It doesn’t matter how high-end your dust barrier is—if you’re putting a duct hose through it, you’re going to need a lot of tape and probably an extra pair of hands. It’s tough to cut and even harder to seal. It’s one of those problems that was so loud in that very specific product category that ZipWall recently introduced its new Dust Barrier PassThrough to address it.
The process goes like this: Rip the barrier, pass the hose through, seal the tear with a ton of tape, and hope the weight of the hose doesn’t rip it further.
“You can put it anywhere on the barrier,” says a ZipWall spokesperson. “It keeps you from needing to tear the barrier, or use any kind of tape. There is no chance of the barrier ripping.”
Traditionally, you’d pass a duct hose through a barrier for a number of reasons, such as for using negative air or an air scrubber. The process goes like this: Rip the barrier, pass the hose through, seal the tear with a ton of tape, and hope the weight of the hose doesn’t rip it further.
The PassThrough, a plastic hoop that clamps over a section of barrier, addresses both the seal’s integrity and the hose’s weight. “The product attaches to the poles that hold up ZipWall’s Dust Barrier, so the poles are carrying the weight of the hose,” she says. Once the product is sealed in place (the seal can be put anywhere on the barrier), a circle of barrier is cut out, and the hose is passed through. “It accommodates up to a 12-inch hose,” she continues, “and it has a nylon sleeve on either side that you cinch to seal the opening completely.”
The cherry on top, so to speak, is that once the job is complete—or at least once the duct hose is no longer needed—the barrier isn’t left with an unsealable hole. Thanks to that nylon sleeve, you have the freedom to seal the barrier completely.