First DIY Tiny House on Wheels? Tour this Self-Built THOW Motor Home

Welcome to Pioneer Village in Minden Nebraska, where they have one of everything. This place is a picker's wet dream. We'll stick to Wendell Turner's 1950 DIY truck conversion to a motor home, before motor homes were a manufactured product. See the awesome things he got right for performance, along with a lot of the kooky things you tend to see in unique tiny homes the world over.

Learn more about our TinyLab, the world's highest performance tiny house on wheels: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsc2-5fAgMq51-6Gwm3m7HXjRhgt9X7RK

Learn to tune the performance of any tiny home in our online course: https://buildingperformanceworkshop.com/tinyspaces

Best of 2022 Nat'l Home Performance Conference

We were deep into this year's National Home Performance Conference in Nashville, and in addition to giving classes on ventilation, advanced testing, and a screening of 'Home Diagnosis', we checked out what's cool and new on the trade show floor. Here are our favorites:

Broan Ventilation Components: https://Broan.com

Rockwool Insulation: https://rockwool.com

AirCycler Ventilation Controls and Sensors: https://aircycler.com

Retrotec Instruments: https://retrotec.com

TruTech Tools: https://trutechtools.com

TEC Instruments: https://energyconservatory.com

Check out 'Home Diagnosis' and the other incredible companies who are investing in educating the public on building science: https://homediagnosis.tv/season-3

Tour of our Kichler LED Lighting System Layers

Our #ForeverHome is not just a marvel of scientific control, it's also stunningly beautiful thanks in large part to our design help from Kichler's Jeff Dross. Get the full tour of all the layers of lighting (ambient, task, and accent) as Grace and Corbett Lunsford go deep on details of designing, wiring, and customizing a high performance home lighting system.

See the 'how to design' video interview at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdFtY5udLKA

Learn more about this house at: https://HomeDiagnosis.tv/atlanta-homestead

Join our Patreon membership and learn TONS more for as little as $5/month: https://Patreon.com/HomeDiagnosisTV

Incredible Craftsmen in Wood, Metal, and Building Science at Watson Springs

Welcome to the workshops of our friends Richard Shrader (http://RShrader.com) and Dr. Landus Bennett (whom you've seen several times before on our channel), the brains and hands behind http://WatsonSprings.com. Relax and tag along on an impromptu hack video tour of some of the most amazing stuff I've seen in my career.

Tweaking our Home's Water System with Chronomite Point-of-Use Water Heaters

I've heard lots of myths and misinformation about water heating, and lots of 'silver bullet' products that don't actually do what they claim. Here's a refresher on a bunch of things that you might not have ever seen or considered before, and the testing to prove they work. Featuring Chronomite instantaneous tankless water heaters with a low flow activation down to 0.2 gpm, microprocessor control, and self-cleaning features, along with our system’s efficient PEX one-pipe plumbing, and even ventilation location selection.

Check out these handy machines at: http://Chronomite.com

Tiny House Building Science Basics

1. Tell us about the TinyLab:

Our #TinyLab is a 210 sq. ft. house on wheels we designed and built ourselves to be the best performing home most people have ever seen. It’s supremely airtight, quiet, and comfortable, while also being equipped with the best heating, cooling, and ventilation systems in the world. We’re showing Americans how home performance works with our non-profit Proof Is Possible Tour. There’s this mythology around houses that ‘they all have problems, that’s just how they are’; it’s just not true.

2. How did the TinyLab start?

Well, the dynamics of home performance are based in physics, which is tough to explain- our colleagues have been trying for decades. But these dynamics can have real consequences for your family- they can cause sickness or even death. We thought, ‘how can we show consumers home performance?’ The #TinyLab is what all homes could evolve to be, whether they’re big or small. It’s a critical time for this, since building codes in all 50 states are requiring performance testing.

3. What are the major findings between the relationship of health and homes?

Two major health problems anyone can find out themselves for starters: dampness and carbon monoxide (CO). The symptoms of CO poisoning are ‘flu-like’, but ask yourself how many times you’ve been to the doctor with ‘flu-like’ symptoms and ever been tested for CO poisoning (never, say most people). And though we know dampness causes mold, mildew, dust mites, etc, do we think about what causes dampness? It’s usually air leakage- air leakage is the single biggest problem in most homes.

