TIPS AND LESSONS FROM THE RISINGER BUILD

Matt Risinger and his team have been hard at work throughout 2024 building a state-of-the-art, high-performance home in Austin, Texas utilizing the building science principles he’s known for, as well as BFS Digital Tools. By taking advantage of these resources, he’s showing how he can complete the project on a modest budget.

Now that this BUILD Original Series is approximately halfway complete, we thought it would be a good time to look back on the first several episodes and highlight some of the themes and lessons – both smaller ones and big ones – that might help make a difference in your projects.

DIGITAL PREPARATION

Using Digital Tools in the pre-construction phase allows you to build a house on a computer. This modern form of concepting will highlight everything that is involved from engineering to the READY-FRAME® package to the mechanicals, giving you a much better understanding of the road ahead and the final product itself.

Architect Steve Baczek said he’s seen a “giant gap between where we finish drawings and going into construction” and the Digital Tools help fill that gap, making the entire building process much easier.

PUT A LABEL ON IT

Label all pipes that come up from the foundation for future reference. Whether an issue comes up one year or 20 years after a house is built, you save a lot of time if it’s easy for the builders or plumbers to be able to quickly identify the pipe in question. That's why simply labeling pipes with a high-quality label that won’t quickly fade will make things go much easier if and when something goes wrong.

SEAL THE DEAL

Risinger says one of the tips he learned from Baczek was about how to improve a home’s air seal.

Use an inexpensive seal sealer and hammer-tack it to the backside of the bottom plate so they can flip it up and run sealant along it. By laying the adhesive between the wood and the seal sealer and putting a bead of adhesive both on the concrete and where the boards come together, you can provide protection in those areas against air leakage and help prevent bugs from infiltrating.

KNOW YOUR JOBSITE SPACE

An important detail that can be easily forgotten is the amount of space builders have on the jobsite for materials, including lumber. That's one of the often overlooked benefits of the READY-FRAME® system that Risinger is using for this project. By having the materials delivered pre-cut, in order, and when they’re needed, he’s able to maintain a more organized job site without materials spilling out into the street.

Similarly, if you have ever lived near a house under construction, you know how unpleasant it can be to hear saws at work all day long, possibly for several weeks. Using pre-cut framing and READY-FRAME® technology will not only shorten construction time, but it will minimize any sawing on the jobsite–a friendly act that will be appreciated by any neighborhood.

SAFETY & WINDOW INSTALLATION

The seventh episode of the series focuses on window installation, and a highlight is Matt explaining how to install upper-level windows from the inside of the house. Using revolutionary products such as Pella’s Steady Set™ brackets, which allow for various wall thickness options, Matt details the process and tools required to install windows from the inside, creating a safer experience for builders since it doesn’t require installation while standing on a ladder.

THE EXTRA EFFORT IS WORTH IT

Matt notes that when he remodels an older house, if there are any rot problems, they tend to be on the bottom feet of the home’s sheathing. As a way to help prevent this, he’ll come back to the wall and put tape or a dab of liquid flash over the nails for a little extra protection. This isn’t a building requirement, but it’s a nice bit of extra detailing to keep the base of the house in good condition.

These are just a few of the tips and tricks that Matt has shared on his series. There is much more that you can find among the videos released so far, and more that we’re excited to share over the coming months. It might be fun to re-watch the videos available now to see what you might have missed! We’ll also be releasing new videos for the next few months until the series is complete, so stay tuned for more!

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