BRICK FLASHING

SOLIN POUR MACONNERIE DE BRIQUES

English Abstract

A moulded, substantially rigid flashing is provided for
use in lining transition surfaces in construction. The
flashing has a back panel, a base panel and a skirt depending
from the base panel.

French Abstract

Solin moulé, sensiblement rigide, servant à recouvrir des surfaces de transition en construction. Le solin comprend un panneau arrière, un panneau de base et une bordure, selon la forme du panneau de base.

Claims

THE EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION IN WHICH AN EXCLUSIVE PROPERTY
OR PRIVILEGE IS CLAIMED ARE DEFINED AS FOLLOWS:
1. A moulded, substantially rigid flashing for use in lining
transition surfaces in construction, said flashing having a
back panel, a base panel and a skirt depending from said base
panel.
2. A flashing as claimed in claim 1, wherein said flashing
is extruded.
3. A flashing as claimed in claim 2, wherein said flashing
is made from a mouldable plastic material selected from the
group including polyethylene, polypropylene and
polyvinylchloride.
4. A flashing as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the
edge of said skirt remote from said base panel is bent
outwardly to form a drip deflecting edge.
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Description

2 1 ~ 6 1 f~j f.~
BRICK FLA8HING
Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of construction
products. In particular, the present invention provides a
moulded flashing for brickwork and the like.
Baok~L~I.d of the Invention
Flashing is used in construction to provide a moisture
collection surface at planes of transition from one building
material to the next on the exterior of the building. For
lo instance, if a window sill is being installed in a wooden
frame, flashing will be provided under the window sill. This
will prevent water from leaking under the sill into the wall.
Similarly, flashing is provided under and behind an exterior
wall substrate. An example of such a use of flashing is the
installation of a flashing layer, usually of sheet metal,
beneath and behind the lowermost course of bricks in an
exterior brick wall.
Flashing usually is made from sheet metal, bent as
required either on-site or in a shop. Lengths of metal are
joined together in the field by the application of sealant
material, such as silicone ~nlking between overlapping sheets.
It will be understood, then, that flashing of this traditional
sort is quite sensitive to folding, bending and creasing prior

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to installation, and is therefore subject to excessive wastage.
Moreover, because each piece of flashing must be bent
individually, it is fairly expensive.
It has been proposed, for instance in U.S. Patent No.
3,442,055 (Posey) to use a partially flexible plastic strip as
a flashing product. This product offers some advantages over
sheet metal, but is imprecise to install because of its
flexible nature, and it is subject to tearing.
Another patent, U.S. Patent No. 4,700,512 discloses a more
rigid plastic flashing product, but only for use in corner
applications.
There exists, therefore, a need for an easy to install,
fairly stiff and resilient flashing for use especially with
brickwork.
In one broad aspect, therefore, the present invention
relates to a moulded, substantially rigid flashing for use in
lining transition surfaces in construction, said flashing
having a back panel, a base panel and a skirt depending from
said base panel.
In drawings that illustrate the present invention by way
of example:

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Figure 1 is a cross-sectional view of a flashing product
according to the present invention.
Referring to Figure 1 it will be seen that the present
invention provides a flashing having conventional dimensions,
for application without the need for special adaption of a
construction project.
The unique nature of the present invention lies primarily
in that it is an extrusion moulded product, fairly stiff, but
thereby precise to install with no special skills, and tough
enough to resist tears. The flashing of the present invention
is manufactured from a material having accepted weather
resisting properties, such as polyethylene, polypropylene, or
polyvinylchloride (PVC), with PVC being the preferred material.
The flashing of the present invention comprises a back
panel 1, a base panel 2 and a skirt 3 being extruded in the
desired size and profile, which may vary from application to
application, the flashing may be provided in any length, but
is conveniently provided in, for instance, 10,20 and 30 foot
lengths, the largest representing a practical maximum for an
uninterrupted run of brick in residential construction, and
also representing a practical maximum for handling and
storage.

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In those instances, where it is desired to splice two
lengths of flashing together, this is easily accomplished,
since the flashing is made from thermoplastic materials in
respect of which is a wide variety of sealants and adhesives
are currently available. Splicing may be done with a cut at
right angles to the longitudinal direction of the flashing.
The flashing may also be cut and adhesively spliced, using
known adhesives, at 45~ (or any other suitable angle) for
installing flashing around corners.
Referring again to the drawing, it will be observed that
back panel l and base panel 2 may each be planar, and are of
uniform thickness, although it will be understood that the two
panels may be of different thicknesses. Forming a transition
between the back panel l and the base panel 2 is a corner 4,
which maintains the panels 1,2 at right angles. The end of
skirt 3 is bent outwardly, forming a drip deflecting edge, so
that water flowing down skirt 3 will not flow down the
underlying surface, but will be deflected outwardly.
It is to be understood that the examples described above
are not meant to limit the scope of the present invention. It
is expected that numerous variants will be obvious to the
person skilled in the field of construction material design and
fabrication without any departure from the spirit of the

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invention. The appended claims, properly construed, form the
only limitation upon the scope of the invention.

Representative Drawing