4. How do you protect yourself from carbon monoxide poisoning?

The only way to be sure is to test. Whole-home performance testing can prove if your gas stove, water heater, furnace, or fireplace are exhausting properly and creating very little CO. We have a Defender ‘low-level’ monitor in the TinyLab. Your normal CO detector won’t always protect you. If it’s what’s called ‘UL-listed’ then it specifically will NOT protect children, pregnant women, ill or elderly people from low-level carbon monoxide poisoning. And it says so right in the manual. Crazy.

5. What are 5 tips you have for any homeowner/ renter reading this?

One: Your home is a system of interacting parts, so anyone who says one product can fix it is lying or naïve. Two: Proof is Possible- act on diagnostic proof before you undertake surgery on your home and before you pay your contractors for measured improvements. Three: airtightness is good- don’t let anyone tell you we should build crappy houses that can ‘breathe’ through the cracks. Four: ventilation is critical- take stale air out, bring fresh air in. Five: Our YouTube channel is called ‘Home Performance’- you can learn tips 6 through 1000 there.

6. What specific diagnostics are recommended for homes?

Great question! Blower door testing is most important- our TinyLab’s test proves that as first-time homebuilders, we achieved the most airtight standard in the world (that’s what makes it so quiet in here). Infrared thermal photos prove our insulation works. Pressure testing proves our home is not sucking air back in through exhaust fans or chimneys. Airflow testing proves our HVAC system’s working as designed. Air quality tests prove our family isn’t being poisoned. Proof is possible. Ask for it.

To learn more about your home’s performance, download the free ‘GeniusBooklet’ at:

https://buildingperformanceworkshop.com/geniusbooklet-how-your-home-works

To see the #TinyLab as it travels across the U.S. on the Proof Is Possible Tour, see the schedule at:

http://ProofIsPossible.com

How to Hotrod a Radon Mitigation System

We've been looking forward to showing off this system for a long time- the pipes for it were installed during foundation work at the start of construction, and now 2 years later it's finished, with the Fantech Rn4 EC fan (infinitely variable), multiple drainage systems, and a roof cap. Get the details on all the tweaks we had to use to make sure this system runs perfectly, which it's doing right now.

Radon fan at: https://shop.fantech.net/en-US/radon--mitigation--fans/c46856

Wave Plus radon monitor at: https://www.trutechtools.com/AirThings-Wave-Plus-Indoor-Air-Quality-Radon

Pango Wrap at: https://www.stegoindustries.com/products/pango-wrap

How a Trip to Europe Changed Our Work

This is not so much about building science specifics- more about 'Home Diagnosis' co-creator Corbett Lunsford's revelations while traveling through Venice and Bern. Read 35 year's worth of home performance articles at: http://HomeEnergy.org

Join the Building Performance Association at: http://Building-Performance.org

Watch the first-ever TV series about Building Performance at: https://HomeDiagnosis.tv

Home Ventilation for the 21st Century

There's a lot of mythology and misinformation about how to ventilate homes, and here Corbett shows, with the assistance of Phil Rivas from Fantech, how a perfect ventilation system gets built with 5 classes of HVI-certified equipment.

More on these products at: http://Fantech.net

More on HVI (Home Ventilating Institute): http://HVI.org

More on this build at: https://HomeDiagnosis.tv

Teaser for Home Diagnosis Season 1 (eps 3-6)

See bits of four episodes from Home Diagnosis Season 1! More at: https://HomeDiagnosis.tv

Home Performance Mastermind Minute: Week 5

Diagnostics are the heart of all home performance work- testing will set you free with proof and prediction!

Keynote on Home Performance and Building Diagnostics

Corbett Lunsford delivered several keynote addresses in 2016 on building and touring the #TinyLab, home performance testing mastery, and how the construction and home improvement industry is evolving to incorporate proof of performance. You can watch this recording, delivered at the 2016 InfraMation conference in Las Vegas.