Ever been in a basement that smelled musty? Maybe the better question to ask would be if you've ever been in a basement that didn't have that smell. Far too many basements do. There could be any number of reasons…
I've taken on a whole lot of do-it-yourself (DIY) projects over the years. I built furniture (end table, bookcase, coffee table...) in high school and college. Thanks to owning a couple of old Volkswagens ('61 Beetle and '65 bus), I've…
Shortly after my wife and I bought our 1961 home in 2019, I discovered a serious problem in the basement. Where I could see it, the slab was cracked all along the edge of the exterior walls (photo above). I…
This is the fifth winter since I've been heating my house with a Mitsubishi* heat pump. And finally I got to see something I've missed every time it happened until last week. Yep. I'm talking about seeing frost on the…
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. …
Oh, the dreaded "cold blow." That's HVAC technician-speak for a forced air heating system that blows cold air on the occupants of a home. Is it really a problem? Is the supply air from a heat pump really cold? How…
Last week at the 5th annual HVAC School Symposium in Florida, I gave a talk on undersized heating and cooling systems. You know, those systems that just can't keep the house warm enough in winter or cool enough in summer. …
Bathrooms need some way of exhausting air. Mostly it's to keep the humidity down, but, depending on who lives in the house, the bathroom also can be a source of a lot of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Not all homes…
Ah, who can resist the ambiance of a crackling fire! Well, it turns out quite a few can. Whether to use a fireplace or not is a controversial topic in building science. The main problem is that a typical wood-burning…
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…