Here's a wonderful interview with one of the greatest thinkers in building science. Roughly half is a rant against architects – I hadn't realized how frustrated he is with them. Almost reminded me of Nassim Taleb talking about bankers. INTERVIEW: Building Science Pioneer Dr. Joe Lstiburek on the Good, Bad and Ugly Side of Buildings The term ‘building science’ is […]
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Last night I attended Manual S training at Eastern Heating Cooling Council
Ed Janowiak is a great instructor and all-around-good-guy. I think that everyone working on buildings would benefit a lot from the heat load class (Manual J). Here's a list of all the EHCC classes. Go take some!http://www.eh-cc.org/courseofferings.php HVAC Classes New Jersey | Eastern Heating Cooling Council HVAC classes that meet NATE continuing education requirements are available through the Eastern Heating […]
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Weird
Full pdf at link. Journal of School Psychology | Vol 50, Iss 1, Pgs 1-148, (February, 2012) | ScienceDirect.com The online version of Journal of School Psychology at ScienceDirect.com, the world’s leading platform for high quality peer-reviewed full-text journals. View this post on Google+ Post imported by Google+Blog for WordPress.
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Courtesy of the BPS blog
Looks like an interesting article but this construction worker isn't about to drop >$30 to read beyond the abstract. "We argue that scientific thinking, although fallible, is ultimately school psychologists' best safeguard against a host of errors in thinking." I wonder if the authors realized they could have substituted pretty much anything for school psychologists. I'd also be curious to […]
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From a job today
Removing an installation that's about a decade old. A lot of diy window installations would be better if you could turn them upside down. Probably heard the expression a few thousand times "think like a drop of water". We've found remarkably little damage to the inside (so far), but this was on a somewhat sheltered exposure. We'll see what tomorrow […]
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I've been updating some of our blower door leakage testing #'s on projects…
I've been updating some of our blower door leakage testing #'s on projects from the past couple of years. Might tweak this a bit, as a couple of the worst records below are for connected townhouses which really skew things down. The bottom line is that if you're living in a single family home in NJ, you should expect pretty […]
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More info on Alex Wilson's research on the impact of foam
Prior to this a lot of people (including myself) felt that adding any insulation anywhere on a building was a net environmental benefit. I.e. that the energy savings to the building was so great that it made the enviro impact of the foam trivial. Sorry planet! Calculating the Global Warming Impact of Insulation Subtitle: If you insulate with certain types […]
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Last one for the night
Maria recently took this shot of this lovely bathroom we completed in the spring. That's right, sometimes people pay us to do something other than crawl around attics. Or at least they pay Abel, Steve and June. View this post on Google+ Post imported by Google+Blog for WordPress.
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Apparently we recently completed the biggest shell upgrade in the NJ Home Performance…
Apparently we recently completed the biggest shell upgrade in the NJ Home Performance with Energy Star program. Installed around 80 sheets of Thermax. While I'm sure Dow loves us, I have mixed feelings about putting totally impermeable stuff on below-grade walls. AFAIK, Thermax is the only rigid foam that can be left exposed in virtually any part of a home […]
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Quick and dirty work shot from a job today
This is pretty much the detail we've settled on for air-sealing at the eaves. We chop down an accuvent baffle, extend it past the exterior wall plate, then seal the wall plate to the baffle with single part foam. This detail could probably be used on >80% of US houses. The only unfortunate bit is that the vertical height at […]
