I've been struggling to write a review of the ACI (Affordable Comfort) conference since it ended on Friday. Inspired by Steve Byers's post, though, and my San Francisco sight-seeing tour, I'm going to dive in. I've been struggling to write…
Here's another in the series of building practices that drive me crazy - recessed can lights. They're so popular that some remodelers carry a shotgun and walk through the house randomly shooting holes in the ceilings to install them. Here's…
When I first became a HERS rater and went to the RESNET conference in 2004, I got to talk with David Lee, who was the head of the ENERGY STAR homes program at the time. Because I was puzzled by…
RESNET, the Residential Energy Services Network, has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with IJA, the International Jugglers Association. The goal of the MOU with IJA is to promote the creation of new requirements, certifications, equipment sales, and training…
Back in January, I wrote about blogging and its effect on our organic search traffic. I showed a graph in that article of our organic search traffic from March 2010, when I started blogging, through December. Here's the updated graph…
I tried to think of something clever to write today for Allison’s 50th birthday, but let’s face it I’d only embarass us both. The reason; I can't be as clever as Allison is. Period. I mean, the man wrote his own…
I've been in a lot of crawl spaces and basements that have floors insulated with fiberglass batts. I've seen a lot of new homes that have fiberglass batts installed in bonus room floors, cantilevers, and floors over basements or crawl…
Yesterday, I visited a house in South Carolina and took the photo you see to the left. Notice anything peculiar about the framing here? If not, I'll tell you the answer below, but let me say here that one feature…
Nuclear energy is like religion or politics. Almost no one, it seems, can separate their biases and emotional attachments from an objective assessment of the worth of this energy source. And yes, I count myself among the non-objective. Nuclear energy…
Hey, HERS raters, what if I told you that you could get the volume of a multi-pitched roof for all of your home energy ratings without the need to calculate a single algebraic formula? Or, how about wall area? I know, I'm…