Twelve years ago, I discovered the Solar Decathlon. I was a new physics professor at a small university in Georgia, and I'd received a packet from the US Department of Energy describing the competition. It was set to have its…
At the Passive House Conference in Denver this past week, Dr. Joe Lstiburek gave the keynote address at the opening plenary (or plenum, as Henry Gifford would say) session. His words, clever as always, added some nice historical perspective to…
Steve Larson, a builder and home energy rater in Florida, recently sent me an email with his energy bills for February through July of this year. When you subtract out the monthly service charges, he paid only $5.35 for electricity…
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what's the greenest product of all? You can find lists of the best green building products all over the web, and many sites update them annually. When looking for hot green building products, you have…
A lot of home builders and homeowners are getting certified home energy ratings to find out how efficient their homes are. There's also a lot of buzz about HERS ratings, with builders looking at them as a tool for marketing…
Trade shows can be both educational and infuriating, and there’s one product I see at a lot of trade shows that fits easily into the latter category - power attic ventilators. The variety of this device that’s been popular lately…
I like the Sun! It's what got me interested in building science, actually. Growing up in the '70s, I heard a lot of talk about the environment, our energy problems, and solar energy. I didn't really do much with that…
Last week I went down to Orlando for the Southeast Building Conference. I was originally slated to speak on the topic of Energy Efficient Mortgages (EEMs), but I was accidentally left out of the program and instead ended up on…
At the end of last month, I wrote about the house my friend Perry is buying with an EEM (Energy Efficient Mortgage). This is just a quick update about the project. The home energy rater finished up the rating, and,…
Tomorrow I'm going to the Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable meeting on the topic of 'Georgia's Solar Future,' which got me to thinking about my friend and fellow HERS rater class instructor Mike Barcik's 5 step program for solar energy. Here it…