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Now that Summer Camp is over, I'm excited about Boot Camp. That would be the Builders' Boot Camp that Community Housing Partners (CHP) puts on each year. It's being held on 30-31 August. I haven't been part of it before, but this year I'm teaching a half-day class four times over the two day affair...
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One week ago I spoke at the Westford Symposium on Building Science. You may know it better as Building Science Summer Camp, since that's what everyone calls it. I wrote up a little summary of the whole conference last week but didn't say a lot about my presentation. Today I'll fill you in on what...
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A comfortable, energy efficient home begins with a good building enclosure. That means control layers. You've got to control the flows of moisture, air, and heat. Today, let's talk about controlling heat and further, let's focus on heat going through the top of the house. If you've read my Flat or...
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Well, another Building Science Summer Camp has come and gone. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you probably know about it. You may even know that I have a special history with it. Dr. Joseph Lstiburek and Betsy Pettit, his wife and business partner, (shown below) host it each year at...
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Last month I told you about the new certified rating and code compliance program that's launching in Florida. I mentioned there will be a training for it at the Southeast Building Conference (SEBC) in Orlando this month. And now I have the details. If this is something you might be interested in,...
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I've just returned home from Long Beach, California, where I've spent the past five days attending the ASHRAE conference, which focuses on heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration. One of the things I heard there was this statement: 95% of ASHRAE members work on commercial...
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Let's face it. The state of home building isn't good. Yes, we have building science and energy codes and green building programs out the wazoo. We have cool new products and home energy raters and even Joe Lstiburek. Despite all this, we still have wild ductopuses, holey air barriers, and insipid...
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To this point in our little series on duct design, we've been calculating intermediate quantitites: available static pressure, total effective length, and friction rate. Today we use all that to find out how big the ducts need to be. We're following the Manual D protocol for duct design, a standard...
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In case you didn't see the announcement out of Florida, two big well-known names have entered the market for home energy ratings and energy code compliance. Underwriters Laboratories (UL) and Intertek are working with the Florida Home Builders Association (FHBA) certify home energy ratings, blower...
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When I go into homes being built before the drywall goes up, one thing I always look for is how well they did with the ceiling joists in the attached garage. I've written about it numerous times here in this blog. At least here in Georgia, it's almost always done wrong unless the home builder has...
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