Reading Allison's recent article about his experience building a green home brought back memories of my own similar experience back in 1999. Like Allison's home, mine was designed to be high performance, although maybe not so green. (Get more details…
What is it about Maine? Some of my favorite people in the home energy pro community live there. We just signed up our first HERS Rater from the state (Diane Milliken of Horizon Residential Energy Services). Now, some folks there…
Because of this blog, I've sharpened my powers of observation by several orders of magnitude. I thought I was a pretty good observer before, with my background in physics, but writing as much as I have these past two years…
Some people argue against thermostat setbacks, saying they don't save energy anymore. The reasons behind that thinking, however, are flawed. Setting back your thermostat when you're away or at night definitely can save energy (depending on a few factors, as…
What better time than Valentine's Day to make a pitch for going to the system of units that the vast majority of the world uses. No, really, I'm dead serious. Here's my reasoning (and you know how good I am…
Last week I wrote a little article about the stack effect to explain that the flow of air and heat is upward in winter but downward in summer. Turns out, the stack effect is a hot topic. My article here…
Rule #1: You do not talk about Building Science Fight Club. Building science is not an objective subject to be discussed in a rational, calm way, always coming to the same conclusions. Yes, it's based on principles of physics that…
Heat rises. Everyone knows that, right? It's absolutely true. Heat does rise. The problem is that sometimes people say this as if the flow of heat is driven by its wanting to rise. It's not. Heat can move up, down,…
I like James Watt as much as the next person. He was one of the people whose inventions helped advance the Industrial Revolution with his refining of the steam engine. He invented an early copying machine. And he was Scottish.…
It's 2012, and I'm excited about the potential of the new year. I went to Possum Drop to ring in this new year, and we burned another possum effigy, this one loaded with more fireworks than ever and dressed to…