I love working for people who test things! Here’s a testimonial from last week’s NJ Home Performance with Energy Star job: “Jesse and his crew had the daunting job of air sealing and insulating the attic of our ranch home. They did great work even though it was in the July heat. The on again off again heat waves we […]
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Kitchen soffits are hard to air-seal from above
Here's Steve rocking the high-density cellulose in tight quarters. We capped it with some blocks of Thermax sealed at the perimeter and blew another 8" of cellulose over top. View this post on Google+ Post imported by Google+Blog for WordPress.
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Duct Performance
Part of the problem with ducts is related to language. In English, the word ‘always’ and the word ‘never’ sound very similar. Pictured here is the attic duct system on a very inefficient and uncomfortable house. How often should you tap multiple supply ducts into the very end of a supply trunk? Probably nalways.
Category Construction, News
Tags Bad, Comfort, Duct, Performance
Brutal! Just retrofit a 30' x 15' crawlspace with less than a foot of clearance…
Brutal! Just retrofit a 30' x 15' crawlspace with less than a foot of clearance from the ground to the joists. I don't like spray foam much at all, but in severely confined work areas there aren't a lot of alternatives. As the saying goes, 'you retrofit the houses you have, not the houses you might want or wish to […]
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You may not have noticed, but last week was brutally hot
Attic temperatures on Monday and Tuesday were over 130F. This made me uncomfortable and sweaty. But our youngest crew members seemed to suffer the worst. Here's one of them modeling our 2 latest experiments in keeping cool – the ice-water filled camelbak and the ice vest. The ice vest seems the most promising so far. Get back in the attic […]
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For some reason we're running across a ton of short vaulted section of roof accessible…
For some reason we're running across a ton of short vaulted section of roof accessible from the main attic flat. Usually about 2' . Here's Steve stuffing a cathedral accuvent in the vault and dense-packing with cellulose. Without real access to the exterior plate this is probably the least invasive technique for reducing (the substantial) air leakage at this point. […]
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Some thoughts on using blower doors
Enjoy! Blower Door Guided Air-sealing isn’t Real View this post on Google+ Post imported by Google+Blog for WordPress.
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Frameworks for Improving Building Performance
I have two mental models for understanding and improving building performance. The first model I’ll call “Everything is Sort of Bad”. This model says that a building is pretty bad – but not horrible – pretty much everywhere and in most of the building systems (thermal boundary, pressure boundary, ducts, water-resistive barrier, etc). The second model I’ll call “Everything is […]
Category Energy Efficiency, News
Tags Air Sealing, Efficiency, Insulation, Technical
Blower Door Guided Air-sealing isn’t Real
I really like blower doors.There are a lot of building diagnostic tools that most people have probably never heard of that I like. Duct-blasters and flow plates to name a couple of more. For readers who are interested in conserving energy who haven’t heard of a blower door, check out Martin Holladay’s article on blower doors here. Blower doors are […]
