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…
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…
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…
A couple of years ago, my friend Steve Byers of Energy Logic wrote an article about how to get the most out of your conference experience. In it, he included a link to a paper titled 15 Tips from Keith…
I've written a lot about duct problems, especially those in flex duct because they're so abundant. A couple of years ago, I even wrote an article about whether or not flex duct should be banned. My answer was no but…
I'm new to global warming. I didn't hear about it until 1983. Even thirty years ago, the science behind the greenhouse effect and global warming was well known. French Physicist and mathematician Joseph Fourier (shown at left) is generally credited…
If you install fiberglass batt insulation* with a kraft paper vapor retarder in a home, which way do you face the vapor retarder? To the inside of the home or the outside of the home? For many building science questions,…
One thing that invariably surprises people when I walk them through a house during their first blower door test is how much air leaks in through the electrical switches and receptacles. On Friday, we went out to do the last…