Green building advisor

In brief, you run low-voltage (16/2 or 18/2) wiring from the underside of the cabinet (s) to a location where you can mount a step-down transformer, which provides either 12 volts or 24 volts to power the lights; the line side of the transformer is fed from a switch, or better still, a "magnetic low voltage dimmer" (MLV).

Enter inventor Brian Iverson and the Tstud. Tstuds are an alternative to solid 2×6 framing lumber. Tstuds can be used for pretty much any framing element in exterior walls: studs, jacks, cripples, plates, and headers. They are designed for advanced framing—24-inch on center, with single top plates, and two-stud corners.Recommended patio or sliding door for high-performing house. Midcoast Maine new construction 1400sf house. R40 walls, R60 roof. Windows triple pane. Do you have a recommendation for an 6-0x6-8 slider or patio exterior door?Flash-and-Batt Insulation. Closed-cell spray polyurethane foam insulation has several desirable characteristics. It’s an excellent air barrier, an excellent vapor retarder, and it has a high insulating value per inch (about R-6). Unfortunately, …Green Building Advisor offers a middle ground—ideas-level How it information works. that is customized to The the core user’s of the situation Green without requiring detailed is a …Subscription to GBA Prime - Green Building Advisor ... Loading... ...So in a sense, all insulation materials have embodied global warming potential (GWP). Second, two of our common insulation materials are made with hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) blowing agents that are very potent greenhouse gases. Extruded polystyrene (XPS), best known by the brands Dow Styrofoam …Oct 1, 2008 · GreenBuildingAdvisor.com offers comprehensive and reliable information on designing, building, and remodeling energy-efficient, sustainable, and healthy homes. Learn from leading green experts, access hundreds of construction drawings and product reviews, and join the community of green builders and homeowners. GreenBuildingAdvisor. @GreenBuildingAdvisor 2.94K subscribers 62 videos. More about this channel. greenbuildingadvisor.com. Home. Videos. Playlists. Community. Channels. …

Moisture Management: Pretty Good Building Envelopes. The fundamentals of the Pretty Good House approach to handling water to protect a building from foundation to roof to ensure longevity. BS* + Beer.Whoever lives in the house is going to be stuck with the insulation decision for a long time. The choices aren’t unlimited, but it may seem that way. In addition to ever-popular fiberglass batts, there’s blown-in fiberglass, cellulose, spray polyurethane foam, rigid foam, fiberboard, and mineral wool. Most of those come in more than one ...UPDATED on September 7, 2017 with a new postscript. In the fall of 2012, I tested the performance of 11 air-sealing tapes by attaching samples to six different substrates mounted on the exterior wall of my woodshed. A month later, I tried to remove the tape samples to determine which tapes were most tenacious. I reported my findings in …1. Independent ducting. The best way to duct a dehumidifier is to give it its own independent ducts. The intake side is connected to a grille (or maybe multiple grilles). The supply side is connected to a grille or register (or maybe more than one). It’s the simplest way to set up a whole-house dehumidifier.With an R-90 roof and R-60 walls, Jenz Yoder's new off-grid house will be well insulated. Yoder's quandary, outlined at Green Building Advisor's Q&A forum, is whether radiant-floor heat is a good idea. "I had two …The official recommendation from the ADC is that flex ducts should sag no more than 1/2 inch per foot of length between supports. The supports need to be at the manufacturer’s recommended spacing, but no longer than 4 feet. The straps that hold up the flex duct need to be no less than 1.5 inch wide.

