Tips for High Performance Home Floorplan: Designing Out Condensation, Odors, Discomfort, and Hassle

Thanks for fighting the good fight! A couple of questions:
1) Exhausting directly from the Shower and Powder room to a continuously running ERV seems to make good sense on some level. Should we assume that there is no conditioned supply in these locations, or does the conditioned supply air get pulled into the bathrooms? It seems that if there was supply in the Bathrooms it would run straight to the ERV exhaust potentially limiting their effectiveness in conditioning that space? If the ERV is running full time and the Conditioned supply is running as needed based on the thermostat location does this lead to less than ideal conditions in the bathrooms. I would love to see a video on the science of supply grille locations for an entire house. Last question, on an older not so well sealed home why would you not recommend an ERV (just the cost), it seems the less you need to pull air from cracks and crevices via negative pressure the better? Thanks!!!!

Corbett you’ve got 2 very excited crawlspace tunnel rats that I personally can vouch that would LOVE to be in charge of going into the crawl and changing filters and scooting around on the creepers. And one more tunnel rat in training. I’m not as worried about you getting hit by a bus, I’m more worried about Big Plasma coming after you lol.

Obsessed with the information I learn from this channel. Designing my own high performance home. My intentions are to have closets on exterior walls, but I plan on all of my exterior walls being highly insulated, and all of my closests having HVAC registers, and their closet doors having grilles/louvres in order to return back to HVAC. Would I still have that kind of moisture problem you mentioned at the beginning of the video? Thanks for your help. I should mention I live in hot/humid South Florida.

So i have heard this thing if you have radiant heat in a home you don't really have to worry about indoor air quality. is this true?

Great topic. I'd love to see more videos about design that's bigger than assemblies.

Love learning and seeing how things can be done better. Hopefully one day I can take all the strategies and build my own. Do you have videos about taking older homes say without wall insulation and the best practice to improve them since air leakage can be super high? Do erv/hrvs still make sense? It would be cool to see you break down steps on improving this type of house since most of what I see can’t start from a clean slate.

Manual for the house. Umm yah.
Normal homes are lucky to get the lawn mowed. Ask them to change the ac filters ohh boy.
Not only a manual for the owners, it's important for the next technicians coming into the home.

Another quality video.
I have argued with a couple people about thermal bridging and spray foam.
The stud is such a small sliver over the 16 or 24" span.

Running Warmboard into the closets keeps the closets from getting musty. Also closets on exterior wall should be around 25” in depth. Keep the clothes on hangers about 2 inches from the wall. The air gap keeps the clothes fresher.

Love these Corbett 👍🏻🙏

I don’t understand the closet thing. In my mind a closet full of clothes on an exterior wall added to thenR value of the wall because now I have a whole layer of clothes on top of the wall between me and the outdoor elements. How does it cause issues?

I want to build high performance at a very tight budget, do you have resources for that?

So a full closet up against an outside wall is a problem because it has too much insulation now? :-/

thats good info on closets.
here we have whats called "northland closets", which is simply the door replaced with a curtain. thats to help dry out the closet. not sure how well it works, i prefer to dry out the whole house.

15!!!

Rule of thumb never put anything but doors and windows on exterior walls, and minimize those when possible 👍

Please go on more about why thermal bridging isn't as big a deal as we think. We've probably all seen the thermal imaging photos which clearly show thermal bridging. Actually, I've seen that in frost that has formed on siding: there is less frost where the studs are. Have you done a video on the ZIP system?

Is there anything wrong with including both a traditional bath fan and HRV/ERV exhaust in a bathroom?

I like the idea of closets along interior walls since it helps sound insulation

Super nerd fight!

So does the stand alone bath tub needs a exhaust fan? I would think it would help with the moisture control.

A lot of these exterior wall restrictions could be eliminated with the use of more exterior insulation and tighter construction.

I think the best shape for house is just a rectangle

Excellent video topic and reminders, as always. First one I'm watching with this shoot format of having you against a black background and the white board on the other half of the frame. It works exceptionally well! 👍

I had a closet in the middle of an uninsulated 60's house, it and the interior walls had the most mold.

Automatic "like," as always. Thank you!

In your example, would it make sense to add an exhaust port in the closet right near the entrance at the bottom of your house plan? To exhaust air to the ERV?

Understand the issue but keeping “all” exterior facing wall space free & clear seems like an onerous restriction. Would additional insulation between the wall & the offending case-goods, tub, etc., help? …

Good to know. We have a coat closet on the front of the house we barely use. But during the winter, every time I open it, it's at least 20 F colder in there.
Never even considered that it was a mold risk.

are showers or other vapor impermeable finishes on exterior walls a condensation risk?