Housewrap

[schmism]

a Tyvek type house wrap serves to pourpouses.

1) mousture barier
2) wind barier

In the north the mosture barier usually goes on the inside due to more time spent heating the house with warm most air inside... (not trapped in the insulation)

in the shouth it usually goes on the outside as your cooling more, (keeping the warm moist air OUTSIDE, and again, out of the insulation.

no such thing as a "to tight of a house" you just need proper air to air exhanger thats all.

[Nissan197]

Thanks for all the replies. What I am doing is having a framing company build all the floor joists, roof trusses and wall panels. They will truck them out to my building site and put everything together. Part of the deal is housewrap. I am going to be using 2 X 4 construction with Foam Spray Insulation to an R21 in all the exterior walls. I asked the insulation sub and he does not recommend either way. He said he has sprayed some houses who will not use housewrap and others that will. Framing company said there is not enough information out on the type of insulation I will be using along with housewrap. The only thing bad I have heard is it will be too airtight......IMHO I think what would it hurt. One more thing to protect the sheathing just in case moisture gets behind the siding.

Now I still have to decide on the geothermal HVAC system. 22K for top of the line 5 ton system with horizontal closed loop system or around 12K for a good quality heat pump. The up front money is scary on the geo, but I have heard in my area it will pay itself back in 3 - 5 years. I just don't know if that will work with the budget. Very big decision for me that I am having a difficult time deciding on.

Going tomorrow to visit the local Pella window dealer. It will be between Fiberglass or Vinyl and I think I am leaning towards the fiberglass. They are more money, but not much more than vinyl and of course they are cheaper than wood.

[RichNJKubota]

How cold does it get in Kansas? Is your house solar heated and cooled? If so, you would not need a 5 ton unit for the average sized house. 2 tons would be fine if you have supplemental passive solar heating and cooling.

[Nissan197]

As of right now my house will be all electric. The eastern part of Kansas weather is always changing, but it is not that bad. Winter months temperature averages in the highs of 20's - 30's with lows in the teens. Summer is usually humid with temperatures in the high 80's to 90's, a few 100's. The house is going to be a ranch with 2,750 sq feet and a full basement. The plans we chose are located:

http://www.designbasic.com

The Saybrooke design

[ktm250rider]

I had so many people telling me that it was a bad idea to build a "tight" house. They dont seem to understand that when you build this way, you are able to control the number of air exchanges to suit your environment. Its a whole lot better to control the intake of fresh air in your home mechanicaly than realying on a crappy insulation job.
Build it tight and then add mechanical ventalation.

[RichNJKubota]

Careful opening that LINK! It opened a bunch of browser windows on my PC that were difficult to close. They kept popping up new ones.
When I see a website like that I don't trust their intentions!

=================================

Originally Posted by Nissan197

As of right now my house will be all electric. The eastern part of Kansas weather is always changing, but it is not that bad. Winter months temperature averages in the highs of 20's - 30's with lows in the teens. Summer is usually humid with temperatures in the high 80's to 90's, a few 100's. The house is going to be a ranch with 2,750 sq feet and a full basement. The plans we chose are located:

http://www.designbasic.com

The Saybrooke design

[Highbeam]

Thanks for the warning Rich, I think they call those sites "mousetraps".

[em14]

I got the results as Rich when I tried to see the house plans ... Bad News!
Leo

[dbdartman]

Let me guess: You use IE, right? Just opened the site with Firefox & nothing funny happened at all!

[Nissan197]

Sorry all, that should have an S on the end. designbasics.com