Quote:
Originally Posted by John Mercier
Tyvek would add about $7-9 per sheet; but you hit on it for the labor. The party contracting for the building is looking for the cheapest price for the largest square footage... they figure a 30 year warranty when done correctly, it better than a 10 year warranty when done correctly... and see the lower cost in labor that is hard to come by. Hence why they don't ask for OSB with a separate WRB, which would be less expensive in materials... but more in labor. It may be close to the same price, but they don't realize how many rules will void that 30 year warranty... the labor must be very precise.
Smaller homes with higher grades of construction in both materials and labor are just not currently in-demand. It would be like having lake front property where the house is set too far back to be open and well seen by the lake. If the people on the lake can't see the house, the people in the house can't readily see the lake... they would need to go outside and walk down to the shore... not in-demand.
One of the Zip products that I am looking at is the R Zip. They are looking to change the building code to require insulation beyond the studs to create a thermal break. Around window and doors this would be a ThermalBuck... they have a complete system that we are currently comparing to the R Zip that is on our buildings. We don't have an answer for customers yet... but we researching the systems. If that becomes code, it will be a big change for most of us.
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Its always interesting to see changes in code, and who benifits and who doesnt and what are the real pros and cons are.
When we built our current home they were required to meet the Massachusetts Stretch Energy Code requirements, some features were good such as heavy insulation in the attic, others were actually not good. It turned out the house was too tight and did not allow enough fresh air in. Something tells me that any house that tight is too tight. With all the products we bring into our homes that off-gas really nasty products, a super tight home may save you a few dollars in heat but then cause you serious health problems. Not a good trade off. I would much rather a balance toward a bit leaky than too tight. We also found some requirements were reversed just after the house was done, stupid things that still annoy me and never should have been a requirement.
I guess to some degree we should be happy to be able to have such things to discuss and debate and potentially complain about. All you have to do is watch the news for 5 minutes and see the total madness in the world around us to realize just how different things are in other places.