East AJ Construction

          As every Virginia Tech student knows, East Ambler Johnson Residence Hall is currently being renovated. Over the past few months, most of the renovation work has been focused on the exterior of the building.  Over the past year the Hokie Stone Veneer on the building was completely stripped and in recent months workers have been hard a work replacing and refinishing the exterior of the building.  The main focus when finishing the exterior of the building seemed to be water infiltration prevention.  I noticed the other day while walking past East AJ that the exterior veneer of the building had been finished in all areas except for where the flashing was exposed.

Silver horizontal sections located at each floor is flashing.

          This flashing prevents water which becomes trapped behind the veneer from trickling down further behind the wall and allows for a pathway for the water to drain.  It is a good idea to put flashing where floor meet because there will often be expansion and contraction in the concrete in these areas, allowing for water to work its way into cracks.  The flashing will help prevent water from working its way up and draining down behind the wall.

Above is a great diagram which shows an example of how the veneer wall might be set up.