Insulation is good. More insulation is better (although at some point, more may not be cost effective). It reduces the amount of heat a home loses in winter or gains in summer. You can get there by building thicker walls…
Last week I got a chance to sit down and talk with Terry Brennan in Dallas at the Air Barrier Association of America’s annual conference. He may not be as famous as Joe Lstiburek, but he’s every bit the building…
Last summer I learned about the state of California's efforts to create more healthful buildings and working conditions. In 2008, they passed the California Green Chemistry Initiative with the intent of reducing state residents' exposure to toxic chemicals. California leads…
In 1993 I took a graduate course in solar energy from Professor Yogi Goswami. It was a great course, and one of the projects we had to do was to compile a whole binder full of solar radiation data for…
I'm writing this on St. Patrick's Day so let me tell you a wee bit about the O'Mearas. Kevin and Svetlana O'Meara live in a beautiful home in Utah that's oh-so-close to being a net zero energy home. After I…
We used to build houses without giving much thought to heat flow through the walls, ceilings, and floors. The main thing was to provide some resistance against wind and rain, and then we'd get a fire going to try to…
I think a lot about building enclosures. I've looked at a whole lot of houses and seen a whole lot of problems with the enclosure. I've also seen a few good ones, although they're all too rare. If you've been…
One of the major fiberglass insulation manufacturers (the color in the photo below gives away which one I'm talking about) is getting serious about the installation quality of fiberglass batt insulation. They've put out a video (embedded below) and a…
Let's say you did some work on your home to make it more energy efficient - air sealing, more attic insulation, and a duct system retrofit. You've got your energy bills for 12 months before and 12 months after you…
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…