Fail! — Ignorance of Building Science Is No Excuse
One of the great things about writing this blog is that I don't have to depend only on material that I've personally seen. Because I'm "semi-famous" (Thanks, Dan!), people occasionally send me photos of building envelope and mechanical systems stuff that's, well, just abominable. Let's look at a few here.
What you see above is a section of an attic kneewall. It's got insulation and air-sealing, so it's good, right? Well, no, it actually does nothing at all when you spray a little foam around the edges of a material that's highly permeable to air flow. (That would be fiberglass.) Nathan Terry of E3 Innovate in Nashville, TN sent me this one.
That's not mold growing on the dirt of the crawl space above. Remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about condensation on ducts? Well, that's going on here in a big way, and what you see on the ground is the duct mastic that was used to seal the ducts. It rehydrated and dripped off of the ducts. Tripp Pankey of Smart Living Home and Energy in Birmingham, Alabama sent me this one a while back.
Oh, my! This last one is quite a failure. The fiberglass insulation in this metal building has completely collapsed. Even when it was new, though, there looks to be a serious problem that would have kept this building uncomfortable. Can you see it? Andy Bell of Alabama Habitat for Humanity sent me this one.
Thanks, Nathan, Tripp, and Andy!
If you've got photos that you think show some particularly interesting building science phenomenon, send them to me at evinfo @ energyvanguard dot com. Maybe you'll see them here in the Energy Vanguard Blog (assuming you want them to).