CASE STUDY: HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Company: Dream Finders Homes
Location: Jacksonville, Florida

Florida-based builder Patrick Zalupski knows all too well the importance of constructing homes whose quality ensures the ability to withstand the harshest of weather conditions. As the managing partner of Dream Finders Homes in Jacksonville, Zalupski built more than 360 homes in Florida in 2013 amidst extreme heat, humidity, and the all-too-frequent afternoon thunderstorm. So while Dream Finders’ home styles, features, and community settings draw the aspirational eye of home buyers, its Zalupski’s commitment to quality from subfloor to rooftop that affirms the home as a smart investment and ensures he makes the sale.

The products he selects to protect homes against a moisture-heavy climate must be high quality, and it’s a standard on which he won’t waver. While many builders let upfront costs deter them from using the best product, Zalupski believes the return on investment comes in several benefits often associated with those higher-quality products: assistance from the manufacturer with education and training for sales, operations, and consumers; co-branded marketing; efficiency on the jobsite; and homeowner satisfaction.

Those factors are why Dream Finders chose an integrated sheathing system with flashing tape for its homes and has committed to use these products on hundreds more of their upcoming homes.

Zalupski also relies on the integrated system sheathing and tape to keep his homes at top-notch quality for Dream Finders’ buyers. The system offers superior moisture protection thanks to its built-in weather barrier, which Zalupski says is crucial to standing up to Jacksonville thunderstorms. “With a big afternoon storm, felt and housewrap can get blown off the home, and the crews don’t always reapply it properly,” Zalupski says. “The integrated system sheathing is much better because you don’t have to worry about that.” The integrated sheathing and tape stays in place, and because it was properly installed the first time thanks to installation training and technical tool guides, Zalupski is managing time, money, and his reputation.

Another bonus? The integrated system sheathing just looks better on a construction site. “When I bring investors to a community where the integrated system sheathing is exposed on the jobsite, they see how clean it looks…much better than traditional OSB with housewrap flapping in the breeze,” says Zalupski. And he says it’s not just investors who are impressed. His whole team sees the quality and benefits, including the sales agents and product managers who communicate to the homeowners the quality product they will receive in their homes. It’s a solution that he says appeals to everyone in home building, from consumers to professionals.