Installed by Side-Pro Exteriors across Seattle, Bellevue and Tacoma
Typar’s argument is not breathability. It is that it holds water out harder, and survives longer on an open wall, than the wrap most crews reach for.
TYPAR BuildingWrap is spunbonded polypropylene, mechanically fastened, and rated as a Type I air barrier material once the seams are sealed. Where it separates itself is water holdout — over 500 cm of hydrostatic head against Tyvek’s 250 — and tear strength on a windy install with a lot of cutting and fitting.
It is also rated for six months of UV exposure rather than Tyvek’s four. That sounds like a detail until a Seattle or Bellevue re-side stalls for a month of rain with the wall open, at which point it is the whole argument.
The trade is permeability. At 11.7 perms it is meaningfully tighter than Tyvek’s 56. On a wall that needs to dry outward — and plenty of older Tacoma housing stock does — that is a real consideration rather than a footnote.
The warranty repays careful reading. On a single-family house the product is warranted for the life of the product, but that covers replacement material only. Labor is covered solely under the full Typar system warranty, which requires a Typar wrap, flashing and tape together, and it is capped at $10 per square foot of damaged wall with a $500,000 project maximum.
DuPont Tyvek · Henry WeatherSmart · Protecto Wrap self-adhered · All siding products
Two naming points, because they cause confusion. The current product is TYPAR BuildingWrap — “Typar HouseWrap” is legacy distributor naming and the old product page no longer resolves. And Typar is now a Magnera brand rather than a Berry Global one, following the Berry–Glatfelter combination. Typar’s literature claims surfactant resistance but publishes no test method or result for it, so we treat that as a claim rather than a specification.