A typical medieval house circa 1400.


The typical medieval house had some serious drawbacks. Of course, there was no indoor plumbing. Granite counter tops and gleaming appliances were no doubt very expensive upgrades back then. And hardly anyone had a two-ox garage. But, they did have wood two-by-fours every 16 inches in their walls. So, they filled the spaces between the wood with hay and threw some mud on both sides to stay warm. Unfortunately, the art of making walls wasn’t too advanced 600 years ago.

Today, we have luxury bath suites, spacious modern kitchens and three-car garages. And the walls? Oh, yeah, well…they’re pretty much wood two-by-fours every 16 inches. The only difference is now we fill the spaces with pink stuff and throw some modern day mud on the exterior – we call it stucco – and some drywall on the inside to stay warm. Man, they would have killed for drywall 600 years ago!

So, what’s wrong with this picture. Hmmmm? That’s right; it appears we’re just a few sheets of drywall away from medieval times. Hey, it’s time to do something different. No, not just different, something better. That something is Platinum Technology™ and it’s changing the way people build houses.

Today a new house usually has enough insulation in the walls and roof to pass a local building code. No more, no less. A lot of builders don’t want to offer extra insulation...not a really jazzy upgrade. And quite frankly, consumers almost always choose a granite counter top or a bonus room over extra pink stuff in the walls that they can’t see anyway.

The truth is, most building codes don’t keep pace with the insulation needs to counter soaring energy prices. And before you say, hey, what about concrete block…that’s got to be better than medieval methods, right? In a word, no. Again, hardly anyone adds insulation to a concrete block wall…too expensive, too much trouble. So, your block home insulates about as well as that one-bedroom, no-bath starter home 600 years ago.

Fast forward the better part of a millennium and let’s find out how we can save a lot more energy. Warning, we’re about to discuss something educational. Relax, no test. Some smart people figured out a way to measure how well any material insulates. They call it R-Value, and the higher the number, the better. Most wall R-Values range from 4 for concrete block to 19 for extra pink stuff – called batts – stapled between two-by-four studs. Most wood-frame homes usually have an R-Value of about 11. Roofs lose more energy than walls…kind of like why people wear hats to stay warmer. So, typically a roof has a higher R-Value, usually between 19 and 28.

So, what’s the deal with Platinum Technology? It gives walls an R-Value of 24½ (yeah, like shoes, you can have half sizes), and roofs or ceilings have R-Values of 38½. Let’s do the math. These walls are more than six times better than concrete block, and more than twice as good as wood-frame walls. With roofs or ceilings, they’re about twice as good. Of course, that assumes the pink stuff doesn’t ever get wet…which reduces its ability to insulate to roughly that of a paper towel.

Let’s review. At a time when the world needs to conserve energy more than ever, most people have walls and roofs a little better than their great-great-great-great-great-great (keep adding great) grandparents. Hey, told you this education thing wouldn’t hurt.

We’ve whipped this energy thing…so let’s talk strength and safety. Medieval times had warring hordes complete with catapults and some other scary weapons, which probably made homeowners insurance virtually impossible. Today, we have hurricanes and tornadoes in some places, with floods and fires pretty much all over. Thank goodness, you never see catapults anymore. However, buying insurance isn’t much easier now.

Most wood-frame and concrete homes simply aren’t strong enough. Hundreds of thousands of homes in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas were completely destroyed during the past two hurricane seasons. And Mother Nature’s version of the Big Bad Wolf returns this June, and hundreds of thousands more homes are at risk.

A 200 M.P.H. wind - hurricane or tornado - can hurl debris at 80 M.P.H. So when a nine-pound, eight-foot-long two-by-four splinters apart from a home down the street, guess what? It’s taking dead aim at your house at 80 M.P.H.

Now, if you had a stick-built house - wood frame - it wouldn’t matter. It probably wouldn’t be built any better than the one down the street that just blew apart. This really isn’t funny. Tens of thousands of people returned to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina and couldn’t find their homes. They even had trouble finding their lots. Entire neighborhoods were blown away...homes, trees, landmarks…everything.

Hurricanes are not going away. The folks that watch hurricanes for a living say we’re in for a decade of more frequent and more intense storms. That’s the bad news. The good news – we have a better way to build.

A home using these new walls can withstand some serious winds. Remember that 80 M.P.H. piece of lumber? Take a look at the streaming video from Texas Tech University’s Wind Engineering Science Laboratory on the company’s home page. These people shoot lumber from cannons all day at walls…neat job. Those 80 M.P.H. two-by-fours bounce off walls using our technology like toothpicks. That’s without stucco, aluminum siding or brick on the exterior, and no drywall on the inside. Awesome.

