Blog

There's a lot of times when face-to-face training is the only thing that will do. Especially in the home performance industry: hands-on is the only way you can really learn to identify and diagnose energy-sucking and moisture-growing situations in a house. But to understand what you need to identify and...

Oh, how I yearn for RESNET Grade I installations...here's how to get 'em.

Hot water distribution efficiency is now included in HERS ratings, under an amendment to ANSI/RESNET Standard 301-2014. This is a Good Thing. To date, all of our efforts to represent, and then minimize, hot water usage have been skewed by distribution systems (ie, by the vagaries of plumbing). According to...

We're so very pleased to announce our partnership with Building Performance Center Inc, in Folsom, CA. Our online training is the preparatory course for classroom training for Building Analyst training (BPI Certification). BPCi has a fantastic facility, the Field Training and Test House -- trainees are guaranteed lots of hands-on...

From the newsletter of Northwest Energy Star (Q32014): Bibs vs. batts: Who ya got? Recently, some blown fiberglass products were shown to offer the same resistance to airflow when blown to a density of 2.3lbs/cubic foot as cellulose does at 4lbs/cubic foot. Energy Trust of Oregon was intrigued by these...

Our news of the week: we've partnered with GreenHome Institute (GHI) out of Grand Rapids, MI, to offer Building Science Basics to more folks in the industry. Through GHI, Building Science Basics is eligible for more continuing education credits:10 CE hours for AIA-HSW10 CE hours for USGBC4.5 CEUs for BPIGHI...

Here's a presentation based on our work with Natural Resources Canada on The Path to Net Zero Energy housing. The study challenge was to look at incremental reductions in energy use and flag where the envelope improvements ended and the mechanical system design started. There was a lot of number...

This happens in specific conditions, on specific faces of houses in Nova Scotia: wind storms carrying a whole lot of rain come ripping of the North Atlantic and drive rain horizontally. And only when the wind is out of a certain quadrant does the window leak. The pressure on the...

Ann Edminster, M.Arch, LEED AP (a long time colleague) is a recognized international expert on green-home design and a principal developer of the LEED for Homes rating system. Here’s a story about Ann’s house in Pacifica, California, in interview format with Jim Gunshinian from Home Energy Magazine. This Q&A originally...

Here's something near and dear to the heart of anyone involved in the home performance industry: how to make energy efficiency sexy, appealing, and properly valued. When you're up to your eyebrows in insulation and you know that you are adding significant value to a house, it's sometimes hard to...

An air barrier stops air from moving in or out of the conditioned space, effectively blocking the air pressure differences that drive the stack and wind effects. Air barriers can be in place anywhere in the building envelope, and there can be more than one air barrier. Air barriers can...

The original basement: rubble, damaged, water issues at the slab, scrabble, rock and broken thin slab floor, insulation stuffed in window wells with cracked glazing in the frames, daylight visible between window/wall, cellar door/wall, joists/top of wall, and even peeking through between some of the rubble. Two monster oil-fired boilers...

A drainscreen is a self-draining material (often a proprietary mesh or netting) between between stucco or cement cladding and the drainage plane/waterproof layer, especially common with insulation finish system (EIFS) wall assembly (which is often also the exterior air barrier in EIFS assemblies). Drainage paths allow the water to get...

Insulated sheathing materials can provide an air barrier along with a thermal barrier, and solve the biggest challenges of thermal bridging. The challenge of using insulating sheathing as an air barrier is to ensure that the R-value of the sheathing is high enough that it moves the dew point outside...

Solar ready sounds pretty groovy. But what does it mean? There is no uniform definition. At one level, it applies to minor changes in the design and construction of individual houses or buildings to ‘rough-in’ the necessary elements to accommodate a future photovoltaic (PV) or solar hot water (SHW) system....