Your welcome Lenny and thanks for thinking that Iam a guy on the internet worth asking.. This gets a little opiniony knowing squat about your situation involving many variables but.. probably not, yes and no in the same order you asked. I have no idea what level of code is enforced in your area but I highly suggest sticking to the minimum levels of energy performance called for in the International codes. IECC 2012 is about to have its 2015 update and Iam excited to find out how wrong or right I am in squawking how they arent going to raise many insulation requirements but blower door testing will see a lot of very overdue attention. This thread is long overdue, for a serious plug on reducing uncontrolled air leakage. If your home is not a certain level of airtightness, then insulation can be an enormous waste of resources. If you are concerned about reducing your exposure to toxic air then focusing on the interior materials is a waste, if youre not building tight and ventilating it right with the "home as a system" priority. Insulation is expensive compared to airsealing and less effective in terms of overall energy performance. Uncontrolled, moving air carries a lot of moisture that does serious damage when moving through building cavities and thermal enclosures. It also leads to condensation and mold, especially in poorly installed fiberglass batt wood framed wall cavities with small levels of insulative sheathing. Add in a good vapor source, moisture reservoir cladding like stucco and brick that really soaks in the rain and drives it to the interior when the sun comes up and you contribute to much job security for those in renovation. But hey, it could be fine if the masonry has a good draining and ventilating airspace and that 1/2 piece of foam is well taped foil face isocyanurate, and the wall cavities are air sealed on all six sides with a dense batt filling all voids. I suggest pricing between OC spray foam and dense pack cellulose or FG (not batt). These are the things that best achieve a completely filled wood frame cavity. If not venting the roof deck, I suggest spray foam or insulative sheathing to the exterior. More important than insulation, is your ACH50 as measured by a blower door. The level of air leakiness in most homes is unacceptable leading to massive amounts of energy loss and unhealthy indoor air conditions. The code calls for an ACH50 of 3 or lower for building climate zones 5 and 6. I think that's pathetically leaky and not at all appropriate for a home built with the current international levels of insulation in the code. Homes in all climate zones should be pushing hard for an ACH 50 of 1.5 or less. Cost effective energy efficiency, increased durability and moisture resistance, and the ability to control the cfm rate of outdoor air exchange, which is probably the best way of improving Indoor Air Quality. As for levels of insulative sheathing, cant explain it any better than Martin at GBA. Its an important detail for everything weveve talked about, cost-effective energy efficiency, increasing indoor air quality and durability of the building envelope. Minimum For 2x6 in zone 5: R7.5 and zone 6: R11.25. Even 1" Isocyanurate with a foil facing the air cavity will be slightly below code and risky as far as interior condensation. I would do my best to get 2" thickness, even if it meant falling back to 2x4 instead of 2x6. I also suggest everyone to set a goal for ACH50, inform your builder that you expect to meet it and hire a third party to do a blower door test which puts a number on the value of the integrity of your home in terms of energy efficiency, indoor air quality and healthier building science. Here is a link that might be useful: Calculating the minimum thickness of insulative sheathing

Milgard sent this pic. It is hinged on the top, it goes on a push out window and you have to swing it in to get to the latch and push the window open. Some companies won't make roto operators in small sizes. If I use push outs, the screens will hit things like the mattress and the kitchen faucet. In a little sleeping loft like this you'd have to push the mattress over, lie on the floor, open the screen toward your face or over your head and stick your arm out the window to operate the window! I can't reach to do that above the kitchen sink unless I jump on the counter, which I can do but.... In a regular or large house there would be room but it wouldn't matter as all the windows could be larger anyway. I can't have sliders in the awning locations as there needs to be some awnings so they can be opened in rain and wind as the house has no eves as the width required for eves won't be allowed on the road. Tiny houses have much tighter parameters. This is basically a stick built recreational vehicle and it needs to conform to RV codes. My compromise to avoid vinyl and push outs/hinged screens, appears to be getting the clad wood as those appear to be the only ones that anyone will make in all the sizes and styles called for if I put a casement in the slider location. Sierra Pacific uses a less fuming water based wood treatment but they don't want to make the casement in the size I need because it is a few inches short of egress code, even though I can fit through it easily. Loewen and possibly Marvin will make them but their wood treatment is solvent based. I didn't design this house but it is well designed and the operating types and sizes are proper for each location. Being a tiny house and already framed there is really not much room to change anything even if I could reframe it. All I can do is put a casement in the slider location, awning won't work because it has to be egress upstairs. If I was starting over I would design according to the sizes/types available in the least toxic window. I was lucky enough to find this custom tiny house builder who agreed to sub non toxic insulation, cabinets, paint, flooring, MC instead of Romex, etc., others weren't willing to customize anything. If I hadn't been made environmentally ill and chemically sensitive from a house with toxic mold, I wouldn't have to be so careful as to toxic materials but I was and the only way to detox from this is to avoid exposure to more chemicals and toxin exposure so as to allow my detox system to catch up and clear out accumulated toxins and that won't happen if one is accumulating more as would happen if living in an off-gassing house with a toxic encephalopathy headache daily. I am by far not alone with this issue as it is becoming more common everyday as buildings become older and moldy and materials and products become more toxic. I know of many, thousands, who are now having to build non toxic.

It looks like the Titan 5.5 is a 5.5mm (hence the name) thick vinyl plank. It has 12mil wear layer. That is 'ho-hum' when it comes to toughness. It is 'good enough' for residential (1-2 people in the home...NO pets) but it is not a very tough finish. Many home owners who have used a vinyl with 12mil wear layer have been disappointed. In today's flooring world, the consensus is: 20mil wear layer = light commercial = exactly what is needed for today's North American homeowner. The Titan 5.5 is not cheap. The cost is roughly the same as many CoreTec products. I'm sure your designer can find something in the same visual with a better wear layer.

Uhmmmmm.....$6/sf for laying tiles????? Whaaaaaaaat???? Wow. You have found a 'bottom of the barrel dude. Sorry but you have. In an expensive city, the cost of installing (labour only) tile = $12 - $15/sf. In impoverished areas, the cost of installing tile is $8 - $10/sf. You are asking for trouble with this guy. Floating floors are NOT allowed under cabinets. Please read the installation instructions. Our experience - and all written materials for floating flooring - tell us floating hardwoods do NOT run underneath cabinets. Cabinets are ANCHORED to the wall. That ANCHOR does NOT allow the cabinets to 'float' with the floor. A large fridge, which is NOT strapped to the wall will 'float' with the floor...just a snick...but it will do it. That's the difference and if your 'guy' isn't wise enough to understand that then I suggest you let him fix someone else's plumbing...'cause he isn't a flooring PRO. The choice to run it under a heavy pool table is a 'case by case' problem. I've seen french-door fridges have ZERO impact on a floating floor and I've seen a 50 gallon fish tank cause a floating floor to separate inside of 6 months (change of season). A king size bed which had to be assembled on site because it was too big and heavy to move into the house in one piece caused ZERO issues but a queen sized water bed caused a floating floor to rip itself apart twice a year (change of seasons). That's my evidence. Anyone else?