My wife and I visited family in Florida recently and our first stop was the home of my sister and brother-in-law in Lakeland (east of Tampa). They haven't lived in the house all that long, and my brother-in-law, Jack, moved…
Building a house is expensive enough already. Why would you want to spend a bunch of money fixing something that could have been done right the first time...or the second time? Well, no one intends to have to spend that…
I just returned from Arizona, where I spoke at the Structural Insulated Panel Association’s annual conference. Since it was in Tucson, I also took the opportunity to visit with my friend David Butler. He’s an amazing source of knowledge in…
I built a house out of structural insulated panels (SIPs) before I'd ever done—or even watched—a blower door test. It turned out to be pretty dang airtight, too, despite my lack of air sealing experience at the time. If I'd…
The Structural Insulated Panel Association (SIPA) is holding its annual conference in Tucson, Arizona during the first week of April. Energy Vanguard's president, Allison Bailes, has been invited to speak at the event and will be giving four talks, all…
On my trip to Aspen, Colorado last week, when I learned to ski, I noticed an interesting snow pattern on a lot of the roofs of the houses near where we stayed. Not being from snow country, I didn't know…
I get asked variations of this question often enough that it's worth addressing here. If you're doing a blower door test, how big a house can you test with one fan? Or, put another way, how many blower doors do…
If you install fiberglass batt insulation* with a kraft paper vapor retarder in a home, which way do you face the vapor retarder? To the inside of the home or the outside of the home? For many building science questions,…
Let's play a little game today. Take a look at that photo above. See anything that bothers you? No? Well, pretend that you're the heat in the house once everything is finished and people are living in it. Does that…
Guest post from Nate Adams, founder of Energy Smart Insulation in Mantua, Ohio. Guest post from Nate Adams, founder of Energy Smart Insulation in Mantua, Ohio. It's that time of year again: Two nice sized snowstorms have hit here in…