INTRODUCTION TO WATERPROOFING AND ENVELOPE DESIGN.

Waterproofing is the combination of materials or systems that prevents water intrusion into structural elements of a building or its finished spaces. Basic waterproofing and envelope design incorporates three steps to ensure a watertight and environmentally sound interior:

1. Understanding water sources likely to be encountered.   Water likely to penetrate building envelopes is most commonly from rainwater on abo grade components and groundwater intrusion below-grade. Other sources also should considered as appropriate, such as melting snow, overspray from cooling towers, la scaping sprinklers, and redirected water from such...

2. Designing systems to prevent leakage from these sources.   Once a complete understanding of the potential sources of water and forces that can move this water into an envelope is gained for a particular structure, the design must incorporate effective systems to prevent such intrusion. Expected conditions for a particular geographic area that will affect the

3. Finalizing the design by properly detailing each individual envelope component into adjacent components.  
Once the sources of water have been identified, the types of systems to prevent leakage chosen, and the materials selected to provide necessary aesthetics to the finished product, the envelope design must be carefully constructed and reviewed to...