Paul: First, what you see in this video is a demonstration about the corner flashing. There’s still more to do on the rest of the flashing, and I’ll explain that later, but let me address the concerns you’ve raised here.

1. The endgrain of the Advantech is covered. Little moisture should reach it.

2. Yes, the space between the buck and bricks is now foamed. The adhesive on the Siga tape is super sticky, so I don’t think it’s going to fail.

3. The Wigluv tape is semi-permeable.

4. Again, this was about the corner flashing only. I’ll have full details about the rest later.

5. OK.

6. Yes. I don’t know why it was put there, but it’s still in great shape for having been embedded between brick and block for all these decades.

Au contraire on the masonry walls not being window friendly. They’re very forgiving because of their great moisture storage capacity. Yes, that can be a problem if it gets wet and stays wet, but there’s no evidence that that has happened.

Fancy tape, not so fancy substrate! Or should I say, spongy and void-rich?

1. We are applying tape to cover moisture-vulnerable cut edges of what appears to be Advantech X-factor leftovers made to act as window bucks, at least on the sides. OK, good reuse, and assuming the tape will stay adhered on the yellow side, the “end-grain” of the OSB bucks isn’t the best, even for the fanciest of tapes. And then there is brick and the moisture migration it provides on a daily cycle, which could get behind the tape, and into the “end-grain” of the Advantech which then will swell. Yes, Advantech is still one kind of OSB board.

2. We are asking the tape to bridge an inch and a half void, and stay adhered to about 3/8″ of lumpy brick/mortar mix, at a 90-degree angle. Will the void space between the brick and the bucks be foamed? What will happen to the tape once the foam starts pushing, even ever so slightly?

3. The Wigluv Siga tape isn’t covering the PT lumber rough sill fully on the front edge. This way, we are encasing a piece of lumber (OK, PT lumber) in a sandwich between vapor retarders (and maybe barriers), yet leaving a sliver possibly exposed to bulk moisture.

4. Nothing appears to be protecting the wall below the window against bulk water entry yet. The comment below the video says, “Getting windows flashed properly is critical to keeping water out of walls.” Nothing has been flashed. A pan flashing covering the rough sill and extending far enough over the not-so-sloping spongy brick soldier course would be essential for success here. When the installed window is shown at the end, still no flashing. It’s getting a bit late for that.

5. I cannot wait for what’s next in terms of actually flashing the entire window to the brick wall, in a bottom-up fashion. Much of the tape used so far is not doing a lot, in my opinion, maybe even making things worse. I am afraid more tape is coming.

6. Is that a piece of old lumber “arrested” inside the masonry wall (at around minute 1:26 on the left side, and 2:03 on the right side in the video)?

Full masonry walls are not window friendly, especially in retrofits.

Wendy: Good eye! You’re correct that there’s something black there, but it’s not a cutout. After Ben took the backing off of the tape, he exposed the reinforcement added to that critical point in the Rissan 430. And that reinforcement is black. There’s no hole there.