XPS would be possible, but worse from a global warming impact perspective, would cost much more, and would be harder to get in custom shapes. EPS can be directly molded into a wedge, whereas XPS comes out of the machine as a slab and would need to be cut to make a wedge. In that example it had concrete poured on top.Both of these bulbs currently retail for $13.99. Analyzing the entire Energy Star dataset for LED general-purpose replacement bulbs (9) in the A19 (standard medium screw-in bulb) form factor, the LED filament bulbs have an average efficiency of 109 lm/W. The conventional bulbs (everything else in the dataset) average to 76.5 lm/W.Interior partition walls create one of the trickiest transition points when installing an interior air barrier. As seen here, the wall breaks the continuity of the air control layer at the ceiling. This needs to reconciled and sealed. I’m from Minnesota, one of the few areas in the lower 48 that still regularly uses polyethylene sheeting as a ... Building Science Introducing the 120-volt Plug-in Heat Pump Water Heater. The good news is the model can save thousands of dollars. The downside is limited backup heat, which could mean running out of hot water. Feb 9, 2015 · It’s easy: Keep your heat from going through the roof. Saving money on heating-fuel costs is a lot simpler than negotiating with OPEC or your local utility. On a recent upgrade in the attic of a 1950s-era house (one of two projects shown here), I air-sealed and spread a 12-in.- deep layer of cellulose throughout 1500 sq. ft. of space in about ... The SANCO2 split-system heat pump water heater offers benefits that include energy efficiency, low-GWP refrigerants, and the possibility in some situations to provide space heating. Over the last couple of years, there’s been a lot of buzz about the SANCO2, a newer type of air-source heat-pump water heater (HPWH) from ECO2 Systems.

Mybooster.com.

Martin Holladay's 30-year-old solar panel has been exposed to the weather on his rooftop for 30 years. In 1980, after living in the woods of Vermont without electricity for five years, I bought my first photovoltaic (PV) module. Responding to a small ad in Mother Earth News, I sent a check to Joel Davidson, …The code recommendations for 2×6 walls assume (in Climate Zone 6) that any exterior rigid foam has a minimum R-value of R-11.25 — your polyiso will perform at R-9 or R-10 in cold weather, so it’s not quite thick enough — and fluffy insulation between the studs rated at R-19 or R-20.Moisture Management: Pretty Good Building Envelopes. The fundamentals of the Pretty Good House approach to handling water to protect a building from foundation to roof to ensure longevity. BS* + Beer.Green Building Advisor. Blogs. Musings of an Energy Nerd; Product Guide; Q&A Spotlight; Building Science; Green Building News; BS* + Beer; Energy-Smart ... Become a GBA Prime member and get instant access to the latest developments in green building, research, and reports from the field. Start free trial. Related Questions. Certainteed …Aug 6, 2021 · First, some definitions. There are at least four kinds of slab foundations: A thickened-edge slab, also known as a monolithic slab, integrates the footing and the slab in a way that allows all of the concrete to be placed at the same time. The perimeter footing of a thickened-edge slab isn’t very deep. [Image credit: Martin Holladay] Dec 27, 2023 · According to principal Matthew Fine, the feasibility of building six identical high-performance homes on a single parcel was never in question. What was in question, however, was achieving such a feat “at an affordable level.”. The homes themselves are “fairly modest” and “contextually appropriate,” Fine says.

When it comes to constructing and fitting out buildings, our focus is—or at least should be—on the holistic impacts of each decision we make. The best stewards …Green Building Advisor. Blogs. Musings of an Energy Nerd; Product Guide; Q&A Spotlight; Building Science; Green Building News; BS* + Beer; Energy-Smart ... Become a GBA Prime member and get instant access to the latest developments in green building, research, and reports from the field. Start free trial. Related Questions. Certainteed …Also known as band joists, rim joists are pieces of lumber—either sawn lumber or engineered lumber—that are installed vertically above the mudsill. On a new house, a typical rim joist might be a 2×10 or 2×12. Older houses have all kinds of different rim joists, including 2x6s, 2x8s, or even square timbers like 8x8s.Image courtesy of Green Building Advisor. A highlight of GBA is its construction-detail drawing library, that contains 1,000 detailed drawings. They organize these according to parts of the house and climate. Some drawings are free, but most are available to GBA Prime members only. You can visit Green …UGREEN is a company that provides green building advisory services to help organizations design, build, and operate sustainable projects. Learn how they can …Five Cathedral Ceilings That Work. By Martin Holladay | December 11, 2020. A vented assembly with fiberglass or mineral wool insulation. This is the traditional way to insulate a cathedral ceiling. Note, however, that this approach requires deep rafters or scabbed-on 2x4s to add depth. The illustration shows an …If you use EPS, a more environmentally responsible option, it starts out at about R-4/in and maintains R-4/in. Either way, 2.5" is enough to get R-20. R-20 foundation walls are insulated in different ways so the answer would depend on your assembly. R-40 above-grade walls are done in different ways so the answer …Registers are square or rectangular fittings with movable dampers to adjust airflow volume. Lightweight stamped-steel registers are used for wall and ceiling applications; heavier-duty cast or welded registers are used in floors. Diffusers cover supply openings in ceilings. They have angled vanes that discharge air in a spreading pattern.The embodied carbon associated with a building refers to the greenhouse gases emitted during the manufacturing of products and materials used to construct it. These emissions differ from those generated during the building’s operations i.e., operational emissions. As our buildings become more energy efficient, the portion of …If it's plank sheathing in pretty good shape, with at least 3/8" (10mm) between the sheathing and brick it should be relatively safe to insulate the 2x4 bays with a full fill of open cell spray polyurethane foam. That yields about R13 at center cavity, or about R10 "whole-wall" after installing the gyprock.

