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Steve Easley previews a few of the energy-efficient building materials planned for the EnergyWise House.

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Product Previews

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" Homes are made up of thousands of building materials, so if you want to get a good quality home, it is important that you use good quality products. Over the next few months, we are going to be showing you some very innovative products that are going to make your home lot more energy efficient and structurally sound. One of those products is what we call a structural insulated panel. Now, normally the sidewalls of the home are built with 2 x 4 and 2 x 6 suds. They have some exterior sheathing on the outside and some type of [unk] material like Stucco siding or brick; 2 x 4 studs, insulation and drywall. This system is pretty unique. It is actually two layers of oriented strand board, sandwiched in between that is some polystyrene insulation. Now, you would not think this could be as strong as a normal wall, but it really is. It is extremely strong and this is also very energy efficient because it does not have a lot of air infiltration go through and foam is a very good insulator. Another really [unk] product is radiant barrier sheathing. Now, this product is called a Techshield and what it really is, is just a thin layer of aluminum foil that is laminated to the roof deck sheathing, so when you put on your roof deck, your radiant barrier is already there, and how this works, is when the heat from the sun [unk] down on the roof, it normally would be reradiated into the attic, which is going to run up your air conditioning bills, but because the surface is shiny, it cannot give off its energy very well, so your attic space is a lot cooler as much as 30 degrees cooler and since most air conditioning ducts are located in the attic, that is going to make your air conditioning bills a lot lower. So, stick with this over the next few months because we are going to show you a lot of innovative products like this that is going to make your home a lot more comfortable and energy efficiently to live in."

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