The Building Envelope

The building envelope plays the critical function of separating the outside environment from the inside environment. The elements within the building envelope provide a weathertight defence and regulate the indoor environment, including air quality and thermal efficiency.

Description

This seminar provides an overview of roof and wall assemblies with a focus on walls and the installation requirements and performance of the current commonly used wall cladding systems. It covers the weathertightness performance of wall assemblies and claddings for mid-rise buildings and compares these requirements with typical low-rise residential buildings. The seminar will also look at airtight versus breathable wall and roof assemblies, the ventilation requirements of building interiors with airtight assemblies and ventilation for roof assemblies.

This 21-centre seminar covers a wide range of topics:

Wall claddings:

  • Cladding versus cladding system (proprietary)
  • Installation requirements and performance of common timber, fibre-cement and metal cladding systems relative to mid-rise (10–25 m) buildings

Weathertightness:

  • Basics (4Ds/pressure equalisation) in relation to mid-rise – how they are different to low-rise
  • Exposure loads on claddings/wall assemblies relative to building height (low-rise versus mid-rise and the requirements for managing these loads)
  • E2/VM2 (BRANZ EM7 Performance of mid-rise cladding systems) – the new Verification Method for mid-rise buildings
  • Specific design/façade engineering for mid-rise buildings
  • Claddings/junctions/flashings relative to mid-rise building height
  • Rigid underlays versus flexible wall underlays
  • Weathertight membranes
  • Attachments/penetrations

Airtightness/ventilation

  • Airtight versus breathable residential wall assemblies
  • Air and vapour barriers
  • Airtight versus breathable roof assemblies
  • Framed open roof ventilation
  • Skillion roof ventilation
  • Ventilation requirements for buildings with airtight wall/roof assemblies
  • Passive ventilation
  • Mechanical ventilation

Presenters

The seminar will be presented by:

Greg Burn - NZCD (Arch), Dip Bus (Marketing) - Structure Ltd

Des Molloy - Building Consultant

Further information