I unroll the material on the ground, cut the appropriate length, roll it back up, and unroll that piece against the house, stapling as I go. Here is the first layer of felt installed.

I got a little more than that done, but I ran out of daylight and ended up scrambling after dark to get everything battened down before the arrival of this weekend's storm. Snow tomorrow? Really?!

In the meantime, the roofing arrived. Doesn't look like much, does it? Thankfully, I had some help getting it up off the ground before the storm. It's a lot heavier than you might imagine.

Also see:
Housewrap 2
Housewrap 3
Housewrap 4


Below are photos of sunrise on Halloween morning.