Legendary quality that ensures your home will stand the test of time. 4Tress meets stringent requirements in 4 categories: durability, strength, moisture/water protection, and sound attenuation.
Stick-Built Construction Stick-built homes are stronger than panelized homes.
Most production home builders use panelized walls in their homes because it costs less. Our homes are constructed on-site, because stick-built homes are stronger and more energy efficient, although framing is certainly less expensive and quicker using panels.
Stick-built homes have continuous overlapping sheathing.
Each wall of a stick-built home is constructed as one continuous and connected structure with overlapping bottom and top plates.
Wall sheathing (the OSB or plywood on the outside of an exterior wall) provides a significant amount of a stick-built home's structural integrity by tying the walls and floor systems together via overlapping sheathing.
Panelized homes have sheathing gaps and lack tie-down strength.
A panelized house is comprised of separate 6' to 10' wall sections that are already sheathed. This introduces extra gaps in the sheathing at the end of each wall panel and at the top and bottom of the floor system. These gaps are the precise areas where you need solid overlapping sheathing to provide the "tie-down" strength critical to the structural integrity of the home.
The added strength associated with stick-built homes is one of the primary reasons factory built or panelized homes tend to suffer far more damage during tornadoes and hurricanes.
Did You Know Stick-built homes are more energy efficient than panelized homes. Learn more
Advanced Framing Smart framing techniques that make your home stronger and more energy efficient.
Our combination of new framing techniques maximizes the thermal barrier of exterior walls by increasing insulation and reducing thermal bridging caused by excess wood.
Double top plate in Schellter home. Tying together the entire wall structure with a double top plate increases the strength of the home.
Engineered floor truss system in Schellter home. Our floor truss systems are designed to support the load of home.
True sized header in Schellter home. Headers sized properly for actual load.
2x6 Exterior Walls Significantly stronger walls.
2x6 walls are significantly stronger than 2x4 walls and allow for a lot more insulation, which makes a huge difference in heating and cooling costs. The extra insulation also makes it much quieter inside the home.
Blown-in Blanket Insulation Walls filled with safer, quieter material.
Instead of BATT insulation, dense pack fiberglass insulation is "blown-in" to fill all the voids in the walls and ceilings of Schell Brothers homes, creating a consistent and more effective thermal and sound barrier.
The blown-in insulation used in Schell Brothers homes is formaldehyde free, non-combustible, non-corrosive, and moisture resistant. That means you get a safer product that resists mold growth to protect your home and the people in it.
Each bag of blown-in insulation contains the equivalent of over 30 recycled bottles, and is verified as a GREENGUARD® certified, low VOC product.
Did You Know The blown-in insulation used in Schell Brothers homes also helps improve energy efficiency. Learn more
Blown-in insulation used in Schell Brothers homes improves sound attenuation by 4 to 10 points.
Typical interior walls in homes are 1 sheet of 1/2″ drywall on either side of a wood stud frame. Sound Transmission Class (STC) is a rating of how well a building partition attenuates airborne sound. Higher is better.
Leak Prevention System Designed to keep the inside of your home water and moisture free.
Water infiltration can wreak havoc on a home. Not only can water leaks ruin the finishes within your home, they can cause dangerous structural issues due to wood rot. In addition, water in the home causes mold growth which can be harmful and sometimes deadly to the home's inhabitants.
The 4Tress Leak Prevention System (LPS) is a collection of waterproofing and water infiltration prevention features designed to keep the inside of your home water and moisture free.
- Foundation perimeter J-drains
- Sump pump
- Waterproof capillary break above footings
- Watchdog© H3 foundation waterproofing
Window Sill Rain Trough
Wind-driven rain has the potential to get behind the tape and house wrap along the window perimeter and flow down to the sill. A rain trough is an extra precaution designed to prevent this water from entering the house walls and causing problems such as mold and wood rot.
Capillary Break
Building scientists have recently discovered that even a leak-free home can have moisture and mold problems due to ground water wicking up the foundation walls through the footing. The waterproof capillary break installed on top of our footings prevents this from occurring.
Schellter homes include a 5 check system to alleviate leaks from windows and doors.
- Typar or equivalent house wrap is applied to the exterior sheathing with all seams taped.
- A "rain trough" is built into all window sills.
- Windows are caulked into place before flashing is applied.
- Windows are taped per Energy & Environmental Building Alliance™ (EEBA) guidelines.
- Header flashing is applied over the top flange of the exterior sheathing.
Communicating Thermostat Monitor and regulate both temperature and humidity.
Traditional HVAC systems and thermostats just measure and regulate temperature, which is only part of what makes a home's interior environment comfortable. High humidity can make a home uncomfortable and potentially lead to unhealthy moisture-related problems.
Condensation is a major source of moisture and mold within a home. Condensation can be greatly reduced by regulating humidity levels.
Our smart thermostats combined with our variable speed air handlers allow our HVAC system to independently reduce humidity* by cycling down the fan speed to remove more moisture from the air while having a minimal effect on temperature.
* Our HVAC system does not have a humidifier, so it can only decrease humidity levels when the A/C is running.
Variable Speed Air Handler A smart, comfortable and quiet air handler.
Schell Brothers homes include an HVAC system that has multiple fan speeds to precisely control the speed and volume of airflow.
This type of system is quieter and makes very little noise when it turns on because it can start with a low fan speed.
A variable speed air handler is also much more effective at removing humidity from the air, which not only improves comfort, but reduces problems caused by moisture such as mold. Some systems can remove as much as 24 gallons of moisture per day from a home!
Did You Know Variable speed air handlers also help improve energy efficiency. Learn more
Keeping humidity in the optimal range indoors helps to control bacteria, viruses, fungi (including mold), allergies, and asthma.
PEX Plumbing Lines Faster hot water with direct home run lines.
PEX pipes are flexible tubes of cross-linked polyethylene that we use with a manifold in a "home run" plumbing system to provide direct water lines to each faucet.
PEX piping systems have far fewer joints and fittings than traditional PVC or copper pipes, which greatly reduces the potential for leaks. PEX tubing won't pit, scale or corrode and is much less likely than PVC to burst if it freezes.
2-Stage High Efficiency Furnace Our smart furnace runs at low speed whenever it can.
typically homes include a single-stage furnace that runs at full power any time it is turned on. Schell Brothers homes use a smarter, 2-stage furnace.
A 2-stage furnace is like having two furnaces in one: an energy energy-efficient low-stage furnace for moderately cold days, and a heavy duty, high-stage furnace for very cold days.
A 2-stage furnace typically operates in the low stage most of the time, producing far less combustion noise than a single-stage furnace.
