CertainTeed Platon® Provides Moisture Management Solution for Resource-Efficient New Vermont Green Home
(Valley Forge, Pa.) – CertainTeed’s Platon® waterproofing membrane is providing superior moisture management for the basement foundation of a new 1,500 square-foot green home being built by a do-it-yourself green builder in Monkton, Vt. Built to ENERGY STAR® specifications, the new home will be the subject of an upcoming energy consumption study by Efficiency Vermont, the nation’s first energy efficiency utility. Though the house is still under construction, the Platon membrane has been in place for a year and has already had ample opportunity to prove itself as a barrier against moisture in the basement.
“We had a tremendously high water table last spring because of all the rain and snow we had in the area,” says John Mejia, owner and builder of the home. “We have a well that doesn’t have a pump in it yet, and the groundwater levels were so high that it filled up on its own. Throughout all of this, the Platon performed exactly as promised, guarding our foundation from water intrusion.”
After taking some green building and design courses at the University of Vermont, Mejia decided to build his own sustainable home to Passive House and ENERGY STAR® standards. He was drawn to Platon after researching a variety of options for basement moisture control and found that the product offered stronger, more lasting moisture protection than other methods, such as spray-on moisture barriers.
“Most of the products I researched had the drawback of being only water resistant at best,” Mejia says. “They weren’t waterproof, and some would have been prone to cracking as the foundation settled. I chose Platon because it waterproofs, is totally inert, installs easily and is made with 85 percent recycled content and with these performance features, it was the only product I found that truly met the criteria of the green building standards I followed.”
Featuring a variety of resource-conserving design features, such as waterless urinals, solar heat and solar hot water, the home is expected to be finished later this year. Afterwards, an energy consultant from Vermont Energy Investment Corporation will monitor its energy consumption over the course of three years with sensors installed throughout the home.
Platon is a waterproofing membrane that provides superior wall, flooring, and underslab moisture control for all types of foundations, and isolates living spaces from damp concrete walls and floors. Its dimpled, 24-mil HDPE wrap seals out water and bridges cracks in poured concrete walls, insulated concrete form construction and masonry block walls.
About CertainTeed
Through the responsible development of innovative and sustainable building products, CertainTeed, headquartered in Valley Forge, Pa., has helped shape the building products industry for more than 100 years. Founded in 1904 as General Roofing Manufacturing Company, the firm's slogan "Quality Made Certain, Satisfaction Guaranteed," quickly inspired the name CertainTeed. Today, CertainTeed® is North America’s leading brand of exterior and interior building products, including roofing, siding, fence, decking, railing, trim, foundations, pipe, insulation, gypsum, ceilings and access covers.
A subsidiary of Saint-Gobain, the world’s largest building products company, CertainTeed and its affiliates have more than 6,000 employees and more than 65 manufacturing facilities throughout the United States and Canada. Recognized as a 2009 and 2010 ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, CertainTeed earned the 2011 and 2012 ENERGY STAR Sustained Excellence Award, the highest level of recognition for outstanding contributions to protecting the environment through energy efficiency. The group had total sales of approximately $3.2 billion in 2011. www.certainteed.com
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