As it turns out, I did not make it to the annual Possum Drop to ring in the new year. The photo below is one I took last year. I also did not publish any blog articles last week, the…
I like the Sun! It's what got me interested in building science, actually. Growing up in the '70s, I heard a lot of talk about the environment, our energy problems, and solar energy. I didn't really do much with that…
You open the door and are immediately assaulted by the damp, musty smell, even before taking a full step inside. If you're hyper-sensitive to these smells, you probably can't even go in without a respirator. If you're not that sensitive…
I guess you could call me a contrarian. I usually go in the opposite direction from the crowds. In 1997, for example, I spent two weeks in Portugal, where most people head for the beaches south of Lisbon. Instead, I…
One of the most common questions I get when I describe homes with insulated rooflines is, "What does that do to the shingles?" Some roofing companies have made a lot of noise about this topic, saying that if the shingles…
I've been involved in the home energy rating field since 2003 and have witnessed a lot of growth. When I went through the HERS rater class, there were only a handful of HERS rater training providers and maybe a couple…
This week I read and commented on Avoiding the Global Warming Impact of Insulation by Alex Wilson" target="_blank">Avoiding the Global Warming Impact of Insulation by Alex Wilson over at Green Building Advisor. I'd avoided the article for a while since…
I'm not at Building Science Summer Camp this week. In case you haven't heard, the event, formally called the Westford Symposium on Building Science, is by invitation only. And I didn't get an invitation. Not that I would have gone…
I was in a crawl space in Atlanta yesterday putting a new home energy rater through his field test and found that this home has a dehumidifier down below. Not surprisingly, it ran continuously the whole time I was there. …
I like to go to Waffle House. Over the past few years, it seems, I've gone so often that I even order my breakfast in their special code: "Triple scramble wheat plate," which translates to three scrambled eggs, whole wheat…