The 2021 Energy Vanguard Wrap-up
Here we are at the end of another year. It's been a weird one! I certainly won't go into all the weirdness of 2021, but let me give you the Energy Vanguard wrap-up, divided into five categories. Four of them…
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3 Important Facts About Dew Point Temperature
That photo above is the bottom side an air conditioner in a crawl space on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Those droplets tell us something important: A property of the air in that crawl space aligned with a property of…
Building Enclosures Have Improved More Than Ducts
Yesterday I visited a home being built by a national production home building company. As you can tell from the title of this article, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that building enclosures have improved,…
Lloyd Alter Is Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle
Lloyd Alter, architect and prolific blogger at Treehugger, has a new book. Titled Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle,* the book is an exploration of what it takes to live within a pretty strict carbon budget. That means tracking the carbon…
Bad Advice About Indoor Humidity in Cold Weather
It's that time of year again. The cold weather has begun here in the Northern Hemisphere, and people are talking about raising the humidity of the indoor air. I'm certainly no fan of bone-dry air, having experienced too much of…
Is a Heat Pump More Efficient Than a Furnace?
The two primary ways you can heat your house are by burning a fuel (e.g., fossil gas, fuel oil, wood) or using electricity. Furnaces and boilers distribute the heat from combustion to heat a house. Electric resistance heat makes sense…
Building Your First House as an Owner-Builder
Building your first house as an owner-builder can be hectic, nerve-wracking, and wildly exhilarating. I experienced all those things and more when I built a house for myself 20 years ago. I've written a bit about it here in the…
What I Got Wrong in Criticizing Fiberglass Batts
My how the time flies. Ten years ago right now, I was David. A large insulation company was Goliath. They came after me for criticizing fiberglass batts in an article where I showed 7 photos of poorly installed fiberglass…
Climate Zones Are Getting Warmer (Mostly)
Climate zones for energy code purposes are defined in the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). Every three years, that code gets updated. The map that was in the last version of the IECC, which came out in 2018, had been…
A Hot Water System Retrofit for an Old House
David Wasserman and I worked together at the Southface Energy Institute back in 2007-08 and have been friends since then. Before Southface, he was an engineer at Oak Ridge National Lab. We also call on him for occasional help with…