Roofing & Exterior
The Layer That Keeps the Water Out Is the One Nobody Sees
Siding sheds most of the rain, but wind drives water behind it every storm. The housewrap, tapes, and flashing behind the siding are the drainage plane that actually keeps your walls dry — and where old homes quietly fail. A re-side is your one chance to replace them right.
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Signs to watch
Is this you?
You're re-siding and want it to last
The barrier behind the siding decides whether the new siding lasts decades or a decade. With the walls open, replacing a tired or missing weather barrier costs a fraction of doing it later — and it's the only time it's easy.
Rot keeps coming back at the same spots
Water almost always enters at windows, doors, and penetrations. If the barrier laps the wrong way or a tape has let go, the same corner re-rots no matter how good the siding over it looks.
Old felt, torn wrap, or nothing behind the siding
Plenty of PNW walls were built with tar paper, overlaps stapled the wrong direction, or no real barrier at all. It works until wind-driven rain finds the gap, and then it never stops.
A remodel or window swap broke the wrap
Every time a wall gets opened, the continuous barrier gets cut. Patched back without the right lap sequence and tape, that scar becomes the leak you chase for years.
Your options
A continuous drainage plane, sequenced to shed outward
The weather-resistive barrier — Tyvek, a comparable housewrap, or a peel-and-stick membrane where the wall calls for it — is lapped shingle-style so every seam drains down and out over the one below it. Then the openings get sealed: sill pans and head flashing at windows and doors, kick-out flashing where a roof meets a wall, and flashing tape at every pipe, vent, and outlet that pierces the plane. The order in which wrap, flashing, and windows overlap is the whole game — get the sequence right and water runs out of the wall; get it backward and every layer funnels water in. We integrate the barrier with your windows and siding as one system, because that's the only way it works. And where the wall benefits, we set the barrier up to sit behind a rainscreen gap so it can drain and dry, not just resist.
The method
How we do it
- 01
Open the wall and read the damage
With the siding off, we check the sheathing for rot, look at how the old barrier was — or wasn't — managing water, and photograph every window, door, and penetration before anything new goes on.
- 02
Barrier, tapes, and flashing to spec
Weather-resistive barrier lapped correctly, flashing tapes and metal at sills, heads, kick-outs, and penetrations, and windows tied in the right sequence so the whole plane drains as one. You approve the scope in writing first.
- 03
Dry-in walk before siding goes back
We walk the dried-in wall with you while it can still be seen — the layer nobody sees, verified while it's visible — then the siding goes back over a barrier built to outlast it.
Straight numbers
Where this money actually goes
On a re-side, the weather barrier and flashing are usually a line item inside the larger project rather than a standalone job — and it's the line item that decides whether everything above it lasts. A full peel-and-stick or rainscreen-ready assembly adds material and labor over a basic wrap-and-side, and in this climate it's money we'll almost always tell you is worth spending. We quote it in writing as part of the bid, so you see exactly what the invisible layer costs and why it's there. When we're already doing your siding or windows, the barrier work rides along without a second mobilization.
Where we do this work
Housewrap & Weather-Barrier Replacement: straight answers
Isn't the siding what keeps water out of my house?
No, and this is the misunderstanding that rots walls. Siding sheds most of the rain, but wind-driven water always gets behind it. The housewrap and flashing are what actually keep that water out and send it back outside. Great siding over a failed barrier is a wall that rots from behind while it still looks new from the street.
Can you replace the barrier without pulling all my siding off?
Sometimes, in a targeted way — reworking a leaking window flashing or adding a missing kick-out often means opening just that area. But the barrier is a continuous system; its whole job is to be unbroken. The ideal time to replace it across a wall is during a re-side, when everything's open. We'll tell you honestly whether a spot fix will hold or whether you're patching a plane that needs doing properly.
Why do so many leaks start at the windows?
Because openings are where the continuous barrier gets interrupted, and the order the wrap, flashing, and window overlap has to be exactly right for water to shed outward. Miss the sill pan or lap one piece the wrong way and every rain funnels a little water into the wall. It's the detail we're most careful about, because it's the one that fails most.
Do I really need housewrap under fiber-cement or engineered siding?
Yes — the siding manufacturer requires it, and so does this climate. No siding is watertight at every seam, joint, and nail, so the barrier behind it is what carries the water that gets through. Skipping or shortcutting it doesn't just void the siding warranty; it guarantees the wall behind your new siding starts wetting out from day one.
Get the housewrap & weather-barrier replacement conversation started.
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