Joe Lstiburek of Building Science Corporation takes us on an interesting journey through the evolution of residential air barriers over the course of 40 years.
The earliest example is what Lstiburek calls the period of “black death,” where acoustical sealants were black in color and used to seal overlapping sheets of 6 mil polyethylene to create a continuous air barrier.
Over time, the theory has changed completely, as Lstiburek writes: "We started off with locating it on the inside and finally ended up with it on the outside. We started by combining it with a vapor barrier on the inside then we finished by combining it with a weather resistive barrier (WRB) and continuous insulation on the outside."
Read the full story at Building Science.