I bought a new ceiling fan yesterday. As I looked at the boxes in the store, I noticed that many of them gave sizing recommendations. And many of those recommendations were not ideal. Size matters Ceiling fan manufacturers now have…
Murmurs and hearsay about open-cell spray foam insulation have been gaining traction for a while. It rots roofs, people have told me. Not long ago, someone even told me that in Florida, roofing companies won't let their workers go up…
No, this is not an April Fool's joke (as much as I do like writing them, even when it's not 1 April). We've abandoned our 8-day in-class HERS rater training format. Beginning with our next class, the in-class part will…
Two things. Just two things in your ducts are responsible for giving the blower in your furnace or air handler a hard time. They make the blower push against more pressure, thus reducing air flow or increasing energy use, depending…
Net zero energy homes, which produce as much energy as they use, are all the rage in the world of green building. Environmentalists and hippies have taken that a step further and proposed net zero water and net zero food…
I used to do some consulting with a modular home manufacturer. We first visited their plant in 2007, and, as you can see below, they didn't quite have the insulation installation thing down. What you see below would be Grade…
If you work in the fields of home building, home improvement, or HVAC and want to do the best work you can, you know that you've got to keep learning. Not only is there a tremendous amount to know, but…
I've been in Lexington, Kentucky this week at the Midwest Residential Energy Conference. It was great! (And I played nice - I didn't mention in any of my talks that I'm a Florida Gator.) One of the many highlights for…
Earlier this month I went to NESEA's Building Energy conference, and I think I heard three terms more than any others: heat pump, net zero, and passive house. (The second most popular trio was beer, wine, and whisky, but that…
When I started Energy Vanguard in 2008, I didn't know how it would evolve and had thought early on that I may get back into home performance contracting. I did a couple of jobs, the last one being a crawl…