Video: The Best Wall We Know How to Make | Continuous Insulation with Foam Sheathing

by Timothy Ahrenholz

Published on January 30, 2019.

Picture this: you’ve been tagged to design the building envelope for the next national institution. Maybe it’s an addition to the Smithsonian, or a presidential library. In any case, you are building for posterity, and this thing has got to last. What do you do?

The so-called “institutional wall” is the choice for you! Start with a durable CMU wall, and protect it from erosion, moisture, and thermal cycling with continuous insulation, a water resistive barrier, an air barrier, and a vapor retarder on the outer surface. Then guard those layers from UV, wind, and precipitation with cladding. While potentially more costly than alternative wall designs, this system provides the best long-term durability for important buildings. To better understand the building science at work behind this system, browse through the resources available on this site. Content is organized by user type, such as architect/engineer, building official, or builder/contractor.

A quick overview of the institutional wall is given in the following video, part of a series we are highlighting on effective wall design:

For additional information, review the following articles, as well as the previous videos in this series:

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