If the brick poly is put behind the OSB, or it’s put up before the sheathing is, then moisture has access to the bottom of the OSB which is the incorrect application. Again you want to make sure you have the drain pan coming down and nothing’s coming back.

We’re working on the integrity of the house exterior envelope. If you notice how we’re protecting the integrity here with the penetration of the freon lines for the heating and air system and the electrical lines that supply the heating air system. Through the exterior envelope of the house we have tape around to seal it off tight, then we have tape around the metal protectors sealing them off tight also. 

We’re looking for the integrity and to keep the moisture out of the house. This house is a full foam encapsulation so we don’t worry so much about air penetration but we do worry about the moisture penetration which is the house’s worst enemy. 

Anytime we have a penetration through the brick we want to protect that from being damaged. So if you notice, we have the wiring coming through the brick and we have the sleeves for the wire that penetrates through the brick that helps protect this wiring from being damaged by the mortar and the brick and in the process of bricking the house. 

Same thing with the freon lines. the metal caps will help protect the integrity of the freon lines as they penetrate through the brick during construction of laying brick and also in the long term.

On the house wrap, it’s a properly sized house wrap meaning it goes from the brick ledge all the way up into the soffit. There’s no horizontal seams at all in the house wrap, also that the application of the house wrap that we’re nailing it up with plastic caps. The benefit of a plastic cap versus a staple, a staple has a tendency to penetrate clean through the house wrap. Thus breaking the drain pan that you’re trying to protect. The plastic cap helps maintain the integrity of the house wrap and exterior envelope thus we don’t have any moisture penetration through the house wrap into the house. 

There’s another process that we have on the outside of the house. This process going on is again for moisture control, moisture gets through the brick through a capillary action through the mortar. So you have mortar on the back side of the brick and it as it goes down it comes out of the weep holes in the bottom of the brick. It also works as a convection going up to where the air flows helps dry the back of the brick out and it kind of insulates between the brick and the house. So that’s important to allow air to flow, so you need to have a cavity for it to flow through so if you go up to the back of the brick and you come out to the vented soffit the vented soffit allows, again, for the airflow from the brick through the soffit and back out of the house thus helping to dry and insulate between the brick and the house.

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This is where the power comes into the house it comes from the outside service into the house to the back side and it comes into these panel boxes. Then from the panel boxes you can see the wires which distribute out to the main part of the house. One thing I want to point out is the neatness of the wiring it’s bundled up tight it gets to the attic and it uniformly goes down to the rest of the house rather than scattered throughout the whole attic. Something else I want to point out, is the height of the panel boxes, this home is built to more of a universal design that means the panel box will drop slightly so that the person in the home can get access to the main power cut off in case he needs to.

I want to point out the green tint to the bottom of the framing members. We tint our termite protection green so that we make sure we get proper coverage of the framing members with the termite protection. The mark we have on the stud is just signifying that the wire is too close to the edge of the stud and then it needs a nail plate.

We’re in the kitchen area so I want to point out a few aspects of the wall system here. To start off with, if you notice the water lines are PEX I like PEX a lot for many reasons but the most simplistic reason is you got blue cold and you got red hot. The splices are easily made and the runs are all full run from this location to the previous location. Another thing is a blocking for the cabinets you have blocking for the lower cabinets blocking for the upper cabinets and with the universal design aspect of it if you notice the switches are slightly lower than what most switches are on the wall.

The next thing I want to point out on the wall will be the PVC feeds. You have the PVC going from the very top down through the slab feeding the island and you have one feed in the floor plug. With it going all the way to the top plate it makes it easy to feed later on if you want to add additional wiring to it. Then you look at the very top all these penetrations in the wall are foamed and sealed off. 

I want to point out a few things on the island, you have the bar that’s been framed up for the back of the island. Then you have the water lines and power lines and such coming from under the slab on the far end of the island. And you have the PEX come across, remember the red PEX for the hot water the blue PEX is for the cold water, and they’re terminated with copper. It makes a lot easier and stable to have your shutoff valve on the end of the copper rather than being fed through the PEX. 

You have your drain lines through the PVC. This particular drain line is set up to have a mechanical Studor valve installed on it which is a one-way air valve for the ventilation system. Another way of doing that is a loop system to where the PVC would loop up and around, down back to the slab and back to the roof to help ventilate again the sewer lines.

I want to point out a few things when it comes to a wood burner fireplace inside of a full-foam encapsulated house. Now this is the 42 inch firebox and we do have the outside combustible air coming in to help feed the fire but it’s not near enough to help this fire burn properly. So on a wood burning fireplace, in a full-foam encapsulated house, you need to be sure and open your window slightly one closest to the firebox to help this fire burn properly.

We have blocking in the wall of the kitchen to attach the cabinets to so you’re not trying to find the studs when you’re installing the cabinets. You have a 36 inch lower cabinet and then between the lower cabinet and the upper cabinet is about 18 inches. Then from the upper cabinet they are normally about a 42 inch cabinet on the uppers, but on this particular house we have we’ll have cabinets from the upper cabinets to the ceiling that are just open cabinets for displays.

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