Vapour Barrier for flat roof build – Alutrix 600
What is Alutrix 600 Vapour Barrier?
ALUTRIX 600 is a high performance flat roof vapour barrier. As a result it is vapour proof, has a very high tear resistance and creates an airtight seal. It is the Rolls Royce of roofing vapour barriers. It is self adhesive and made of a bitumen type adhesive and metal foil like layer. This gives the great advantage that once applied it puts a temporary 5 week waterproof coating on the roof. I have tested this and found no leaks in the rain! Alutrix is also protected from UV damage . This means you can break the building up of a warm roof into stages.
How to use Alutrix 600
Alutrix Vapour barrier requires the application of FG35 primer to the timber deck. This provides a bonding to apply the Alutrix 600 .
Unroll the length required and cut with a pair of wallpaper scissors. Position in place. Next, remove the backing paper for the first metre. Stick down the Alutrix 600 with a 5cm overlap of the previous piece. Sounds easy right?
Summary of Alutrix 600
There is no debate that this is the premium vapour barrier and I would use it again although I found it difficult to lay over a 28m square roof.
I had numerous problems. It is very slippy and the backing paper overlaps the width of the roll. Therefore it is not possible to see the 5cm overlap markers on the previous piece of Alutrix. After removing the backing paper for the first metre it was difficult to re-align. The width was really to wide for me to manage single handed at 1.06m. Additionally, as the backing paper is being removed sometimes the wind catches it and the Alutrix glues together and has to be disposed off.
On a number of occasions the backing paper broke of destroying a run of the Alutrix. Where the was no FG35 primer it did not stick well. This product is also extremely expensive. A 30 metre roll was the maximum I could lift onto the roof easily up a ladder.
If you would like to find out more about the FG35 primer follow this link here.
To find out more about Alutrix, follow the link here.
