Tag: remodeling

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How to Prioritize Performance Upgrades to Existing Homes

I’ve been performing a semi-deep energy retrofit to my home for the past 5 years, and at my current rate of progress, it will be another 5 years before I’m complete.  This leads to a question; how does a person prioritize the work to be done?  Are the easiest items to complete done first, or the stuff that provides the biggest return on investment a better place to start?  This blog discusses my suggested priorities.

  1. Structural decay must be dealt with first.

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Construction Materials-A Less Common Sheathing

This post first appeared on the Green Building Advisor’s website.

When I first started working in the trades as an electrician back in the mid 1990’s, we worked for a couple contractors that liked to use buffalo board sheathing.  I suspect the product was given this name because of its resemblance to buffalo chips.  (If you don’t know what a buffalo chip is, you’ll have to look it up, it’s not the kind of chip you eat.)  I’ve heard it called several other names, bildrite, beaver board, brickboard, bagasse, but it is best known as fiberboard sheathing.

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