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I know this looks like water behind me, but it's not. It's plastic. Let me tell you all
about it. They say an eco-friendly house can't be built in 150 days for $150,000, and I say
it can. I'm Allen Smith, join me as I push the limits with time, budget and creativity
with the Garden Home Challenge, exclusively on eHow Home. It's lookin' good. Well, Dustin
and Joe are wrapping up the getting the compressor set up for our mini-split system to cool this
house down because it's gotten really hot. We're just about there in terms of cooling
this house down. But, you know, the thing that you have to do is you gotta make sure
that the house is completely sealed so once you do cool it, this time of year, you keep
the cool inside. And there's some ways you can do that. Come on in here. Now I know that
we've talked about insulation and the importance of it throughout the construction of this
house, and you're probably sick and tired of hearing me say it, but it is so, so important.
This is a little different down here because we're talking about the underside of the house
itself. We've already put the insulation in the walls. Remember, we used the cellulose,
and built out the walls -- they're 6 inches thick, and then on all the slopes upstairs,
the roof, etc. We used the soybean foam insulation. But in here, we're using two other products
that will help finish off the entire envelope around the house -- from top, down along the
sides, now, underneath. We're using some of this fiberglass batting, you can see here,
between floor joists of the house. And the way these are held in place, you just take
a wire like this, the batting goes up and the wire goes in like that and holds it -- pretty
cool, huh? And then in here, which is actually underneath the footprint of the house, what
we've done is we've come in and we've covered the entire floor with a black plastic. Now,
this serves as a vapor barrier under here, and it does a lot to help maintain the longevity
of this house. For instance, by keeping the moisture under here at bay, it's going to
keep the floors from buckling, it protects the structure from rotting, as well as keeps
the occurrence of mold way down. Now I wish you could feel it in here because it's a lot
cooler than it is outside. It's so hot today that in here, I bet it's 20 to 30 degrees
cooler. Now let's talk about air quality for just a moment: You see, the beauty of putting
this batting up here, this insulation in the floor joists, is that it keeps air from going
up through the house from down here below, and it keeps you from losing air from in the
house, cool air, or in the winter, warm air, through the floor, into this space. So it's
really a good idea. If you're enjoying these updates on the house, check in regularly,
make sure you tell a friend about them, and subscribe to eHow Home. Alright, guess I gotta
go back out in the heat now.