Occasionally I get asked if it's OK to put the condensing unit for an air conditioner or heat pump in a garage or other room that's a buffer space. The thinking is that since the temperature may not be as…
Texas is a hot state, right? Certainly then, homes in my original home state use more energy for air conditioning than for heating. That's why they need such massive air conditioners, like the one you see here. Right? Not so…
On my trip to Aspen, Colorado last week, when I learned to ski, I noticed an interesting snow pattern on a lot of the roofs of the houses near where we stayed. Not being from snow country, I didn't know…
Did you know that if your state has adopted the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), you cannot install an open wood-burning fireplace in a new home? It's true. According to the BCAP-OCEAN code status website, 30 states are on…
Martin Holladay, the Energy Nerd of Green Building Advisor, is in Atlanta this week to speak at the Greenprints conference put on by Southface Energy Institute. He asked if I could take him to see some homes in Georgia so…
I spent a few days in Colorado this past week. This was a rare trip for me: It wasn't for business or a conference. My wife, Elaine, and I went there on a belated honeymoon (we got married in 2009),…
Really, the argument about whether you should vent a crawl space in a humid climate is over. Advanced Energy's research project from 2002 proved that closed crawl spaces outperform vented crawl spaces. A quick look at the psychrometric chart shows…
Labradors? James Brown? What do either of those have to do with the RESNET conference?! Be patient, my friend. All will be revealed shortly. The 2013 RESNET conference just ended, and it was fantastic. It and Building Science Summer Camp…
Last night I was at the Energy Avenger...er, the Energy Logic hospitality suite at the end of a great first day of the RESNET conference. I got a chance to talk with many of the wonderful people in the HERS…
I get asked variations of this question often enough that it's worth addressing here. If you're doing a blower door test, how big a house can you test with one fan? Or, put another way, how many blower doors do…