Water
Rainscreen gap behind the cladding, a water-resistive barrier lapped shingle-style, sill pans and flashing at every window and door, and kick-out flashing where roofs meet walls.
Checked before cladding goes onServicesNew Construction
New Construction
Ground-up builds from foundation to finishing touches, built in the order the physics requires and tested before you move in.
Four control layers, continuous all the way around
A high performance house is a box that controls water, air, vapor and heat, in that order of importance. Each layer has to be continuous, with no gaps at corners, windows, roof edges or the foundation.
Air
One continuous air barrier around the whole house: taped sheathing seams and sealed top plates, rim joists and every penetration.
Blower door test, pre-drywall and finalVapor
Vapor control matched to the climate zone and assembly, so walls and roofs can dry. A capillary break and sub-slab vapor barrier stop ground moisture.
Assembly reviewed at designThermal
Continuous exterior insulation to cut thermal bridging through studs, and cavity insulation installed to RESNET Grade I with no gaps or compression.
Insulation inspected before drywallIt starts with the drainage plan
Most moisture problems start at the ground. Before we pour, we confirm a drainage plan for the whole site: finished grade sloping away from the foundation (at least 6 inches of fall in the first 10 feet), foundation drains around the footings, and gutters and downspouts that discharge well away from the house.
At the foundation we install a capillary break so water can't wick up from the footing into the walls, a vapor barrier under the slab, and insulation at the slab and foundation walls appropriate to your climate zone.
Fresh air by design
A tight house needs planned ventilation. We install a balanced energy recovery ventilator (ERV) that brings in filtered fresh air and exhausts stale air continuously. It recovers heat in winter and coolness in summer, and because an ERV also transfers moisture, it helps keep indoor air from getting uncomfortably dry during Utah winters.
Heating and cooling equipment is sized from the Manual J load calculation. Right-sized equipment runs longer, quieter cycles, holds temperatures more evenly and controls humidity better than the oversized systems common in production homes.
Tested, not assumed
We test airtightness with a blower door, which depressurizes the house to 50 pascals and measures the leakage in air changes per hour (ACH50). We test once before drywall, while leaks are still easy to find and fix, and again at completion. Every home gets an airtightness target set tighter than the energy code requires, and the final test shows whether we met it.
Ducts are leak-tested, and an independent RESNET-certified rater confirms the final HERS Index. The HERS Index compares your home with a reference home built to the 2006 energy code (scored 100); lower is better, and 0 is a net-zero home. We set each home's HERS target below what the same house built only to code would score, and the rating confirms the result.