Controlling the flows of heat, air, and moisture is where building science begins. This is so important that I devoted more than a third of my book to the building enclosure and control layers. As much as I love discussing…
Everyone's talking about heat pumps. These machines for heating buildings can exchange heat with the outdoors in multiple ways, of course. Ground-coupled heat pumps pull heat out of the ground or water and send it to heat the building. But…
![Understanding Wet Bulb Temperature Is Easy When You Know How It's Measured [Photo By Marco Van Der Haar, CC BY 2.0 Deed
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That gorgeous photo of a Massachusetts lake above illustrates some interesting psychrometrics. Those little bits of mist are tiny water droplets full of molecules that not long before had been part of the lake. In the air between those misty…
When you turn on your toaster, you know what happens to the electricity going through those filaments. You can feel it. The energy you extract from the electricity turns directly into heat. But what about the other electrical devices and…
James Watt was a great scientist and engineer, known mainly for his work on the steam engine. Actually, that's not true. What he's really known for is confusing a great many people who deal with energy. But C. Wilhelm Siemens…
You may have found yourself needing to understand building science for one of a thousand different reasons. Perhaps you've bought a house and want to make sure it's comfortable, healthy, and efficient. Maybe you're an architect with a new client…
This past week I learned the truth about another one of many building science lies. It's the first one in my list here. Having my eyes opened to that lie made think of some of the other ones out there. …
Heat pumps are riding a wave of demand and curiosity lately. With all the talk of electrification and decarbonization, heat pumps are in! We specify heat pumps in most of our HVAC design jobs at Energy Vanguard. We've got them…
Air has weight. Air can move things, like giant wind turbine blades. Air can also crush things. I first got to see the power of air in my introductory physics class in college. The professor, Dr. Jeffrey Trahan, showed the…
At first glance, the word “flux” looks like it may not be appropriate in polite company. In fact, though, it’s a word used in physics all the time. Flux comes from the same Latin root that gives us “flow.” The…