Shoot lumber at conventional walls, even ones made of cement blocks, and the two-by-fours turn them into Swiss cheese. You probably won’t find streaming video on some concrete block maker’s website. But, the scientists at Texas Tech will tell you the truth.

Hey, let’s face it; we can’t keep building homes with the same inferior materials we’ve used for 600 years. What do they say about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Let’s talk specifics. Platinum Technology is like, well, underwear. No, not literally. But, like underwear (current fashion aside) it’s covered most times. You put stucco, siding, brick or whatever on the outside, and drywall and paneling, paint or wallpaper on the inside. So, you don’t end up with some weird looking house…it looks like any other house, except it’s there after the hurricanes.

What’s the magic? Science, man, science. They take recycled steel and form a 4-foot by 10-foot frame (shorter or taller if you like), then fill it with web-reinforced polyurethane under pressure and heat. Voila! A few minutes later, you have a segment of wall for a home. Not only is the steel…well, hey, its steel so it’s stronger than wood or concrete. But polyurethane? That’s plastic, right? Don’t think old. The polyurethane they use is strong…really strong.

The fancy name for what they do is called composite technology. They simply combine materials that provide greater benefits than the original materials alone. In this case, we’re talking strength. That fiber reinforcement on both sides of a wall segment has hundreds of thousands of strands that help disperse the force of something hitting your house (see Big Bad Wolf and 80 M.P.H. two-by-fours above).

The wall segments fit snugly in a steel track securely anchored to a concrete slab. Steel screws hold one wall segment to the next. And ceilings and roofs attach with screws, too. Thousands of screws, which by the way are stronger than nails.

A house built with this technology is sturdy, man, and way stronger than wood or concrete. After you replay the video of two-by-fours bouncing of walls a few times, check out the rest of the website.

Now, let’s talk about some other reasons to use this technology. Yeah, there’s more, and more in this case is better. This is environmentally friendly stuff. We’re talking major green. The steel is recycled. And the energy consumed to make the polyurethane? Hey, you save more energy in a few weeks than it uses to make the stuff, and you have a more comfortable home.

There’s no formaldehyde, or any other gases to pollute the atmosphere or your lungs with this technology. All the materials are inert. And get this; every time someone builds a 2,000 sq. ft. house with this technology…we save 75 mature hard wood trees. Think about it…75 big trees that continue to change carbon dioxide into oxygen. Replace just 100,000 of the homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina last year, and yeah, we save seven and a half million trees.

But, hey, there’s more good news. This technology is friendly to people, but not so friendly to a host of organisms that plague homes everywhere; mold, mildew, termites and carpenter ants. These buggers exist to make people miserable. We’re pretty sure they all hate these new walls. Well, we haven’t really surveyed them. But since they never show up at houses using this technology, we assume they’re at least not fond of the stuff. Remember, there’s no wood in the walls, ceilings and roofs for termites. Man, these pests really despise steel and polyurethane.

And, do you have allergies? More than half of us do. Build with materials that don’t trap mold, mildew and other things that look ugly under a microscope. A house with this technology is, well, like a breath of fresh air.

Let’s talk quality. Everyone likes good. Better you understand, too. And, best, well, best is best. That’s where this technology stands when you talk quality. Another plus; remember as a kid how your parents would send you to your room and didn’t want to hear a peep out of you. I’d like to think that wasn’t just my parents. If you had this technology then, you could have partied down and no one would have been the wiser. This stuff is major soundproof.

Okay, you’re probably thinking, way too good to be true. Even if this innovative stuff is all of this, it must cost a bundle. Nah! That’s the best part. It costs less than what we’ve been building for 600 years! It’s less expensive than wood or cement block.

Ready to build? The people who make it will talk with your builder or hook you up with a builder. They’ll talk with your architect. They’ll even talk with your mother-in-law. Wait a second, they might not go that far. Anyway, you get the point. This technology is faster, better, more energy-efficient, stronger, more quiet and it costs less.

They’ve got something here, and we all can be a part of it. It’s like they’re selling dimes for nickels. Well not quite, but you get the picture. The middle ages are long gone…and no one has oxen anymore. So, check these folks out. Call them. Email them. They’re ready to help us make the biggest change in home building in 600 years. And that, friends, is progress.