A few weeks ago, my uncle, John, called me up and asked if I could design the house where he and his future wife would spend the rest of their lives. Like many people, he wants to save money on…
Think about the best learning experience of your life. Maybe it was learning how to do your job, whether you're a carpenter, an architect, or a lawyer. Perhaps it was building a business. (That requires an insane amount of study…
As I promised yesterday, here's that TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson about how people who tend toward the intellectual learning style have dominated education systems worldwide and even created those education systems in their likeness. I didn't discuss creativity…
It's Friday, and I'm in the mood for something light and fun today after just completing a major project yesterday. I finished up our application to become a HERS training provider and submitted it to RESNET! It looks like our…
Have you heard that one before, that you shouldn't seal up your house too tightly because a house needs to breathe? It's a common myth, but that's all it is - a myth. Houses do NOT need to breathe. People…
At the end of last month, I wrote about the house my friend Perry is buying with an EEM (Energy Efficient Mortgage). This is just a quick update about the project. The home energy rater finished up the rating, and,…
And now for a little Friday fun, here's one of my favorite duct design failures. I call it Stumpy. What's happened here is that the contractor who retrofitted the duct system just cut this one off mid-run. The problem is…
I recall a lot of talk in the early ‘90s about the ‘peace dividend’ and how we’d spend it. This new term entered our lexicon because of the fall of the Soviet Union and the supposed billions of dollars that…
I know, I know. If you've had a HERS rater class or any education in residential building science, the alarms are going off in your head right now - WAANNNHHHHH WAANNNHHHHH WAANNNHHHHH! Please, let me explain. I know, I know.…
What images come to mind for you when I say 'home energy rater class'? The word class (or classroom), as used here, usually evokes images of desks in neat rows, with students attentively looking at the teacher standing in the…