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…
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…
Energy Vanguard has put together an online CAZ training course to supplement the RESCAZ simulation and our in-person classes. For HERS raters who are also certified as BPI Building Analysts, the online course will satisfy RESNET's requirements. The video below…
I've been writing some articles on ventilation for the Journal of Light Construction lately and have come across some great material. The first quote here makes the point about indoor air quality with a graphic underwear metaphor. It's from an…
Your air conditioner, heat pump, or furnace probably uses a lot of energy. Heating and cooling makes up about half of the total energy use in a typical house. For air conditioners and heat pumps using electricity generated in fossil-fuel…
RESNET will require all HERS raters to be certified in combustion safety and work scope development. All new raters trained in 2014 will need to demonstrate those skills before they can be certified. Raters who were already certified prior to…
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…
The debate over how much to ventilate a home has been going on a long time. Last year, Building Science Corporation introduced their own standard to compete against ASHRAE 62.2 because of problems they felt weren't adequately addressed in the…
Guest post by John Krigger. Last week I wrote an article on combustion safety testing based on the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab work mentioned below and opened the article with a reference to a discussion I'd had with John last…