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General
Building science is essentially the study and evaluation of building materials as well as construction details and techniques. This sort of evaluation is important because those of us interested is creating a healthier, more energy efficient house need to know how these materials and technique perform but also how they interact with each other. The […]
Floor Systems
There are only few floor system options when constructing a new house. For years builders have used dimensional lumber for their floor joists and beams. However in the last decade or so, dimensional lumber as a floor system as been on a steady decline on favor of engineered floor systems, and recently steel truss and […]
Energy
Today there is a myriad of green energy options that you can incorporate into a green building. Efficient Envelope: We use foam insulation, green roofs, and triple-pane/ low-e windows to help our homes trap heat in the winter and cool air in the summer. Efficient Appliances: The appliances we use in our homes all bear […]
Green Options
Energy Efficiency Solar Thermal is the use of the suns energy to heat water or some other fluid. The heated fluid is then used to preheat domestic hot water, in-floor or in-slab heat. Excess heat generated from these types of system can also be a challenge in that there may be no need and or […]
Earth Tube
Earth tube or a ground-coupled heat exchanger is a way of pre-heating or cooling air that is being brought into the house. Essentially, the idea is to place the air intake a fair distance from the furnace and instead of bringing the air directly into the furnace it is passed though metal or plastic pipes […]
Down Drain Heat Recovery
The concept of down drain heat recovery is a really good one. You take the (mostly hot or) warm drain water from a shower as an example, and pass is through copper pipe that is wrapped around the fresh water intake pipe leading to the hot water tank. The idea being that the energy from […]