Mass timber absorbs and retains significantly more moisture than traditional wood building materials. Vapro Shields details how to avoid the stains, mold, and rot, while keeping the project on schedule.
From Vapro Shields:
When wet, mass timber requires an extremely long period to dry due to its density. This time period is much greater than it would be for light framing with plywood or OSB. Theis can result in mold, staining, surface cracking, and can compromise structural performance. So far, our North American market has only had access to European and other sub-optimal membrane solutions which lack the drying potential (perms) and durability for the way we build over here. Builders can avoid these types of costly damage by using SlopeShield Plus SA—a fully self-adhered high drying capacity sheet membrane—to simultaneously protect and dry the mass timber structure:
Outer portions of mass timber layers may dry disproportionally faster compared to the inner layers, causing checking, staining, dimensional changes, and compromising structural values.
