Building Leak Detection In Arizona
For many of us living in the western side of the United States, we don’t experience a tremendous amount of rain fall. Arizona has its share of rainfall much of it usually coming in the form of Monsoons during the summer months. With these storms comes a wind and rain. Not just a small amount of rain but rather enough rain to sometimes flood basins and streets.
In Arizona it’s hot. This heat will have an adverse effect on buildings which may include the drying out of certain building materials to a point of shrinkage or deformity. When this happens, systems like walls, windows, roofs, doors and the like are subject to leaks of all sorts. Building leak detection is helpful for locating these sources of water infiltration in a multitude of building systems.
Window Leak Testing for Arizona residents
Windows are notorious for leaking during heavy rains no matter what part of the country you reside. But in Arizona, it seems like the heat dries out the building materials such that even a small amount of precipitation can cause windows to leak. Window water intrusion testing is one of the best if not the only way to locate leaks in these systems.
With windows there are basically two different types of tests which can be administered.
- Quality assurance testing
- Forensic testing
Quality assurance water intrusion testing is effectively testing windows in the beginning stages of the construction process. on the other hand, forensic testing is basically the opposite. These tests are performed after the windows were installed and leaked from some event. The equipment used to perform these water intrusion tests is specialized and specific to these types of tests. Usually the ASTM E1105 test is chosen to perform these water intrusion tests.
Stucco wall leak testing in Arizona
Much like window testing where we use a special spray system we test stucco walls in Arizona in a very similar way. Stucco wall testing is generally performed in a forensic manner because once the building owner realizes there are leaks in and around windows, doors, penetrations etc… the home has typically seen a few rain events. In this case, for building leak detection of this system, the walls are dissected in parcels and testing while isolating areas simultaneously.