Top 5 Dumbest Building Products

on the build show today top-five dumbest building products let's get going to this one right here number one on my list this one has bugged me for years this is a cardboard sheathing basically a paper-based sheathing product can you believe that this is used all over the country this has been in use probably for 20 or 30 years in America and still today I'm in a brand new house in an unknown location look at that cardboard sheathing here's a little sample of it right here prefer not to show you the manufacturer no need to have them call me but look at this this is basically a cardboard sheathing a paper-based sheathing that has some kind of a plasticy finish on the outside but think how well that is gonna last on this building and this is also the waterproofing layer look at that I can literally rip the sheathing and that's what's doing the shear on this house that's also what's keeping the water out of the house how do you do anything for this this is terrible look it's also super susceptible to the jobsite damage probably the Mason or somebody poked this on the outside we've got a big rip right here the only thing the Builder can do to waterproof it is use some spray foam around there but look at this I mean this is the sheathing for the house and this house is meant to last I don't understand how we're paper-based product is gonna work okay number two on my list pin punched plastic house wraps you know these are sold this particular one is sold under several different brand names I'm sure it's third party labeled but you can tell by the kind of crosshatch label if you look up close on here and if you hold it up to the Sun or a bright light source you can actually see pinpoint light sources out of there it's basically a plastic wrap that they punch pin needles through there and that's how they get the permeability but check this out this house wrap is totally not waterproof here's a little test you can do for any house wrap to see how well it does and let alone we're adding let's say we're adding some staples when we add it to the wall of a house but let's check this out real quick quick demonstration I put some water on the top of the house wrap I put a paper towel underneath we're gonna let this sit for about five minutes and come back and see what it looks like okay it's been like four minutes let's see how this house wrap did on a waterproofing test again remember there's no punctures in this we didn't do anything to this we didn't staple through it and let's look at it here's my little bounty right there check that out look that hold it up to the light this is not a waterproof house wrap we do not want this on our buildings because our sensitive building materials are going to get wet this test was for five minutes and this test is clearly showing this house rap let's water through you do not want a pin-based house rap number three on my list recessed tankless units now this one is set up for a brick or a stone facade on the outside but look at this recess unit right here they had to cut it into the sheathing and the tank is actually recessed back in here now it's not the tankless unit itself it's this recessed kit that I think is terrible terrible product and let me show you why let's walk around the inside I'm going to show you what's back there follow me it's this right here that I don't like so this this guy's flushed out with a 2x4 wall on the inside you can see this here and see how much light we've got showing around here so it's really hard to air seal these now we are in a garage in this particular location but my biggest issue with these recessed tankless is right here look we've got all our supply pipes coming in here we've got a gas line looks like we've got water supply here and then hot is coming out how would you ever both air seal this but how do you keep the water out - and you've got a recessed tankless like this we just have a one or two foot overhang on the outside there's gonna be water inside this unit and then it's going to leak down into here which means that ten years fifteen years from now this whole cavity is gonna be a mess there's even be mold growth in here there's gonna be rot I just don't like them it's not a good idea we should either mount this tankless in the garage and then then pipe it through the roof or a direct line out or we should mount it on the outside of the cladding and let the let it show these recessed boxes dumb products not a fan number four in my list paper base flashing look at this you see this detail all over Texas where the framers put this on but before they put the sheathing on on the outside of the wall the idea is this is meant to protect water from coming up underneath this bottom plate but what it's not doing is not protecting the sensitive edge at the bottom of the sheathing now Huber zip great product but on this cut edge we need to protect that from moisture come on around here and I'm going to show you what's happening so here's our brick ledge right here and this paper-based flashing this is gonna degrade within a really short period of time I remodeled the house just a couple years ago that was maybe six seven years old and this was absolutely mush you could pull it apart after just a couple of short years so this is number one not gonna protect the water from coming back underneath that bottom plate but it's also not gonna protect this cut edge on our OSB sheathing right here that's not good we want to protect that sheathing the way to do this correctly is to use a flashing that's gonna come down here and come on to the brick ledge I made another video on this a while back on how to do this correctly with some pros to go products and protect this bottom edge I'll put a link in the description to do this right but paper base flashing dumb product and last but not least number five direct vent gas fireplaces this is a dumb building product we should stop using these these cheap metal boxes with these cheesy log sets you're not fooling anybody no one thinks this is a real fire in your house but here's the real problem I have with these see how this flue right here goes through the sidewall this is a direct event unit these flus have two big problems number one it's a huge hole in your thermal envelope see how you have no insulation around that that flue gets really hot because we've got those hot gases going through there so we can't let anything touch it no combustibles can be around there number two it's also a huge air leak and most installations I've seen see where we've got that caller right there around that flue coming through we can't seal that caller we can't use spray foam in there we can't use a cocking because it needs to be able to be combustion ready and we don't want it getting super hot as a result you basically have a giant air leak every time you put one of these in the house air leak means energy loss it also means any time air can get in that also could be a source for bugs get in your house this is as if we have a window that's cracked in our house that we can never close for the life of the building we don't want one of these guys do not you a direct vent gas fireplace and while we're on the topic don't put a ventless fireplace either either in that is a huge nono guys hope you join me on this tour of five dumb building products if you're new to our channel we publish every Tuesday and every Friday so hit that subscribe button below although wise follow me on Twitter and Instagram we'll see you next time on the build show [Music] you

Channel: Matt Risinger

Views: 1,755,618

Rating: 4.402905 out of 5

Keywords: building mistakes, recessed tankless, tankless water heater, zip system, paper based flashing, framer, framing, sheathing, bottom plate, worst building mistakes, foundation waterproofing, remodel

Id: P9SsMIBGn2M

Length: 7min 21sec (441 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 18 2018