Where to put the air barrier may seem obvious, but this question has many dimensions…literally. Let's look at the question of air barrier location from three perspectives. First, building assemblies are three-dimensional. The air barrier can go on the inside,…
A typical BPI Building Analyst spends four to five days in a class learning how to do blower door testing, along with all the other stuff they need to know. HERS raters get all that but also have to learn…
The photo above shows a common problem in new homes. It's also one that can make it difficult to pass the blower door test required by many building codes these days. If I tell you that the wall pictured here…
Enrico Fermi was famous for many things, as you might expect of one of the smartest physicists of the 20th century. Quantum theory, statistical mechanics, and nuclear physics were his primary subjects, but what I appreciate most about him was…
Remember the first time you ran a blower door? OK, maybe that's not the best way to get where I'm going because most first-timers turn the pressure up like they're practicing tai chi on Jupiter. After you've done a few…
This week we got a box full of hobos delivered to the world headquarters of Energy Vanguard. Well, OK, they weren't the kind of hobos you see at left but actually HOBOs, the data loggers made by Onset, as you…
Did you know that James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul," made a video about doing blower door testing to weatherize homes? Neither did most people, but he certainly did make one. Here it is. I'd love to know the story…
Burning fuels inside a house can lead to serious health and safety problems. Energy auditors do a variety of combustion safety tests to find potential hazards and recommend fixes. A couple of weeks ago at the Dry Climate Forum, I…
I get a lot of questions from people asking how they should go about fixing their homes. Sometimes it's specific (What's the best way to insulate my kneewalls?), and sometimes it's a hands up in the air, With all these…
A year or two ago, I remember getting trapped in my car one evening listening to Ira Glass's show This American Life. It was an episode titled When Patents Attack, and I was riveted. They described how a seemingly small…