Are you considering replacing your current water heater with a heat pump water heater but worried that it'll freeze your basement in winter? Well, enough homes have this new technology that we now have some data on this topic. A…
It's the last day of the year, so let's wrap it up with some lists. Whether you missed some of the articles I wrote this year or are just curious about what other people were reading here, I've got three…
David Wasserman and I worked together at the Southface Energy Institute back in 2007-08 and have been friends since then. Before Southface, he was an engineer at Oak Ridge National Lab. We also call on him for occasional help with…
It was two years ago this week we had the nasty old fossil gas natural draft water heater removed. (That's it in the photo below.) Outside of running a gasoline powered generator inside a house, this kind of water heater…
What’s the first image that pops into your when you see the term “water heating”? It’s probably a water heater tank. Depending on your interests or what you have in your home, perhaps it’s a tankless or solar water heater. …
We are now ten short days from the winter solstice and many of us in the Northern Hemisphere have been in heating season for a while. That means there's a lot more combustion happening in homes than there was in…
Let me tell you the story about a poor, young country boy who broke the law and launched me into my new project. Back in February, I was driving home from work one evening when a driver T-boned me. The…
If you have an attached garage where you live, the odds are high that your indoor air quality is worse than a home without an attached garage. Just take a look at the photo below to see some of the…
I'm writing this on St. Patrick's Day so let me tell you a wee bit about the O'Mearas. Kevin and Svetlana O'Meara live in a beautiful home in Utah that's oh-so-close to being a net zero energy home. After I…
Remember those two furnaces I showed you photos of last week? You know, the ones that had ducts placed—or taped, in one case—right in front of them to bring them combustion air. I told you it wasn't a good way…