To say spray foam insulation has become popular in green building over the past decade is like saying Peyton Manning is a good quarterback. It's an understatement. Although it's certainly not used in every green building project, it's become one…
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." Thus opens Gabriel García Márquez's classic work of literature, One Hundred Years of Solitude.…
If the annual scorecard for state energy efficiency just published by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy were a list of test scores, here's how the grade distribution would look for the 50 states plus the District of…
I get a lot of questions from people asking how they should go about fixing their homes. Sometimes it's specific (What's the best way to insulate my kneewalls?), and sometimes it's a hands up in the air, With all these…
Back in 2009, I attended a webinar given by Sam Rashkin, head of the ENERGY STAR new homes program at the time. (He has since left the EPA for the DOE.) He explained the changes coming in the program as…
Whether you live in a single-family detached house, duplex, condo, or apartment, we all have something in common: We share our homes with other animals. They crawl in from below, squeeze in through the sides, or fly in at the…
The EarthCents program for new homes is a child of ENERGY STAR Version 3. The previous version of the ENERGY STAR new homes program was an entry level energy efficiency program; Version 3 is not. Early in the transition, I…
If you have any involvement with the world of building science, you may have heard about something called WUFI and wondered what the heck it is. Maybe you've heard that it's a piece of software (several pieces, actually) that does…
Solar energy is what powers most of what we do. Whether it's growing the food we eat, fueling the ancient organisms that died to make fossil fuels, or converting sunlight to electricity in photovoltaic panels, pretty much all of the…
Today for your enjoyment, I have some mighty fine photos for you. They speak for themselves, really, so I don't have to say much. First up is a nice package unit air conditioner (or heat pump) in Little Rock, Arkansas.…