Building good buildings is hard
enough without dealing with
materials or techniques that just
don't work. Here are four that I
feel work so rarely, or so poorly,
that they should virtually never
be used.
Exterior Foundation
Insulation
While working on several statefunded
housing projects, I was
instructed to use exterior foundation
insulation. Every installation
was a problem, and I vowed never
to use it again.
There is no solution to the
termite problem posed by exterior
foundation insulation. Termites
crawl through very small gaps,
and you cannot create a reasonably
priced, gap-free barrier at the
top of a foundation. At best, the
barrier forces the termites to
tunnel around it. The mythical
"maintenance personnel" that are
supposed to see these tunnels
won't, since the tunnels