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Product Guide
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The Promise of AeroBarrier for Air Sealing Homes
AeroBarrier has been in the building news quite a bit lately: GBA - Aeroseal rolls out air sealing technology for houses Fine Homebuilding - New technology improves airtightness Journal of…
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Another Take on Tstuds
Editor's note: This post originally appeared under the headline "Breaking the Thermal Bridge With Tstuds" in Kiley Jacques' Houses by Design blog over at Finehomebuilding.com. Considering all of the discussion…
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Rainscreen Products for Stucco Installations
If you ask too many questions about how to install stucco right, you will eventually hear some discouraging anecdotes of what amounts to a conspiracy—builders knowingly installing stucco poorly to…
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First Look at Tstuds
High-performance exterior walls typically handle thermal bridging at framing members in one of two ways—either the building is wrapped in some thickness of continuous rigid insulation outside of the sheathing…
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The Complicated Role of a Water-Resistive Barrier
As a teenager, I worked for a small general contracting company. In between a lot of grunt work and coffee runs, I learned to do some carpentry. On two jobs,…
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WRB FAQ (That’s Water Resistive Barrier)
Researching building materials is no easy task. Manufacturers often won't answer important questions. What they don't seem to understand is that their marketing messages often don't distinguish them in a…
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Nine Water-Resistive Barriers Worth Knowing About
When I first started to look into these products, I was using the acronym WRB to stand for “weather-resistive barrier.” It seems that “weather-resistive barrier” and “water-resistive barrier” are often…
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Keeping Water Out of Walls: Housewrap and Beyond
A common criticism of the building industry is that it is slow to change. While this may not hold true with high-performance builders, it seems a fair stereotype for residential…
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The Viability of ThermalBuck
ThermalBuck inventor John Brooks is a very clever, passionate building professional who is job-site savvy. He saw a weak component of high-performance walls: wood window bucks in exterior walls with…
