A water resistive barrier (WRB) provides protection against water damage for water that gets behind the cladding of a building. But what if it doesn't really resist water? I've written a lot about installation problems that can lead to compromised…
A couple of weeks ago I caught up with Anthony Cox at the Air Barrier Association conference in Baltimore. You may know Anthony as the inventor of the House of Pressure, a great model for demonstrating backdrafting, zonal pressure differences,…
Conventional thinking says putting insulation in a building prevents heat loss in winter and heat gain in summer. This comes from the 19th century physicists who invented the laws of thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics in particular gives us…
I'm seeing more and more projects with house wrap where the installers do the window details properly. Or at least better. The photo above shows the house wrap lapping over the flashing tape at the top of the window. Often…
Last Friday I did a workshop on HVAC design and installation best practices for the Home Builders Association of Central New Mexico. They had a great crowd in attendance. I told them why I was on crutches (the polar bear…
In the summer of 1981, my grandparents gave me a 1961 Volkswagen Bug. I had just gone through my sophomore year at Centenary College of Louisiana without having a car and really wanted to have one for my junior year.…
Maybe you're a homeowner investigating how to make your home more comfortable. Maybe you're contractor (HVAC, insulation, remodeling...) looking to grow. Or maybe you're an artist looking for the latest trends in performance art. However you got here, I'll see…
My friend Perry had lived in a nearly hundred year old house for six or seven years when we encapsulated his crawl space in 2005. It was a typical old country house. Originally built on piers, someone had filled in…
When Stephen Morrison of MoreSun Custom Woodworking sent me the photo above, my reaction was, Wow! Just wow! This duct retrofit is absolutely stunning. It's an elegant display of creativity not hindered by knowledge. Can you see what they've done?…
Now's your chance. The inaugural train-the-trainer session on the Water Efficiency Rating Score, WERS, is happening in Santa Fe, New Mexico in just three weeks. Mike Collignon from the Green Builder Coalition has been doing an amazing job getting this…