Earlier this year I got a question about a home that had spray foam insulation in the attic. Nothing unusual about that. A lot of builders and homeowners are going with spray foam insulation because of the airtightness benefits. But…
I confess that, back in the '80s, I might have done the same thing this couple did. I remember reading Mother Earth News and Practical Homeowner magazine articles about folks who collected discarded materials to use in their existing homes…
A year or two ago, I remember getting trapped in my car one evening listening to Ira Glass's show This American Life. It was an episode titled When Patents Attack, and I was riveted. They described how a seemingly small…
Psssst. Want a $2000 tax credit for that energy efficient new home you're building? A lot of home builders have taken advantage of this incentive since it was introduced in 2005. (37,506 homes got that $2000 in 2010 alone.) The requirements…
Yesterday I got to see something I learned about only two weeks ago at Building Science Summer Camp. That's where I found out that 85% of all expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam insulation in Germany is grey because it has graphite…
After a nice dinner at La Palette in Toronto one evening, I began walking down Queen Street as I headed back toward my hotel. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a piece of paper on the ground.…
Should you use natural gas heating rather than a heat pump in your home? Some say the interest in heat pumps is fueled by irrational exuberance. Others say that because they require supplemental heat, heat pump performance is not acceptable.…
Let me tell you a little story about the day that Jeffrey went to test several Habitat for Humanity houses that are going for certification in the ENERGY STAR new homes program (the one in the photo here was not…
The typical new home gets a heating and air conditioning system that's about two times too large. Look, I've discussed oversized air conditioners many times before. Most HVAC contractors use a rule of thumb that says they should put in…
My Building Science Summer Camp photo highlights was article number 500 published in the Energy Vanguard Blog! I starting writing this blog on 7 March 2010 and have poured innumerable hours into it since. The actual number is higher than…