Yesterday, I wrote about the refrigeration cycle for beginners. (Another good article that covers basics of the refrigeration cycle as well as answers to some commonly asked questions is Martin Holladay's Air Conditioner Basics.) Today we go a little deeper.…
If you've wondered how it is that your air conditioner actually keeps you cool in summer, you've found the right place. As Earth-shattering as this sounds, I've actually spent a lot of my half-century living in it! I know, I…
I've written a lot about HVAC (Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning) companies in the Energy Vanguard blog, and a lot of what I've written is pretty critical. I've ruminated about why they won't do things right, gone on a tirade…
You may have heard somewhere that insulation works by trapping air. 'Dead air pockets' is the operative term often used. So, the logical next question, then, is, why doesn't the large dead air pocket in an uninsulated wall cavity reduce…
Yesterday we finished up our first two-day class on ENERGY STAR Version 3 for HERS Raters. We spent the morning of the first day going over the basics - the changes, the transition from V2 to V3 via V2.5, and…
Recently I've learned of two people running their heat pump in a way that costs them a lot of extra money. With heat pumps, there's an extra setting on the thermostat.* In addition to heat, cool, and off, there's a…
This is the first article of a two-part guest post by David Butler of Optimal Building Systems in Arizona and a frequent commenter in the RESNET BPI group on LinkedIn. I've known David for a couple of years now, and…
One of my all time favorite books is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. It’s really good on a lot of levels, but one thing that really stuck with me was the author’s discussion of how…
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…
When I wrote about my trip to the Southeast Building Conference (SEBC) in July, I mentioned how some products on display there really annoyed me because they're either bad to the bone or overhyped. The main one in the latter…