You'd never settle for a recirculating toilet, would you? Press the lever and everything in the bowl just swirls around and around. Never leaving, just recirculating. That's the image Professor John Straube painted for us last week in his talk…
Oh, where do I start? Professor John Straube spoke all day yesterday at Building Science Corporation's Experts' Session. His topic was mechanical systems for low-load buildings. You know that expression about how the information comes at you so fast in some…
Spray foam insulation evokes some interesting conversation among building science professionals, those in construction, environmentalists, and homeowners who have it in their homes. Many think it solves all problems, no matter how poorly it's installed. Some think it's helping to…
You know that saying, Don't judge a book by its cover? That certainly applies to what may be the best protection against carbon monoxide poisoning you can buy. The CO Experts carbon monoxide monitor doesn't have a flashy website or…
I loved the book,* A Beautiful Mind, the story of John Forbes Nash, Jr. It was fascinating to read about how he approached mathematical problems, and even more fascinating to read about his descent into paranoid schizophrenia. Nash, who later…
I've written about how bad it is to put your heating and cooling system in an unconditioned attic, especially in a cooling climate. There's one place, though, that's even worse: an attached garage, as shown above. From an efficiency standpoint,…
Perspective. It's a nice word. Fenestration may sound more sophisticated, but understanding the meaning of proper perspective will take you much further in life than all the building science in the world. With Thanksgiving upon us again, I thought I'd…
You know how sometimes people ask, "Where were the adults?" In the field of building science, I've got a new question: Where were the control freaks? It's not nearly as well known as it should be, but buildings need to…
"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." The Danish physicist Niels Bohr first said this, and it's true. Of course, we all like to try anyway, and I've done so myself with my articles on peak oil and the…
Twelve years ago, I discovered the Solar Decathlon. I was a new physics professor at a small university in Georgia, and I'd received a packet from the US Department of Energy describing the competition. It was set to have its…