What happened in Texas this winter has a lot of people thinking about our dependence on electricity and what happens when the power goes out in extreme weather. Recently I wrote about Gary Nelson's house in Minneapolis that's heated by…
The US Energy Information Agency does a Residential Energy Consumption Survey a couple times each decade and in the 2015 data, they showed that the average energy use per household member per year is 30.3 million BTU, or 8,800 kilowatt-hours. …
In case you're dying to know the answer, I'll go ahead and blurt it out right here: Yes, heat pumps work in Minnesota and in other really cold places, too. Today I'll tell you about one particular house in Minneapolis,…
You may recall that I bought a ranch-style house a couple of years ago and have been doing some work to improve it. The house was built in 1961, so it turns 60 years old this year. That may seem…
![Design Temperature And Degree Days Are Different [Photo By NOAA ESRL, From Flickr.com]](https://www.energyvanguard.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/thermometer-cold-design-temperature.jpg)
People new to building science and HVAC are confronted with a lot of terms for things that are related but different. Load and capacity. Energy recovery ventilator (ERV) and heat recovery ventilator (HRV). Hot water heater and cold water heater. …
Sometimes companies that make products stretch the truth, embellish features, or rely on their potential customers' ignorance of how things work. Shocking, I know. The world of electric heating has such companies. But if you're looking for a device that…
In case you hadn't heard, we had an inauguration for a new President of the United States this week. And Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders made one of the biggest sartorial splashes. Photographer Brendan Smialowski got a photo of Bernie sitting in a…
As a runner, I've had some direct experience with temperature regulation in the human body. In winter (and we're having a real one this year in Atlanta), I'm always faced with the choice of how to dress for the conditions…
Oh, the wonderful world of heating and air conditioning and its confusing terminology. I've been doing building science for nearly two decades now, and I still have to ask around sometimes to find out what what a particular term means. Here's…
We are now ten short days from the winter solstice and many of us in the Northern Hemisphere have been in heating season for a while. That means there's a lot more combustion happening in homes than there was in…