Energy efficiency is a gateway drug to building science. When you really start learning about it, you come to the inescapable conclusion that there's so much more to making homes better than just saving energy. A house is a system,…
Back in 2004, as I was immersing myself in the world of building science and green building, I took the US Green Building Council's exam to become a LEED Accredited Professional. I bought their book. I took a study course…
Last weekend my wife and I went to Asheville, North Carolina to hear Lyle Lovett and His Large Band at the Biltmore Estate. It was a wonderful evening! Mountains, sunset, gardens... We even had four planets lined up over the…
Sometimes people are bothered by how things look. They don't want a return grille showing in that location or they'd rather have the supply registers low on the wall or they just can't stomach the thought of a wall-mounted ductless…
It's been a while since I've written about what I had been calling "The Great Ventilation Debate" back when Joe Lstiburek was battling the ASHRAE 62.2 residential ventilation committee. The 62.2 committee meets in person twice a year at the…
I've been going to the meetings of the ASHRAE residential ventilation committee (SSPC 62.2, to be specific) for the past few years. As a matter of fact, I'm writing this article from my room in Houston, the site of the…
It's getting hot out there. Here in the Southeast, we love our air conditioning. In fact, without air conditioning, far fewer people would live in places like Houston, Hattiesburg, and Sopchoppy. And that's true for the hot, dry places, too,…
One of the primary benefits of an unvented gas fireplace is that you don't lose any heat up the flue. That's because there isn't a flue, of course. That's one of the main reasons supporters of unvented gas fireplaces use…
Because I've written so much about moisture in buildings, I get a lot of questions on the topic. Some are about walls. Some are about the attic. Some are about windows. Some are about the crawl space (which generates the…
When I woke up Saturday morning, the temperature outdoors was -40 degrees†. The wind chill was -100 degrees! It was just unbelievably, impossibly, inhumanly cold outside. Fortunately, that was on a mountaintop in New Hampshire and not where I was.…