Move over powered attic ventilator. There's a new boss in town. For decades, concerned homeowners have looked for ways to keep their attics cool: gable vents, ridge vents, turtlebacks and whirlybirds. Then they moved from passive to active and latched…
Remember those two furnaces I showed you photos of last week? You know, the ones that had ducts placed—or taped, in one case—right in front of them to bring them combustion air. I told you it wasn't a good way…
A while back I wrote about the incompatibility of putting an atmospheric combustion furnace in a sealed attic. Most often the attic is sealed by installing spray foam insulation at the roofline, thus bringing the attic inside the building enclosure…
Asbestos was a popular material for most of the twentieth century, mainly because of its ability to insulate and act as a fire retardant. In fact, it's still used heavily in some parts of the world, such as India and…
Someone got creative with their attic insulation! Yes, those are foam peanuts and restaurant to-go boxes. Bill Box, a home inspector in our energy rater class this week, found this in an attic on a recent inspection he did. I…
Clark Howard is the penny pincher's guru. My wife loves his radio show and website for all the money-saving tips he provides. Naturally, anyone trying to help people save money at home has to address energy use, and Howard does,…
Three years ago I wrote an article titled, Don’t Let Your Attic Suck - Power Attic Ventilators Are a Bad Idea. Nearly a hundred thousand page views and 93 comments later, it's still generating lots of heat. I don't know…
At the Forum on Dry Climate Home Performance earlier this year, I got to hear three building science experts talk about a really cool research project they've been working on in Stockton, California. Bruce Wilcox, John Proctor, and Rick Chitwood…
Murmurs and hearsay about open-cell spray foam insulation have been gaining traction for a while. It rots roofs, people have told me. Not long ago, someone even told me that in Florida, roofing companies won't let their workers go up…
Sometimes you see something in a house that splits your head open, revealing the little green pistachio head that sees the world in a completely different way. I love those moments! It's Stumpy, the duct amputee, which I saw back…