Water ingress under window

[vivienz]

FWIW, the water ingress i was getting was only upstairs and now that the cladding up there is on, it's 99% there. I still need to get a flashing between the vertical slate and the window but the result so far is satisfactory.

[mvincentd]

On 23/12/2018 at 13:19, Weebles said:

Window fitter came out and suggested trimming down EPS so water naturally runs away from the window

How were you planning to finish externally after the cill if you were not going to trim the eps down anyway?  ie; what was going to conceal the top of the eps given it appears to be only a few mm lower than the cill?  I'm wrestling with a similar complication.

[Russell griffiths]

36 minutes ago, mvincentd said:

How were you planning to finish externally after the cill if you were not going to trim the eps down anyway?  ie; what was going to conceal the top of the eps given it appears to be only a few mm lower than the cill?  I'm wrestling with a similar complication.

I think what he was inferring was the angle of the top of the eps, it should be cut at an angle down and out, all window rough openings should be like this as well

this is to prevent any water Ingres from running inwards, everything should have a slight fall outwards, you then form a pan out of a waterproof membrane to fully seal up the opening. 

[mvincentd]

@Russell griffiths yes but that still leaves eps very close to the highest possible point of his external ground level where it meets his cill and what i'm asking is how will that eps get concealed. What is a foot going to step onto beyond the cill and how much insulation is compromised to accommodate that material?  I have this particular detail in a multitude of positions on my build and am struggling to arrive at anything other than an inelegant compromise.

[Russell griffiths]

11 hours ago, mvincentd said:

@Russell griffiths yes but that still leaves eps very close to the highest possible point of his external ground level where it meets his cill and what i'm asking is how will that eps get concealed. What is a foot going to step onto beyond the cill and how much insulation is compromised to accommodate that material?  I have this particular detail in a multitude of positions on my build and am struggling to arrive at anything other than an inelegant compromise.

 I’m thinking of having a cement based board, made by a company called rockpanel, this will go on the vertical eps, then a layer of cement board on the horizontal eps with an exterior grade tile mounted on that to form an extra cill

i had this on a previous house and it worked very well, unfortunately no photos as I have lost thousands when an old laptop bit the dust. 

[Nickfromwales]

Isn’t the majority of this problem solved by creating a ‘drip’ directly onto the underside of the door / window frame ? Eg if rain can’t get in high enough it will be inconsequential therefore negating a lot of extra detailing where the frame and EPS / frame and slab meet.

For @vivienz I suggested bonding a ( RAL grey matching ) upvc ‘bib’ directly to the underside of the thresholds as a rain deflector. A mix of short and tall detail exists between the upper and lower floors, so simply buying 30mm and 100mm size D-section will suffice. 

A lot of people think that ‘pumping a load of sealant in’ is a good idea, but it can make things a LOT worse if misplaced. 

13 hours ago, mvincentd said:

@Russell griffiths yes but that still leaves eps very close to the highest possible point of his external ground level where it meets his cill and what i'm asking is how will that eps get concealed. What is a foot going to step onto beyond the cill and how much insulation is compromised to accommodate that material?  I have this particular detail in a multitude of positions on my build and am struggling to arrive at anything other than an inelegant compromise.

Can you post some pics?

[Ferdinand]

On 04/11/2018 at 21:17, vivienz said:

Thanks for the replies, all.

@ProDave there is a gully behind the parapet and in front of the window, so the water won't be lapping up against the window.  The gully depth is about 100mm. It has a fall on it and drains to a gutter.

 

@lizzie - yes, there is a reflection of the inside screws, none on the outside.

 

The fit of the windows was quite tight on a few of them and the compriband didn't fit into the gap, so they were sealed with foam.  My main worry is that this isn't the first window that has had some water ingress after they should have been sealed but, of course, it only comes to light after it has rained and the wind is in the 'right' direction.  Other than throwing buckets of water at the windows with a wind machine on it, is there any simple way to check that it's all sealed as it should be?

 

I would test there with a jet washer from a distance. IDeal if the windows are upstairs using the washer to project an arc of water, as there is a horizontal velocity component to the "rain" ... just as if wind blown.

 

I haven't tackled one of these, but shouldn't there be universal robust details for something as common as windows and doors (said the giraffe)? 

 

F

Edited December 25, 2018 by Ferdinand

[Weebles]

On 24/12/2018 at 19:23, mvincentd said:

How were you planning to finish externally after the cill if you were not going to trim the eps down anyway?  ie; what was going to conceal the top of the eps given it appears to be only a few mm lower than the cill?  I'm wrestling with a similar complication.

