Bob and developer John Druley walk through a home under construction by Qualker Homes in Falmouth, Massachusetts. This standard design is used for both the market-priced and affordable homes. The overall dimensions of the house are 26 feet by 36 feet. A center-door entry leads to 13-by-18-foot living room on one side and a 16-by-13-foot master bedroom on the other. The back of the house has a 13-by-18-foot kitchen with a back door and a window onto the backyard, a half-bath and laundry, and an entry to the master bedroom with full bath, tub-shower combination, double-bowl sink, and linen closet. The upstairs has two bedrooms with operable skylights and a full bath. This three-bedroom, two-and-one-half bath Cape will be lotteried as an affordable home to eligible families who make between $29,000 and $65,000 per year, and who qualify for a traditional mortgage. The home is stick-built with traditional 2X4 framing, oriented strand board (OSB) exterior sheathing, low-e glass, tilt-in vinyl windows, and gas heat. Bob and Druley point out that an affordable home must be affordable to operate and heat as well as being affordable to purchase.

When insulating typical 2x4 wall construction an R factor of R11 or R13 is used. To comply with Energy Star requirements, use an R15. This is the highest r value you can have in a 2x4 wall. The higher rating is achieved by adding more fiberglass to the blanket, allowing it to trap more cold air.

Bob is joined by Mikde Hobson of Westchester Insulation as the crew prepares one of the Mashpee houses for insulation installation. Hobson explains that this is a patented insulation system that uses special fabric stapled and drawn tight across any cavity that needs to be insulated. The crew works with pneumatic staplers to get the fabric in place across all the walls and the joists of the cathedral ceiling. The fabric is not intended as a moisture barrier of any kind and is just there to hold the insulation in place and prevent it from settling. Hobson shows Bob the white fiberglass that will be blown into the cavities. It is white because it is a virgin product, completely free of treatments, binders, or chemicals. Certainteed and Johns Manville both produce fiberglass insulation that is suitable for the Blow-In-Blanket installation. Once all cavities have been enclosed, the insulation contractor cuts a slit in the fabric and inserts a hose through which the fiberglass is blown. The cavity is filled to a density of two pounds per cubic foot which is visible to the eye by a slight bulge in the fabric. At this density, an R-value of 15 is achieved in two-by-four cavities like walls. In attics and ceiling cavities that are two-by-six, an R-value of 38 can be achieved. This insulation is inert and will not support moisture, mold, animals, or insects. It also serves as a sound insulator and can be blown in around drain lines, in interior partitions, and around tubs and showers. Blo-In-Blanket insulation is suitable for new construction or retrofit applications where it is blown in through the sheathing from the outside or through interior drywall to fill wall cavities. Blow-In-Blanket insulation costs about 50 to 60 percent more to install than traditional batt insulation, but offers such energy efficiency that it pays for itself within two to four years.

Bob takes a tour of the American Plywood Association testing facilities with Tom Williamson, the Executive Vice President of Engineered Wood Systems. Tom explains the various wood tests to Bob. First is the gluelam tester that tests the large beam with two load heads that apply up to two hundred fifty thousand pounds of pressure to the beam. The beam breaks at thirty-two thousand pounds of load. Next, Tom shows Bob the cyclic shearwall test which pushes an OSB wall and framing system back and forth to simulate an earthquake and measures the amount of load the can be applied to it. Tom then leads Bob to the panel flexure test, which determines the bending stiffness and strength of an OSB panel. Another test simulates a plywood window shutter by shooting a two by four into it with an air cannon. Finally Tom shows Bob the buckling wall test that exposes a plywood sidewall to three weeks of continuous rain and then measures how much it has buckled and moved. After three weeks, the wall has moved less than one tenth of an inch.

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Contractor Landers shows how to apply asphalt roofing shingles and visits the Bonnet House Museum, an artist's wild jungle oasis in the heart of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. On site, Ryley…

Today Bob's on the roof of the new addition on the Newton house: we see how the new gutter is attached and see how to correctly apply new asphalt roofing shingles around a new skylight to avoid future leaks.