Can someone tell me if I need a product like Tyvek if my house has cement
walls??

Thanks

Are they just cement, period ? Tyvek is used aroound here to seal off
the inside layer from the outside layer, so to speak. Like if a brick
house is being built, they frame it first, then tyvek it (usually
wrong), then put the brick veneer up. For vinyl, same deal. If you
just gots the concrete walls it wouldn't seem to make any sense. If
you have framing inside the concrete walls, like to put drywall onto,
I'm not sure or not if it makes sense.

Is this new construction ?

Well--great questions! We are finding out so much about our purchase.

It seems that a good portion of our home is about 80 years old. When
the workers removed the "stucco-brick-chickenwire stuff," there are
cement exterior walls. A garage and family room addition is cinderblock.
We really don't know how old the addition is.

Hope this helps! The workers put furring strips from the top to about a
foot
from the ground--they are attaching the siding to that. We thought that
Tyvek was necessary, they started with it and then told us that because of
the cement--it was unnecessary.

Any insight--much appreciated


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Are they just cement, period ? Tyvek is used aroound here to seal off
the inside layer from the outside layer, so to speak. Like if a brick
house is being built, they frame it first, then tyvek it (usually
wrong), then put the brick veneer up. For vinyl, same deal. If you
just gots the concrete walls it wouldn't seem to make any sense. If
you have framing inside the concrete walls, like to put drywall onto,
I'm not sure or not if it makes sense.

Is this new construction ?

Wow. I don't want to make a definitive 'pronouncement' as I am not a
contractor or inspector, but I agree with not using it over poured
concrete, or concrete block walls. Hopefully soeone who knows this
stuff will reply.

Incidentally for people building new homes, the installation of the
Tyvek is frequently done incorrectly. Builders do this because they
know the buyers are generally naive, and builders want to cut corners
as much as they can. Perhaps not all builders, but somewhere upwards
of 90% of builders around here will do anything to speed things up as
long as the inspection goes through.

A proper Tyvek is done in as few separate sheets as possible, carefully
folded and joined at the seams with special fasteners. It should be
sealed to form a bond around all window and door openings. They build
a lot of new houses around here and the Tyvek jobs generally look
atrocious. They even screw up commercial buildings, some chain
steakhouse went in a couple miles down the road, and they just tacked
up Tyvek all over the place, with no folded seams, and seemingly as
many cuts as possible. It of course was bricked over with the Tyvek in
that condition, making mold much more likely.

Tyvek is like wall-to-wall carpeting, you want as few seams as possible.

I wouldn't pay for the whole house in your case.

What might make sense, is to just pay to have them insulate only around
windows and doors. It cost me $900 in NJ (from the builder). The only
thing - the builder warned me that I can not do stonefront on sides of
the house where tyvek is installed.