Posts From February, 2019

How to Boost Home Performance and Durability with Foundation Vapor Protection

Contribute to Four Essential High-Performance Goals with Targeted Below-Slab Protection
How to Boost Home Performance and Durability with Foundation Vapor Protection
As a member of the EEBA community, you play a crucial role in leading the way towards constructing homes that are high-performing, healthy, and resilient. Now aligned with this objective are the self-educated homeowners and prospective buyers who are demanding high-performance homes. Because of this, builders (as well as the raters and architects who support them) are looking for product solutions that: Add value to their customers’ investments Demonstrate a core commitment to being a “responsible” builder Differentiate themselves in a competitive marketplace Our hope at Stego (and the purpose of this article) is to help provide useful support and education so that EEBA builders can better understand vapor transmission at the first side of the home - the foundation - and the role below-slab vapor barriers play in achieving high-performance goals in new homes. No, we are not talking about commodity 6 or 10-mil poly sheeting. Minimum residential code (2021 IRC... read more
 

The Flashing Yellow Arrow

Ongoing education is essential for keeping up with what's going on in your industry, and not getting stuck at that blinking light.
The Flashing Yellow Arrow
Back in 2013 I was working on a project in Tucson, Arizona. One day as I was driving around town, I got into a left turn lane on a green light and waited for an opening. To my surprise, the light went from green to a flashing yellow arrow - something I had never seen before. Cars were honking behind me and I just sat there while the light turned red. If you’re judging me right now, go ahead. To my defense, I grew up on an island that had ZERO stop lights and only a handful of stop signs. I later discovered that the Federal Highway Administration had passed some type of ordinance in 2009 “authorizing the use of flashing yellow arrows nationwide.” And just so you know, there are areas in SW Louisiana that JUST made the switch in late 2018. Later that same day while reflecting on that incident, I knew I should have instinctively known what to do on that flashing yellow light. But it also made me think...driving is something I did almost every single day but I hadn’t studied or read ... read more