"In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!" Homer Simpson said that, and it's good advice for all of us. Actually, we don't really have a choice, you know. If, out of ignorance or dissent, we do things that…
You open the door and are immediately assaulted by the damp, musty smell, even before taking a full step inside. If you're hyper-sensitive to these smells, you probably can't even go in without a respirator. If you're not that sensitive…
As I mentioned in my review of the first day of this special ENERGY STAR Version 3 training, it wasn’t really a train-the-trainer session, and they admitted as much at the beginning of day 1. What it became instead was…
Last night I arrived here in Raleigh, North Carolina for a two-day train-the-trainer session on the ENERGY STAR Version 3 guidelines for new homes. This is the third of four that the guys from EPA's ENERGY STAR new homes program…
Anyone who's been around me for a while knows that I love numbers. (If you need to know pi to 50 digits, just give me a call.) Well, this article is number 100 in the Energy Vanguard blog. Wow! Even…
The last time I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity, Icynene was not a household name, and many homeowners had never heard of a Blower Door and Duct Blaster. (Well, OK, you're right. They're not exactly household names now either, but…
Having written nearly 100 articles in this blog, I've covered a lot of topics related to how buildings work. Just in the past two weeks, for example, I've written about attic kneewalls, heat pump water heaters, why house wrap isn't…
Below is a repost of an article with advice for voters from my friend Chris Kaiser at Mapawatt. Below is a repost of an article with advice for voters from my friend Chris Kaiser at Mapawatt. If you are voting…
In my last article, I wrote about how I've learned so much by visiting the parts of houses that most people don't like to go into themselves. In that article, my focus was on the problems with the attic kneewall. …
I guess you could call me a contrarian. I usually go in the opposite direction from the crowds. In 1997, for example, I spent two weeks in Portugal, where most people head for the beaches south of Lisbon. Instead, I…