air barrier Archives - Energy Vanguard https://www.energyvanguard.com/tag/air-barrier/ Building science knowledge, HVAC design, & fun Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:02:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 InSoFast Makes Basement Insulation Easy https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/insofast-makes-basement-insulation-easy/ https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/insofast-makes-basement-insulation-easy/#view_comments Tue, 10 Sep 2024 11:29:49 +0000 https://www.energyvanguard.com/?p=9198 If you’ve seen any of the articles or videos about my basement renovation, you probably know I’m using a product called InSoFast to insulate the floors and walls.  You can see it on part of the basement in the photo…

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]]> https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/insofast-makes-basement-insulation-easy/feed/ 6 10 Ways to Reduce Your Indoor Humidity https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/10-ways-to-reduce-your-indoor-humidity/ https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/10-ways-to-reduce-your-indoor-humidity/#view_comments Tue, 30 Jul 2024 00:21:10 +0000 https://www.energyvanguard.com/?p=9137 With our changing climate, more people are having to deal with higher humidity for longer periods of time this summer.  I’d say this has been probably the worst summer for humidity since I moved to Georgia in the summer of…

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]]> https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/10-ways-to-reduce-your-indoor-humidity/feed/ 22 Concrete, Steel, and Demolition in My Basement https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/concrete-steel-and-demolition-in-my-basement/ https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/concrete-steel-and-demolition-in-my-basement/#view_comments Thu, 06 Jun 2024 17:54:07 +0000 https://www.energyvanguard.com/?p=9080 Things are heating up in my basement now.  Really.  Our outdoor temperatures have risen since I began my basement renovation in early February and I still don’t have heating and cooling down there yet.  So it’s getting a bit warm…

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]]> https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/concrete-steel-and-demolition-in-my-basement/feed/ 6 Going Deeper With Control Layers https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/going-deeper-with-control-layers/ https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/going-deeper-with-control-layers/#view_comments Thu, 30 May 2024 15:16:09 +0000 https://www.energyvanguard.com/?p=9068 Controlling the flows of heat, air, and moisture is where building science begins.  This is so important that I devoted more than a third of my book to the building enclosure and control layers.  As much as I love discussing…

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]]> https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/going-deeper-with-control-layers/feed/ 8 Basement Renovation in a 1961 Home https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/basement-renovation-in-a-1961-home/ https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/basement-renovation-in-a-1961-home/#view_comments Tue, 20 Feb 2024 17:29:40 +0000 https://www.energyvanguard.com/?p=8880 My wife and I bought our 1961 house in 2019, and it came with a basement in pretty rough shape.  It smelled musty.  There was evidence of moisture damage.  The slab was cracked along the perimeter of the exterior walls. …

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]]> https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/basement-renovation-in-a-1961-home/feed/ 9 Weatherizing an Old House: An MLK Day Service Project https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/weatherizing-an-old-house-an-mlk-day-service-project/ https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/weatherizing-an-old-house-an-mlk-day-service-project/#view_comments Wed, 17 Jan 2024 15:26:19 +0000 https://www.energyvanguard.com/?p=8773 A lot of volunteers gathered in Decatur, Georgia this past weekend for the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Service Project.  They worked at a number of sites doing all kinds things to improve the homes of low-income senior citizens.  The…

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]]> https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/weatherizing-an-old-house-an-mlk-day-service-project/feed/ 16 How Do Suction Cups Work? https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/how-do-suction-cups-work/ https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/how-do-suction-cups-work/#view_comments Wed, 27 Sep 2023 14:38:45 +0000 https://www.energyvanguard.com/?p=8587 Have you ever thought about how suction cups work?  It’s got to be suction, right?  Or is it?  As it turns out, all we need is some basic physics to explain suction cups.  And of course there’s a connection between…

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]]> https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/how-do-suction-cups-work/feed/ 15 Do Airtight Houses Need Makeup Air? https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/do-airtight-houses-need-makeup-air/ https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/do-airtight-houses-need-makeup-air/#view_comments Tue, 04 Apr 2023 16:28:59 +0000 https://www.energyvanguard.com/?p=8207 When you turn on an exhaust fan, it blows air from inside the house to the outdoors.  That air leaving the house will be matched by an equal amount of air coming in from outside.  The more airtight the house…

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]]> https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/do-airtight-houses-need-makeup-air/feed/ 35 How to Avoid the Flaw in Structural Insulated Panel Construction https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/how-to-avoid-the-flaw-in-structural-insulated-panel-construction/ https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/how-to-avoid-the-flaw-in-structural-insulated-panel-construction/#view_comments Tue, 28 Feb 2023 15:23:19 +0000 https://www.energyvanguard.com/?p=8126 Before 2001, the biggest construction project I had ever taken on was a bookcase.  My most complicated project was probably the mahogany lamp table I built in tenth grade shop class.  (I still have it!)  Then I decided to build…

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]]> https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/how-to-avoid-the-flaw-in-structural-insulated-panel-construction/feed/ 38 Is Wind Washing Reducing Your Insulation R-Value? https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/is-wind-washing-reducing-your-insulation-r-value/ https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/is-wind-washing-reducing-your-insulation-r-value/#view_comments Tue, 11 Oct 2022 12:38:51 +0000 https://www.energyvanguard.com/?p=7822 You’d think that after more than 12 years and a thousand-plus articles, I’d have mentioned all the major building science terms by now.  Yet, here we are.  I just did a search of all the articles in this blog and…

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