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If you’ve ever had to dive into the details of the green building and energy efficiency programs for homes, you’ve experienced the operational definition of the word ‘complexity,’ along with a bit of ‘confusion,’ too, I’m sure. I know I have. Unfortunately, the programs all just keep going further and further down that path. Continue reading Confusion & Complexity – Can Green Building Programs Be Simplified? May 16th, 2011 | Category: Advanced Framing, Building Green, Energy Efficiency, Green Living, Indoor Air Quality, Lots/Land Development, NAHB Standard, Rescource Efficiency, Stimulus, Sustainability, Thinking Green, Water Savings/Efficiency |
2 comments | I was checking some REM/Rate files for our HERS raters yesterday, mostly submitted forENERGY STAR homes. I’ve come to expectManual J heating and cooling load calculations submitted along with the files to be less than perfect. Mostly, I accept them because they’re close enough. Yesterday, though, I received a Manual J to go along with a file for an ENERGY STAR home that was beyond the pale. It was egregiously horrific. It was spectacularly sordid. It did come close to meeting the ENERGY STAR Version 2 requirements for Manual J (tight or semi-tight infiltration and correct design temperatures), but whoever put this one together was singularly devious in his efforts to justify the oversized air conditioning systems he wanted to install. Continue reading Oversized AC, Screwed-up Manual J, ENERGY STAR HVAC Tirade! May 12th, 2011 | Category: Design, Energy Efficiency, energy star, HVAC, Indoor Air Quality, Thinking Green |
Leave a comment | Do you have floor joists in your crawl space that look like the one to the left? In case you can’t tell how bad it really is, just click on it to see a bigger version. When you do, you’ll notice the ‘furries,’ as one of my friend called the microbial infestation growing on that wood. What’s going on here? Why is stuff growing on the wood down in the crawl space? Continue reading 3 Reasons Your Crawl Space Has High Humidity & Grows Stuff May 10th, 2011 | Tags: Crawl Space | Category: Air Quality, Crawl Space, Design, Home Inspection |
One comment | My two sisters-in-law have been in town the past few days, and one of them needs to get an energy audit for the home she and her husband recently bought in Seattle. I gave her a recommendation for a company to do the audit (from a couple of friends who used to live there), and now she’s asking the very reasonable question, “What should I be looking for? What should they do when they come to the house?” Continue reading How to Choose a Company to Do a Home Energy Audit May 2nd, 2011 | Category: Building Green, Customer Service, Government, Thinking Green |
Leave a comment | I wrote about energy conservation versus energy efficiency last year and showed how things had stayed pretty level over the past three decades as we’ve spent our efficiency dividend on bigger houses and more electronics. Still, I had trouble believing we were actually using less energy per person than we did in 1970. Continue reading News Flash: Americans Use Less Energy When It Costs More So, I was out on a field test with a new HERSrater the other day, and we took a look up in the attic. The scuttle hole is right next to the closet where the natural gas water heater lives, and the flue comes up into the attic right there where we poked our heads up. The photo at left shows the flue pipe going up and then making a turn before exiting the roof. See that little offset there right above the turn? If it looks like it’s not making a good connection, that’s because it’s not making a good connection. In fact, when the new EVER rater went up there first, it looked worse than what you see here because he’d already put the two sections near each other when I got a chance to take the photo. Continue reading Combustion Safety Rule #1: Remove Exhaust Gases from House April 25th, 2011 | Tags: Air Quality, Combustion, ventilation | Category: Air Quality, Combustion, Home Inspection |
Leave a comment | The house was at one end of a mountain valley in the foothills of Northern Colroado, and at the other end of the valley was Horsetooth Mountain. During the Summer, they could watch the afternoon storms roll across the valley, and would often see heards of elk and deer roaming. The wildlife would practically dine with us, they were so close. Continue reading No More “Damn Architects!” – The Case for Integrated Design April 19th, 2011 | Tags: Design, green | Category: Building Green, Design, Green Living, Thinking Green |
Leave a comment | Science is science. Anyone who works on buildings is free to ignore the principles of building science to the extent that they can get away with it, but someone’s going to pay the price. Maybe it’ll be the occupants, who suffer with comfort problems, poor indoor air quality, frequent maintenance, or high energy bills. Maybe it’ll be the remodeler or builder who has to face constant callbacks. That’s the point I was trying to make with my article on can lights. To the extent that program guidelines or building codes allow can lights, a remodeler or builder can use them. If they’re part of the building envelope, however, and create a problem with the air barrier or insulation, the contractor is giving their client an inferior product. That’s just building science. Continue reading Are Freedom and Building Science Incompatible? April 18th, 2011 | Tags: Building Science, Green Education | Category: Building Green, Customer Service, Government, Stimulus, Tax Incentives, Thinking Green |
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