Water.  The universal solvent. H2O.
It’s refreshing and highly necessary, but water in the wrong place at the wrong time can cause catastrophic problems in buildings.  It’s easy to envision the kind of damage inflicted by a flood, or by ten feet of snow on a roof designed to support six, or even by corrosion caused by salty ocean water at the seashore.  But the reason we wrap our buildings in fancy hi-tech paper and smear them with liquid waterproofing has more to do with the insidious effects of water vapor and intra-wall condensation.  …