One of Alabama’s oldest metals fabricators, born in 1939 in Iron City Birmingham, Alabama Metal Industries Corp. (AMICO), won Green Builder magazine’s 2020 “Green Innovation of the Year” award, for a breakthrough in wall materials for the home.
AMICO’s fabrications have spanned the globe, from the Panama Canal to Kennedy Space Center to the U.S. Capitol to Bear Bryant’s practice field scaffold.
The AMICO innovation that captured Green Builder’s award, branded AMICO HYDRODRY®, is a wall covering that creates a dedicated drainage and ventilation cavity behind exterior walls. It uses a rain screen and patented profiles that allow the wall to both vent and drain, drying and creating continuous airflow throughout the wall cavity. By preventing moisture from damaging vital members of the wall system, it provides better air quality and increases the life and sustainability of the home.
“Trapped moisture is one of the key causes of microbial growth and structural damage to a home’s framework and can cause rotting and a host of other air quality and home health problems,” said Gary Baltz, AMICO’s director of marketing, product innovation and business development. “Traditional building practices and terminations still keep moisture trapped behind exterior walls. This product is revolutionary in that it provides a dedicated drainage channel at the bottom of the wall and over openings, as well as a venting system that allows evaporated moisture to escape from the top of the cladding.”
The Green Innovation award was given as part of Green Builder’s “Home of the Year and Sustainability Awards” program, now in its 12th year, which spotlights individuals, projects and products that encourage sustainability and efficiency.