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The Pro Clima Advantage

Pro Clima is a world leader in airtight systems that simultaneously optimize air and moisture control, manufacturing vapor intelligent membranes, adhesives, tapes and more. They developed and sold the world’s first smart vapor retarders under the brand ‘B.I. Baupappen’ starting in 1985, and have continued to innovate cutting edge ecological building materials ever since. 475 High Performance Building Supply has proudly been the exclusive supplier of Pro Clima products in North America since 2011. When used as a complete system, Pro Clima provides a 10-year system warranty, including replacement cost and 6-year material warranty in other cases.

While airtightness is key to a high performance building envelope, air sealing alone is not enough to ensure a structure is protected against the elements. Moisture is important to consider, as it can enter building structures in a number of ways, and most often from the air itself. If humidity levels are too high, then moisture damage to building structures is likely. Traditional vapor barriers with high diffusion resistances restrict drying and often create higher risk wall and roof assemblies.

A much better option is Pro Clima’s intelligent vapor retarders that have humidity-variable diffusion resistance. What this means is that they limit water vapor diffusion into the assembly during the winter, limiting wetting, but can open up in the summer, maximizing drying. Limiting wetting and maximizing drying is the best way to keep assemblies lasting for generations by reducing moisture related risks.

For a deeper dive into the value of Pro Clima airtightness and vapor control as a system, and for an overview of how it’s used to make high performance, low-energy building possible, watch our introduction to airtight construction methods with 475’s Nick Shaw (22 minute run time):

Our Guide To Help You Put It Together: the Smart Enclosure

After years of assisting professionals in the development of high performance details in North America, 475 encapsulated our top recommendation in a series of books that we call the Smart Enclosure. The Smart Enclosure system offers a 21st-century guide to advanced high-performance building assemblies. It’s a toolkit that can help you maximize the positive impact of your building projects: providing optimized comfort, safety, energy efficiency, and negative carbon emissions. Download the ebooks and CAD details to learn how to simply and effectively integrate the Pro Clima system into your next project.

Choosing The Right Ingredients

Now that you know the importance of airtightness and vapor control provided by the Pro Clima system, and you have details on how to integrate this system into your plans, you need to decide exactly which materials to specify. Here’s a breakdown of navigating the variety of components to choose from.

1) Choose your Interior Airtightness and Vapor Control

An interior air barrier does it better. Let’s think for a second about what a high performance assembly wants to be, and not just what’s the simplest way to pass the blower door test. Generally speaking, in cold/mixed climates the exterior wants to be relatively vapor open. The exterior doesn't need to be absolutely airtight (though tighter is always better) - it just needs to be what we call windtight, to avoid wind-washing from degrading the insulating layer. The exterior side is the secondary airtight layer.

The primary air barrier layer should be inboard of the insulation - keeping convective air movements away from the insulation and cold components. Better still, that inboard air barrier can now also serve as the vapor control layer - doubling as a smart vapor retarder and airtight membrane. As a result, by keeping conditioned and moist air out of the insulated enclosure, airtight smart vapor retarders can provide robust protection from moisture damages for the life of the building. There are only a few to choose from, and they each have pretty clear specialties (hint: you’ll most likely need INTELLO PLUS, this choice is easy).

Product	Fastening	Permeability	UV exposure rating
INTELLO PLUS	Stapled, taped with TESCON VANA	Variable: 0.13 to 13 perms	Do not expose to the elements
	Interior air barrier, smart vapor control, and dense-pack reinforcement all in one. INTELLO PLUS is the most common choice for most projects.
Product	Fastening	Permeability	UV exposure rating
VISCONN	Spray, roll, brush-on, or use AEROFIXX tool	*Variable - 0.3 perms to 25 perms	3 months
	Liquid-applied air barrier and water resistant barrier (WRB) for both interior and exterior use on CMU / masonry and difficult to seal junctions in any project.
Product	Fastening	Permeability	UV exposure rating
INTELLO X	Stapled, taped with TESCON VANA	Variable: 0.13 to 13 perms	2 months
	Airtight commercial grade, heavy-duty, smart vapor retarder that doubles as temporary WRB - use inboard of insulation layer.
Product	Fastening	Permeability	UV exposure rating
DB+	Stapled, taped with TESCON VANA	Variable: 0.8 to 8 perms	Do not expose to the elements. Requires additional care, as it is paper-based
	A paper-based smart vapor variable and airtight membrane. Ideal environmentally friendly air barrier option for the environmentally conscious contractor.