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See Episode GuideJapalachia
Kevin pays a visit to a whiz-kid mountain builder in Asheville, North Carolina, who has fused his Japanese-inspired love for clean lines and natural materials with no-nonsense Appalachian living. Then, Amy gets a thermal break by turning traditional framing inside out in a quest to keep heat where it belongs. And at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Kevin meets Eddy, a domestic-sized wind turbine with a new twist. And then finally, a robot arm at ARTAIC, a small artisan-owned company on Boston's waterfront, makes a striking custom mosaic from Amy's vacation photo on the spot -- for a lot less than you'd think.
Baroque-n Glass
Kevin heads to Vegas, where truckloads of glass bottles from the bars on the Strip are crushed and combined with fly ash in Greenstone to create an almost 100% recycled cast concrete product. As a specially molded baroque decorative element, this material transforms the façade of the manufacturing facility into a huge desert replica of the English castle Swarkstone Manor. Next, Amy checks out a tent for your attic and a drill bit that'll go through just about anything, and Kevin has found a portable workbench that turns out to be an extra set of hands for the job. Finally, Amy heads for San Francisco Bay, home to hippies, poets, artists and others simply seeking affordable waterfront living. Sausalito's community of nearly 400 houseboats is a floating smorgasbord of creative housing solutions.
The Land Beyond LEED
Amy checks out the future of a regenerative building at a California home designed to surpass all LEED building standards, pay its own bills and harvest its own water, all while housing a crowd. Then, Kevin makes quick work of laying tile the new way -- click-together rubber tile for the garage floor and mess-free ceramic tile that needs no adhesive or grout. Plus, Amy's got the latest in windows at the International Builder's Show, with storm-ready windows for keeping the elements out and fold-away glass walls for inviting them in. Finally, Kevin visits a North Carolina company that's retrained, rebuilt and repurposed its facilities to transform old asphalt roofing shingles into what might be your next driveway!
The Low-Load House
Amy heads off to snow country to meet Tedd Benson, a visionary New Hampshire builder who's taken the 2,000-year-old craft of timber framing and added a super-insulated wall system, running the whole process on a computer matrix. This "Low-Load" house is built in pieces in the plant, gets trucked to its mountainside site in Vermont and goes up quickly and precisely, despite Mother Nature's worst. Then, Kevin's got some more new ideas to insulate your home, like foam-filled framing lumber and Aerogel strips, and he's also got an answer to the eternal do-it-yourself question: what do I do with my demolition waste? After Amy demonstrates a product that makes crown molding installation a breeze, Kevin has his mind blown as he comes to understand the true power of wireless: charge your phone, cook your soup in the can or run your souped-up electric roadster, all without cables!
Baroque-n Glass
Kevin heads to Vegas, where truckloads of glass bottles from the bars on the Strip are crushed and combined with fly ash in Greenstone to create an almost 100% recycled cast concrete product. As a specially molded baroque decorative element, this material transforms the façade of the manufacturing facility into a huge desert replica of the English castle Swarkstone Manor. Next, Amy checks out a tent for your attic and a drill bit that'll go through just about anything, and Kevin has found a portable workbench that turns out to be an extra set of hands for the job. Finally, Amy heads for San Francisco Bay, home to hippies, poets, artists and others simply seeking affordable waterfront living. Sausalito's community of nearly 400 houseboats is a floating smorgasbord of creative housing solutions.
The Low-Load House
Amy heads off to snow country to meet Tedd Benson, a visionary New Hampshire builder who's taken the 2,000-year-old craft of timber framing and added a super-insulated wall system, running the whole process on a computer matrix. This "Low-Load" house is built in pieces in the plant, gets trucked to its mountainside site in Vermont and goes up quickly and precisely, despite Mother Nature's worst. Then, Kevin's got some more new ideas to insulate your home, like foam-filled framing lumber and Aerogel strips, and he's also got an answer to the eternal do-it-yourself question: what do I do with my demolition waste? After Amy demonstrates a product that makes crown molding installation a breeze, Kevin has his mind blown as he comes to understand the true power of wireless: charge your phone, cook your soup in the can or run your souped-up electric roadster, all without cables!
