Installation Advice: Should Wall Sheathing Overlap Foundation?

Whether most of your construction projects use engineered wood, plywood or OSB, proper wall sheathing installation helps protect the home from wind and water penetration. Installing wall sheathing panels is fairly straightforward, yet one question we do see on social media is whether sheathing should overlap the foundation. Let’s take a look.  

Builders Kyle Stumpenhorst of @rrbuildings and Jordan Smith of @jordansmithbuilds install LP WeatherLogic^® Air & Water Barrier like regular wall sheathing. They say it installs easily--similar to regular OSB. "One trip around the house and I'm able to get all my structural sheathing up as well as my WRB and my new air barrier is installed. And it's very easy and very quick to install," says Smith.

Should sheathing overlap foundation? 

The advice when installing wall sheathing is to overlap and install flashing, providing a means to direct moisture away from the foundation. Pros often seal the sill when the wall sheathing overlaps the sill plate. The installation instructions for LP WeatherLogic panels are:

• When the panel is flush with the face of the foundation, provide a 1/2-inch gap between the bottom edge of the panel and the foundation.
• Attach approved drip edge when required by code.
• Apply LP WeatherLogic^® Seam & Flashing Tape to seal the top of the drip edge. The tape should extend at least 2 inches past each end and extend at least 2 inches onto the panel face and cover all fasteners used to attach the drip edge.
• If the fasteners are placed so that the standard 3-3/4-inch tape cannot cover and extend 2 inches onto the panel, use the 6-inch tape or shingle multiple rows of 3-3/4-inch tape so that a layer above overlaps the layer below.

Stumpenhorst recently constructed a 16-foot-tall building with an irregular foundation, and before he started installing LP WeatherLogic panels he marked reference lines. "We're running our WeatherLogic sheets vertically," says Stumpenhorst. "We won't have a consistent, single line because we can't snap from on our foundation."

Stumpenhorst said the foundation had some variances. "We don't want to start at the foundation and move up. We're going to mark from the soffit down so we can establish two lines," he said.

The 16-foot-tall building naturally aligned with 4-foot by 8-foot dimensions of the LP WeatherLogic panels. "We laid out all the framing so that we would have very little to no waste while installing the sheathing." In this application, he used a 4-foot piece near the foundation, an 8-foot piece above it, and then a 4-foot piece. For the next section, he installed two 8-foot sections. He finished with the first 4x8x4 combination.

For more quick tips, be sure to follow #LPQuickTip on Instagram. Want to see more from these pro builders? Check out this modern farmhouse build.