I've seen some crazy things done to homes. It's usually someone's attempt to make things better. Sometimes that someone is a homeowner or other occupant. Sometimes it's a contractor. But it always seems to be a solution to a problem…
Ah, ventilation. One of the easier topics in building science. Everyone agrees: We need airtight houses. Airtight houses need mechanical ventilation. Build tight. Ventilate right. No problem! We're all on board. There's nothing to disagree about. Right? Ah, ventilation. One…
Just because I haven't written about the jockeying over ventilation rates and strategies with the ASHRAE 62.2 committee doesn't mean nothing's going on. If you've been following the battle over this issue, you know that Joe Lstiburek, PhD, PE, got…
A lot of discoveries and research work over the past four decades have led to our current understanding of air leakage in buildings. I’ll mention a few here, but I want to focus on one: the MAD AIR paper by…
Condominiums and apartments present some serious challenges when it comes to providing ventilation for good indoor air quality. (I live in a condo that was built in 1970 with no whole-house mechanical ventilation, but that's another story.) In high-rise buildings,…
The Building Performance Institute (BPI) recently introduced a new certification called the Healthy Home Evaluator. It's not a standalone credential, though. Anyone looking to add it to their list of credentials must already have one of three other BPI certifications: …
Last week I spent a lot of hours in my bathroom. I was sick. Really. I was sick and tired of having an outdated bathroom that was beginning to fall apart. So when my wife hit the road last Monday…
I always look at the bathroom ventilation when I'm staying in hotels. Last month I was at the Air Barrier Association conference in Baltimore and took the photo above. Can you tell anything about what might be happening by looking…
Maybe you're a homeowner investigating how to make your home more comfortable. Maybe you're contractor (HVAC, insulation, remodeling...) looking to grow. Or maybe you're an artist looking for the latest trends in performance art. However you got here, I'll see…
My friend Perry had lived in a nearly hundred year old house for six or seven years when we encapsulated his crawl space in 2005. It was a typical old country house. Originally built on piers, someone had filled in…