 

Hadn’t given much though to actual finish though had been thinking some sort of paving slab to step onto. Of course you are right in that we’ll have to cut the EPS away to be able to fit a slab at the cill height.  We are so far away from landscaping and finishes that we neglected this detail. We spent ages on this when ordering the sliders and liaising with MBC. Just couldn’t visualise the issue to solve it in advance.......We will cut the EPS down first and see what we find.  So much to do at the mo. One step at a time.....

[mvincentd]

On 25/12/2018 at 11:20, Russell griffiths said:

I’m thinking of having a cement based board

Yes, broadly the sort of solution i'm reluctantly looking at around my walls but not doors/windows because as @Weebles says..

9 hours ago, Weebles said:

we’ll have to cut the EPS away to be able to fit a slab at the cill height.

As shown in pics here I have floor to ceiling windows that open like doors and sit on ffl inside.  Meanwhile outside my xps rises to a point where it comes alongside the Marmox block on which the flint outer leaf is built (in turn the marmox is alongside the cavity insulation and so the 65mm height of the Marmox is what gives thermal continuity from internal to external insulation).  The top of Marmox is circa 22mm lower than the underside of the minimal ali cills that protrude from windows to the outside edge of the flint.

On the upper floor (to be rendered) I only half lapped the xps onto the Marmox and used a bit of foam to affix it and fill the odd void, trimmed foam and scratch coated......heavy rain resulted in this combination harbouring a fair bit of water on top of the xps which trickled and soaked through what i presume must have been the mortar joint under the Marmox(below this point its waterproof concrete all the way).

Don't waste any brain trying to fathom or solve this....it's simply a unique and ridiculous design detail the professionals did for me that I now have to bodge my way through!  My original post questioning @Weebles plan was really to direct his attention to an issue I wasn't sure he'd yet realised existed for him (but if he had and solved it perhaps i could learn from him).

It's these shitty little details that bring about quite big aesthetic compromises all because designers don't address them.....my build is bugged with dozens of them...and they're spoiling the fun.

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

41 minutes ago, mvincentd said:

[...]

It's these shitty little details that bring about quite big aesthetic compromises all because designers don't address them.....my build is bugged with dozens of them...and they're spoiling the fun.

 

Well said. 

I'm trying hard to enjoy these (what I call) micro challenges . They do grind away in the background all the time. Without BH support I would have ' lost it ' long ago.

[Russell griffiths]

@mvincentd could you not have a custom folded metal trim stuck down onto a cement board

 

your pic didn’t actually show a door cill

our last place had a vertical cement board under the cill that was rendered, we then had a horizontal cement board laid on a small fall, this was pushed under the door cill and on top of the waterproof pan, 

on top of the horizontal board was an exterior grade floor tile cut into a strip to match the width of the sticky out bit. 

 

No pics im afraid as my old laptop has gone boom. 

 

Can you take a pic and do a little sketch. 

[Nickfromwales]

Yup. A couple of decent pics of the threshold junctions please

[joe90]

We had a lot of water ingress after the plastering was done, a large patch of damp under a window and I thought snot on wall tie = remove external brickwork but it turned out to be a pinhole in window silicone (we do have very wet South westerly winds). Just goes to show how much water can get in a very small hole?

[mvincentd]

Every opening in the pic I posted earlier is in fact a door style of window....some flush threshold, some with an amount of frame to step over....but always terminating with the same cill and relationship to the structure they're built on.

I've 2 issues, but just to first remind where I came into this as I seem to have hijacked @weebles issue/question.......weebles is faced with removing insulation to accommodate something like a paving slab at the door threshold, which to my eye introduced a possible cold bridge.  The first of my issues is much the same....for me it's not a total cold bridge (cant tell with weebles from his pic) and only a minor issue of finding a slim paver to bed into limited height.  Attached pics L1&L2 shows the scene and the attached sketches show what those thresholds are sitting on (ignore pics U1&U2 for now).

My 2nd issue lies not at the thresholds but along the remaining walls where they meet external ground level.  On the sketches I've coloured Marmox blocks blue.  These are bedded on mortar.  You'll see external ground due to exceed the marmox height so i have the porosity of some flintblock & 2 mortar lines in the ground(marmox is watertight)...QUESTION 1: would you put weeps in so that cavity can drain...below ground level??  QUESTION 2; would you continue the threshold pavers along the whole wall?

When we go to the upper floor (pic U1&U2) it's a similar issue in so far as I have to bring xps up to meet the Marmox but the bottom of Marmox is at door threshold level...ie higher.