Matt Travis, our Design Verification Testing Specialist spreads R-GUARD Joint & Seam Filler on a mocked-up rough opening of DensGlass during an in-house demo he put on Friday. Amy Fick, sales strategy team leader, watches.
No, not “Demolition Day.” “Demo” as in “Demonstration” Day.
Matt Travis, our design verification testing specialist, gave us an in-house demonstration Friday, and again today, of the remarkable properties of our relatively new FastFlash products for waterproofing rough openings prior to window installation. He also demonstrated our absolutely new Design Verification Test Chamber that he and Ron Tatley, BEI, built specifically for trade shows.
As part of his demo, Matt switches on the new Design Verification Test Chamber he helped build.
The traditional way of detailing rough openings is to wrap them in peel and stick membranes. But their adhesive backing eventually fails, and lets water get into the walls through the seams of the rough openings. The wrapping itself can be difficult and time consuming, as most who have done it can attest.
Matt’s demo showed just how simple and effective waterproofing a rough opening can be.
Matt "guns" Joint & Seam Filler on to the mock-up everywhere water might be able to get in, including the seams between the wood and the Densglass, and even the nail penetrations. That's Melissa Hopkins, our trade show & event co-ordinator looking on.
This is one of the things that gets specifiers and contractors excited about FastFlash. After spreading the Joint & Seam Filler, Matt simulates an unexpected rain shower with a pump-up sprayer. Water does not harm or delay the installation.
Even though the Densglass and Joint & Seam Filler are still wet, Matt guns on R-GUARD FastFlash liquid flashing, which is also instantly waterproof. You'd have to wait for everything to dry out first, if you were applying peel and stick membranes. That's our Network Administrator Parker Byron (L) and Lab Manager Tom Stalnaker in the background.
Matt details the rough opening by spreading the FastFlash. It's a lot simpler than trying to wrap the opening in a peel and stick, which you couldn't do anyway, because everything is still wet from Matt's simulated rain shower.
After Matt has detailed a sample section of the rough opening, company President David W. Boyer talks to the group, and sprays more water on the mockup -- to show FastFlash's instant-waterproofing capability -- what David calls the "Wow Factor." FastFlash is also vapor-permeable, so wet wood and Densglass beneath it can still dry out.
In the next part of the demo, we go inside, where Matt shows us the brand new test chamber he built with Ron Tatley, of BEI. The chamber has rough-opening mock-up displays on each side, showing how the FastFlash system works, and video displays up top for application footage and presentations.
The real star of the show is the chamber itself, within which Matt can create weather conditions ranging from a mild Spring day to a Category 5 hurricane. Looking through the glass, you can see a mocked-up window getting the brunt of the chamber's water and air pressure.
The chamber's air speed indicator shows that the window is being bombarded with air pressure and water-column equivalent to 160 mph wind-driven rain.
At the back of the chamber, we see the window as it would appear on the inside of a house. Note that despite 160 mph wind-driven rain conditions on the other side, no water comes through. This mock-up was done with FastFlash products, but the chamber can accept mock-ups for testing made with any products. It's a good way to test your design before it has to face real-world conditions. That's why it's called a Design Verification Test Chamber.
Here's a peek into the "innards" of the test chamber.
Matt enjoys showing off the new test chamber he helped design and build.
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Very nice testing setup. Kudos!
Thanks Kaz. Happy New Year!