Building Science 101
One of my all time favorite books is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. It’s really good on a lot of levels, but one thing that really stuck with me was the author’s discussion of how…
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Why Is the Energy Improvement Mortgage So Lonely?
About a year ago, I had lunch with someone who was in the process of refinancing his 50 year old home. He was doing the refi merely to lower his interest rate and monthly payments, but he missed out on…
Architecture Bling is Like a Needle Through a Balloon
Building Envelope as a Balloon At some point in your life, you may have seen or done the needle through the balloon trick. It's where a large needle pierces one end of a balloon and is pushed through to the…
Attic Stairs – A Mind-Blowing Hole in Your Building Envelope
Green Building Advisor, one of my favorite sources of good info on building science and green building, ran my Flat or Lumpy article as a guest blog yesterday. (They also gave the Energy Vanguard blog a nice review!) With the…
Snow on the Roof – The Poor Man’s Infrared Camera
We got a couple inches of snow here in Atlanta over the holidays. That always offers a great look at heat loss through the ceiling, so I love to get outside and take pictures. After the snow has been on…
Allison A. Bailes III, PhD – Building Science Guru, Juggler, Writer
Allison Arthur Bailes III, PhD, died on the morning of 4 January 2011. His wife found him slumped over the keyboard of his computer, where he collapsed after working on yet another blog article. Apparently the pressure to write, which…
Helping an Asthmatic HVAC System to Breathe
[This post was written by former EV employee Chris Laumer-Giddens.] I live in a high-rise condominium in Midtown Atlanta. In an earlier post about this energy hog of a building, I focused on the huge heat loss conditions that exist, the…
Possums, Dilbert, & Happy Caulkers – A Building Science Blog’s Growth
As it turns out, I did not make it to the annual Possum Drop to ring in the new year. The photo below is one I took last year. I also did not publish any blog articles last week, the…
How the Heck Does a Heat Pump Get Heat from Cold?!
It's been cold out lately, so I've been talking about heat. When I talk to people about how heat pumps can keep your home warm in winter, they usually get a look of bewilderment on their faces. How is that…
An Easy to Fix Air Flow Problem That Can Save Energy – and Your Life
As I've mentioned here before, I live in a 40 year old condo that's a good example of what happens when you build something without understanding the principles of building science. I've previously written about the crawl space problems in…