An Air Conditioner Does at Least 4 Jobs
The most noticeable thing about an air conditioner is that it blows cool air into the house. When you come indoors after doing yard work on a hot summer day, that may be all that matters to you. But air…
humidity
Is It Bad When the Air Conditioner Runs A Lot?
I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone complain that their air conditioner runs all the time. Now, it's certainly possible that an air conditioner running continuously has a problem. But is the simple observation of continuous operation…
A Fistful of New Building Science Videos
We're doing some new things here at Energy Vanguard. We've had a YouTube channel since 2010 but haven't done much with it. So one of the new things is working on putting out new videos every week. Here are the…
Do You Really Need to Run the Bath Fan in Summer?
In the comments of my last article, RoyC made an interesting point. "I don’t usually run my bathroom exhaust fan during a shower when it is hot and humid out," he wrote. I'm sure that statement shocks a lot of…
10 Ways to Reduce Your Indoor Humidity
With our changing climate, more people are having to deal with higher humidity for longer periods of time this summer. I'd say this has been probably the worst summer for humidity since I moved to Georgia in the summer of…
Going Deeper With Control Layers
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…
Hotels Have a Humidity Problem
If you travel with a hygrometer, as any seasoned traveler should, what I have to show you here is nothing new. But if instead you've never measured the relative humidity in a hotel room, I've got something interesting for you…
5 Tips for Sizing an Air Conditioner
So you're getting a new air conditioner! Well, what size should you get? Unfortunately, too many contractors use only one input for sizing an air conditioner. Yup. To them, it's just a matter of floor area. Forget the windows, the…
Should You Encapsulate Your Crawl Space?
Vented crawl spaces are often nasty, dirty buffer spaces that can flood your home with a variety of indoor air pollutants. A lot of it starts with moisture, of course. Water comes up from the ground beneath the crawl space,…
4 Ways to Duct a Dehumidifier
Humidity control is becoming a bigger deal than it used to be. As Joseph Lstiburek, PhD, PE said to me one time, "the gap between stupid and hurt is narrowing." Building codes and best practices are getting better, which is…