A Manufactured Solution for Continuous Air and Water Barriers

Continuous air and water barriers are labor-intensive to install and vulnerable to human error during construction. Installations are subject to all kinds of problems, starting with poor design and culminating in every imaginable installation error. With its DensElement Barrier System, Georgia-Pacific Gypsum is the latest company to try to solve these problems with an all-in-one sheathing product.

The new fiberglass-faced sheathing from Georgia-Pacific, which has partnered with Prosoco on DensElement, adds a factory-applied air and weather barrier to Georgia-Pacific’s DensGlass exterior sheathing. This layer—bonded with the gypsum core on its exterior face, just beneath the outer fiberglass layer—is designed to manage the majority of air and water leakage. Installed just like DensGlass, DensElement then requires liquid flashing (Prosoco’s R-Guard FastFlash) at screw heads, joints, and transitions. What it doesn’t require is an additional building wrap or liquid-applied membrane.