Let’s not fix what is not Broken

I have conversations every day with people who have the next new idea that will make their house better for less money. Most often they are inherently flawed ideas that stem from good intent. Here is a good rule to consider.  If you look around the building industry, and realize that all of the professionals that are in the business, have been for a long time all with the intent of trying to bring the best value to their customers all seem to be doing certain things the same way, chances are good that it is tried and proven.

Take Foundations for example, I have done wood foundations, block, ICF, and Superior Walls, but today I do 95% poured concrete foundations.  Look around building sites of all types and you will see that is the method pretty much everyone is using. Why? Because it is clearly the best foundation system for cost effective solid foundation with a great long term track record of success. No need to re-invent it.  Trust me, if someone comes out with a truly better mouse trap it will not take long for the industry to adopt it, but for now it has not happened.

The same tends to be true of other building product.  If you look around today for the first time in years, OSB sheathing on the outside of the framing has largely been replaced by Zip Wall (the green stuff you see on houses during framing.  It is a better product for site built construction that has weather resistance and gives a tighter seal to the house at a reasonable cost.  There have been many attempts to come up with a better sheathing that achieve this but Zip wall nailed it and it did not take long for it to appear everywhere in the industry.

Stick with what works, give some time for new products to become established and for the industry to find the pitfalls of them, when it is proven then jump on the bandwagon.