Frank Lloyd Wright was a control freak. This was a guy who not only designed houses but also all of the trim details and even the furniture. No, you're right. That's not really enough evidence to convict him. The really…
Apparently, I haven't written a single article this summer about oversized air conditioners. Shame on me! I've written several in previous summers, mostly about how HVAC contractors bypass the HVAC design process by using rules of thumb and how they…
I like to talk about the big picture of energy occasionally here. I also love data! Today, I'm not going to do a whole lot of talking at all. I mainly want to show you what I consider to be…
This is the story of a happy family that got too hot and sweaty. They'd lived in their house for a while, and everything was fine at first. The central air conditioning system kept them nice and cool. Over the…
Mini-split heat pumps and ductless go together like peanut butter and jelly. Or do they? If all mini-splits were ductless, then why were those rigid elbows sitting on a jobsite I visited recently? That home is going to be heated…
This weekend I bought my ticket to Denver for the Passive House conference at the end of September. The program has intrigued me since I first found out about it in 2007, but I haven't gotten involved with it yet.…
Rod had a major duct failure going on in his crawl space. It was summertime when I visited and took the photos you see in this article, and the ducts had four serious problems that robbed his air conditioner of…
Last month, the Today Show ran a little sting to see if HVAC contractors would do the right thing when brought to a home to diagnose an air conditioner problem that they'd set up. As it turned out, 6 out…
OK, so 2 years ago I wrote that I didn't need no stinkin' Building Science Summer Camp. I lied. Summer Camp doesn't stink at all. In fact, it's a really nice event where I learned a lot and got to…
One talk at the 2012 Building Science Summer Camp stood out above all the others. The last speaker on Tuesday was Henry Gifford. (Yes, that Henry Gifford!) When he was done, the majority of the audience stood and applauded. The…