A collection of five videos on a Passive House Retrofit in Sharon, CT (climate zone 5) executed by Ben Bogie, Built to Last, LLC

A simple test to verify that windows are waterproof BEFORE you install them.

Sidewalk snapshots of South American door hardware

18 videos on hardware, screws, and designs that deceive the eye

Three words: peel, stick, repeat

The go-to tool for extracting hard-to-remove nails, and when minimal damage is important.

Recessed into thick layers of insulation, innie windows are protected from the weather

 

Windows are big holes in walls that must be sealed against wind, water, and heat. This guide covers scope of work, how to install them, and why it matters.

 

A thermal break and solid backing puts the window on the outer face of a thick wall. Now, there's room on the inside window sill for cats and bowling trophies

 

This critical element is often omitted from window installation

 

Sealing the layers—and overlapping them right—is how high-performance building gets done

UPDATED (again!) with more doors of Ecuador

Windows cannot rest on the foam, so they hang from wood bucks

 

Use expensive stretch tape for the tricky parts and regular non-stretch tape for the rest of the window flashing

Wide tape spans the many layers of a thick wall to make an air tight and water tight seal

Window banks need to line up neatly for the trim to work out. Foam walls add the extra possibility of compressing the backing. So there's that.

 

Three videos covering the step by step process for flashing, installing, and airsealing an in-betweenie window in a Passive House Retrofit