Built better than even we used to

Over the years, we have prided ourselves on building homes with genuinely superior quality and craftsmanship. LifeStyle Homes has become known as “the builder you want if you want it built right”. We’re pretty proud of that.

But then came the building scientists from the Florida Solar Energy Center who told us, we needed to build our SunSmart homes with tighter tolerances, closer fits and better-sealed wall penetrations if we wanted them to pass their energy efficiency testing. We learned right away that the pursuit of high energy efficiency scores requires adherence to much stiffer construction quality standards than are acceptable in conventional homes.

The phrase, “They don’t build them like they used to,” takes on a whole new meaning with LifeStyle SunSmart homes. It’s literally true. We don’t build them like we used to. We build them much better. Better than we did a year ago, and better than anyone else in our market area does today.

What does that mean for you? Here is an example. For years, all home builders around here routinely broke holes in the inside surface of exterior concrete block walls to provide room to mount electrical safety boxes that support the wall outlets you see inside. That’s because the required electrical safety boxes are too deep to fit between the drywall around the wall outlet and the concrete block behind. They typically busted the holes they needed with a sledgehammer. “Who cares?” the guys might have said. “It’s all going to be covered up with drywall and paste, nice and neat. Nobody will know, and the County building inspector says it’s OK.”

You should see the infrared flares the scientists see in their instruments resulting from the movement of air in and out of those holes, which by the way are typically much larger than they need to be. Summer heat gets in and winter heat goes out. And, if air can move in and out, guess what else can.

Here’s the deal. We used to bust these over-sized holes ourselves, but we don’t do that anymore at LifeStyle Homes. We may be the only builder in this area who adheres to a higher standard. Ask around.

To stop that energy-wasting air transfer, LifeStyle SunSmart homes include double-thick furring strips between drywall and concrete block. This allows electrical safety boxes to be mounted without breaking any blocks, and it doubles the insulating effect of the dead air space inside the wall. So, you see, we really do build them better, now.