July 31, 2017
Brad McCorkle, professor of architecture at University of Texas at Arlington, had never used ZIP System® stretch tape, but was quickly converted.
“As soon as I saw the demo on it, I was like, ‘We’re going to get some of that right?’” he laughed.
McCorkle leads the university’s design build program, Parallel Construction, and was researching products to use for the two student-designed, micro houses — both under 400 sq. ft. Once he was introduced to Huber Engineered Woods products, McCorkle decided to use 1 1/8” AdvanTech® subflooring, 7/16″ ZIP System sheathing® for the walls and 1/2” ZIP System® sheathing for the roof deck. ZIP System™ tape and ZIP System™ stretch tape were also used on both builds.
The process:
Last August, 18 undergraduate students and two graduate students were tasked with creating micro house designs. The pool of 20 designs was narrowed down to five. Then, those five designs were presented to architects, contractors and faculty members to vote on the top two designs. The final part of the semester was spent putting together construction documents, a material list and calculating costs.
A ZIP System® sheathing and tape sales representative visited the jobsite and walked the students through taping joints and flashing window openings.
“I like this system because it’s all one round of labor,” McCorkle said. “You’re not doing the sheathing and then the housewrap, and then watching the housewrap blow away.”
Prior to the build, McCorkle said the students had very limited construction and power tools experience. In the spring, they started working on the jobsite three days a week and eventually increased to seven days a week.