The Stack Effect in Plastic
It was the stack effect that led me to Building Science Fight Club. I wrote about it two years ago and all hell broke loose in the comments, especially in the version I posted at Green Building Advisor. People get…
The Energy Vanguard Blog
Why Are Heat Pumps So Dumb About Frost?
Heat pumps can get frosty when they run in heating mode. It doesn't happen all that often, but it's a fact of life when you're trying to extract heat from cold, outdoor air. Sometimes the outdoor coil goes below the…
John Krigger: Effective Combustion Safety and Efficiency Testing
Guest post by John Krigger. Last week I wrote an article on combustion safety testing based on the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab work mentioned below and opened the article with a reference to a discussion I'd had with John last…
Will You Be at BE? NESEA’s Building Energy Conference, That Is
Michael Blasnik. Joe Lstiburek. Katrin Klingenberg. Jigar Shah. Linda Wigington. Alex Wilson. The Building Energy conference in Boston next week has some big names. A lot of smart people doing great work will be there, and the list of topics…
Frost on Indoor Walls – A Dramatic Insulation Failure
Not long ago, Erik Henson an energy auditor with HD Engineering and Design in the Kansas City area, posted the photo below on LinkedIn. As you can see, frost has formed on the walls and ceiling inside the house. It's…
Are We Off Track With Combustion Safety Testing?
Burning fuels inside a house can lead to serious health and safety problems. Energy auditors do a variety of combustion safety tests to find potential hazards and recommend fixes. A couple of weeks ago at the Dry Climate Forum, I…
Why Does My Heat Pump Frost Over?
The outdoor unit† of a heat pump (that metal noisemaker that disturbs the peace on so many otherwise nice summer afternoons) will occasionally grow frost around the outside of the unit when it's in heating mode. Is this OK? If…
What If Home Builders Had to Pay the Energy Bills?
Three questions have been nagging at Rick Chitwood over the past 5 or 6 years. First, why is the HVAC industry in California, where he lives and works, so pathetic? Second, why have California’s strict energy standards, which have been…
Look for Me by the Question Mark
I'm in California this week at the Dry Climate Forum, hanging out with some of my favorite people in the home performance business. Gavin Healy, Dan Perunko,† Mike MacFarland, and Rick Chitwood are the ringleaders, but all 6 dozen of us…
What’s That Ice Chest Doing in This Attic Duct System?
Sometimes you see something in a house that splits your head open, revealing the little green pistachio head that sees the world in a completely different way. I love those moments! It's Stumpy, the duct amputee, which I saw back…