RAiNA Hosted Member Webinar - Designing Rainscreens for Sustainability
Wednesday, November 18, 2026 (12:00 PM - 1:00 PM) (EST)
Description
Presented by Michael Rhodes, PIMA
This presentation provides an overview of designing rainscreens to optimize for sustainability. This presentation will instruct attendees in four topic areas:
1. Rainscreen long-term durability and resilience;
2. Thermal bridging in Rainscreens;
3. Environmental Product Declarations for Rainscreen components; and
4. Embodied Carbon assembly comparisons and Whole Building Life Cycle Assessments (WBLCAs).
Attendees will gain an understanding of Rainscreen assemblies, an overview of their components, the importance and impact of selecting insulation supports and cladding attachments for thermal bridging and resilient designs, an understanding of why product-to-product EPD comparisons can be misleading, and the advantages of assembly embodied carbon comparisons with an introduction to whole building life cycle assessments.
Learning Objectives
- Describe installation and design strategies for Rainscreen systems that improve long-term durability and resilience.
- Identify and understand the Rainscreen installation strategies that reduce thermal bridging and improve operational energy efficiency in Rainscreen systems.
- Learn to analyze the embodied carbon impacts of Rainscreen components at an assembly level using a carbon calculator.
- Understand and explain how assembly selection for Rainscreen systems, including insulation, cladding attachments, and other materials, affects embodied carbon.