The World of Smart Begins to Grow Up
In 2005, I was deep in the throes of my peak oil obsession. I went to a couple of conferences that fall and at the big one in Denver, I met a guy who gave me a little glimpse into…
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Electricity Demand and the Duck Curve
You may think there's no more boring topic than electric utilities. Power plants. Transmission lines. Engineers with flat top haircuts and pocket protectors full of pens in their white short-sleeved shirts. Well, let me say two words that might help…
Must the 3 Little Pigs Die?
Building Science Summer Camp was last week. That means I was in Massachusetts with 500 of my closest friends, staying up too late, talking building science out the wazoo, and attending some great presentations from leaders in the world of…
17 Reasons I Love Working with Buildings
Yesterday I had lunch with Robert Bean and Eric Griffin at the ASHRAE conference here in Atlanta. As we talked about how we got into the field of building science, I began thinking of the reasons I love doing what…
My Passion for Building Science Education and Bad Contractors
When asked to name our passions at the conference I went to in Portland, Oregon last week, I had to think about it a little bit. I had just been discussing what it is we aim to do at a…
Are You Being Responsible with Numbers?
Numbers. We deal with them all the time. They come at us from all directions. We believe them. Or we don't. We throw them out and expect others to believe us. Those of us who work in the field of…
On the Edge: The North American Passive House Conference
The 9th annual North American Passive House Conference happened two weeks ago in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. The Passive House Institute US (PHIUS) has been holding this conference every year since 2006, and it just keeps getting…
Fermi Problems, Blower Doors, and the Compressibility of Air
Enrico Fermi was famous for many things, as you might expect of one of the smartest physicists of the 20th century. Quantum theory, statistical mechanics, and nuclear physics were his primary subjects, but what I appreciate most about him was…
What If Home Builders Had to Pay the Energy Bills?
Three questions have been nagging at Rick Chitwood over the past 5 or 6 years. First, why is the HVAC industry in California, where he lives and works, so pathetic? Second, why have California’s strict energy standards, which have been…
Look for Me by the Question Mark
I'm in California this week at the Dry Climate Forum, hanging out with some of my favorite people in the home performance business. Gavin Healy, Dan Perunko,† Mike MacFarland, and Rick Chitwood are the ringleaders, but all 6 dozen of us…