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Build Your House Yourself University

Wish you knew more about the biggest investment you will most likely ever make? Build Your House Yourself University (byhyu) will teach you to save money and make smart decisions about the construction of the place you and your family will call HOME. We will help you understand residential construction— simplify and demystify the design build process. You’ll come away with successful strategies for building your own house, with or without a general contractor. Become an educated consumer, even if you prefer to buy, rather than build a new house. Complex construction jargon and best practices will be explained in easy to understand terms. It’s not the typical DIY (do it yourself) show. You will learn how to MANAGE the labor, not DO the labor for your new house. Join me, Michelle Nelson, host and fellow informal residential construction student. I’ll share the research I find on home design and building as I prepare to build my home. Together, our community of future home builders, will learn the tips, tricks and trends of experienced contractors and industry experts. I’ll interview owner-builders and construction professionals. During our mini lessons, I’ll inform you about framing, flooring, windows, insulation, kitchen cabinets and countertops…almost anything having to do with new construction homes. You’ll hear about energy efficiency and green building too. There will be product reviews in which you will be introduced to cutting edge, as well as, tried and true products and services. And in keeping with the university theme, episodes will end with short, fun quizzes. If we do our due diligence BEFORE we start construction, we will actually start construction with the most difficult part of the project behind us. Let’s put in the time, effort, preparation and research BEFORE we break ground and building our homes will be much easier and more enjoyable.
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Now displaying: Page 1
Nov 30, 2016

Together we’ll learn the basics of home design and construction and demystify the building process, so we can get the biggest bang for our buck and build our dream homes, with or without a general contractor.

“Build tight and ventilate right.”  That’s a mantra that I’ve heard since I started educating myself about home design and construction.  A tight house is a house with minimal air leakage.  Building a tight house is important so you can save on energy costs and make your home more comfortable.  A tight house also protects the structure of your home.  Here’s how:    If a house is built tightly, it prevents warm, moist air from entering or exiting the home.  The unwanted flow of warm, moist air can lead to moisture within your home’s walls and roof, causing structural damage. Building tight can alleviate that potential problem.  You’ll also need to ventilate right.  We’ll discuss ventilation systems in a future episode. Today, we’ll concentrate one of the first steps needed to build a tight house, which is adding a continuous air barrier to your house to reduce air leakage. 

The Zip system by Huber Engineered Woods is a continuous air barrier that many contractors are using to build tight houses.  Most of them agree that the Zip System outperforms traditional building methods using house wrap.  Today, I’ll review Huber’s Zip System.  I’m not affiliated with the product or company, and have no personal experience with it, but I’ve noticed that over the past several years quality builders in my region consistently choose the Zip system over traditional methods, like house wrap.  Plus I’ve read many contractors’ forums and home building websites for a consensus on the Zip System.

Show notes at BYHYU.com

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