Reshared post from +Jesse Smith >100 mpg on just gas, street legal, and $25k. WIKISPEED – Notable Facts Any and all donations and support to Team WIKISPEED (WIKISPEED Inc.) are treated as micro-investments. If we realize profit, we commit to repaying all of you plus any return responsible, so that if we… View this post on Google+ Post imported by […]
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Great article from Martin Holladay on GBA
Energy guru Marc Rosenbaum posts in comments. Heat pump water heaters are interesting. We're currently sub-metering hot water consumption on a couple of homes. The goals are to project savings from switching to heat pump water heaters from oil or electric resistance, and if worthwhile, appropriately size the heat pump water heater based upon current usage. This type of analysis […]
Category News
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Just received the latest JLC, which is one of my favorite construction magazines….
Just received the latest JLC, which is one of my favorite construction magazines. From their article, "Energy-Efficient Modular": "We didn't really save much money by building modular, because it's the finishes … that tend to drive up costs." Ahh, the siren song of profitable prefab housing. Here's my thesis. The post WWII housing boom led to incredibly efficient building techniques. […]
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Improving buildings in the real world
There is an incredible wealth of information on how to construct energy efficient, durable, and comfortable buildings. Sure, most of that information is totally disregarded when buildings are constructed. But it would be difficult to argue that houses in the US are constructed poorly because technicians don’t have access to good information. This wealth of information should be directly applied […]
Category Construction, News
Tags Energy, NJHPwES, Performance
Changing heating costs
One of the most complicated issues for homeowners is determining whether or not to make a change to their 1) heating system efficiency, or 2) heating fuel type. There are a multitude of factors that could go into making this decision, including: Current system efficiency, Proposed system efficiency, Current cost of heating fuel, Future cost of fuel, Cost of change […]
Category Construction, News
Tags Energy, Heating, NJHPwES, Performance
Home Performance and Hard Choices
I spend a lot of time reading about carpentry, building science, and construction. One of my hopes for this blog is to help others apply good building science under a multitude of real-world constraints. Common constraints include: Budget, Owner’s expectation that they won’t be in the house for long, Contradictory assertions from everyone and their brother who works on houses, […]
Larry Haun RIP
Fine Homebuilding has this obituary for Larry Haun. An icon of carpentry, I was inspired to switch to gang-cutting rafters by watching his videos and reading his books. One of the building construction greats.
Category News, Process
Tags Philosophy
Testimonials
Here’s some more feedback we received on a job completed last year in the NJ Home Performance with Energy Star program: “Jesse and Abel Smith of Tay River completed the insulation of my 2500 sqft house according to the NJ energy saving program. We found their level of competence extremely high to give valuable advice while completing the work agreed […]
Category Energy Efficiency, News
Tags Efficiency, Testimonial
Look Ma, No Replacement Windows!
Here are the blower door results from one of the NJ Home Performance with Energy Star jobs we did this week. In most houses we anticipate 30%-40% leakage reductions, which is generally considered pretty good. But 55% leakage reduction is pretty awesome! I’ll try to find time over the weekend to elaborate on our evolving techniques for sealing buildings. Here’s […]
Category Construction, News
Tags Air Sealing, NJHPwES, Performance, Technical
NJ Home Performance with Energy Star
Just found this video tutorial regarding New Jersey’s Home Performance program. We’ve been doing quite a bit of NJHPwES work. Enjoy!
