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Needs Top Flashing (here's why)

Any time replacement windows are installed on an exterior wall with no eve within a calculated proximity above them, they must have top flashing installed in a manner that tucks up under the tar paper membrane behind the siding prior to installation. These windows have no top flashing (and need it), which means that wayward water that gets behind the siding up above (through voids and seams during a driving rain) will run down the tar paper and into the walls -rather than being directed out and away to the safe exterior where it belongs. Even if there were never a void, crack, or seam in the siding, it still allows moisture to pass through it slowly. That is why the siding is the Secondary Moisture Barrier and the complete tar paper/flashing system behind the siding is the more important Primary Moisture Barrier. Like a fish tank with only one small flaw at the bottom, the primary moisture barrier must be complete and flawless, or water will simply find its way to where it wants to go. Hint: that's where you don't want it to go.

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Uploaded on May 24, 2010
Taken on May 17, 2010