When you switch from an air conditioner to a heat pump and keep your furnace, you now have two heating systems. You still have the furnace, but the heat pump will probably do most of your heating. Above a certain temperature, the heat pump does all the heating. Below that temperature, the heat pump turns off and the furnace takes over.

If you are building a new home, do your best to reduce air leakage, and you'll be fine. During the winter, the supply air from an HRV will be somewhat dryer than the supply air from an ERV, so choose an ERV if you're worried. But I don't think an HRV will cause any problems at all in your climate.A standard electric water heater has a UEF of about 0.9, making my HPWH about 4.1 times as efficient. Instead of 501 kWh per year, I would have used about 2000 kWh per year with an electric-resistance water heater. At $0.10 per kWh, I would have saved about $150 per year on water heating.Remember the three types of heating and cooling loads: part-load, design load, and extreme load. A single-stage system is oversized for most of the year, sometimes by a huge amount, because the load is at part-load conditions close to 99 percent of the time. That oversizing is the source of another downside of fixed-capacity systems.A single-family home in the Buckeye State is being built for maximum energy efficiency. Just east of Dayton. Green Generation Building Company’s first home is designed to meet Passive House standards. The house is in Yellow Springs, Ohio. In early November, when it broke ground on a three-bedroom, two-bath home in Yellow Springs, …Introducing the 120-volt Plug-in Heat Pump Water Heater. Geothermal heat pumps have a reputation for being efficient and “green”; is it deserved? In contrast, feedback from owner experience, and substantiated by discussion on industry boards and forums, paints a less flattering picture of the realities of geothermal.If you want to improve the energy performance of an older house, one of the first steps is to plug your attic air leaks. Although many GBA articles address aspects of attic air sealing, no single article provides an overview of the topic. This article is an attempt to provide that missing overview. I’ll try to explain how you …R: Anything to reduce vibrations transfer would be ideal based on what i understood from the calls I made. Q: it seems that to use the boost function, wiring is just armored conduit to a wall box, and then romex to the switch, which I assume is just a standard 120 v. 15-20 amp wall switch.

City bites restaurant.

The pointe church.

A typical two-stage condensing gas furnace has a turn-down ratio of less than 2:1. With most of these furnaces, the low-fire output is still 60% or more of the high-fire output. When a furnace with a low-fire rating of 60% is oversized by a factor of 1.7, you could cover 99% of the building’s heating needs at low fire.Air conditioning can also create condensing surfaces. The same phenomenon can happen in reverse in the summertime. Let’s say the outdoor air is 85°F and the relative humidity is 75%. When outdoor air leaking inward contacts a surface below about 76°F, the moisture in the air will condense. So if you have an exhaust fan in your home, the air ...R: Anything to reduce vibrations transfer would be ideal based on what i understood from the calls I made. Q: it seems that to use the boost function, wiring is just armored conduit to a wall box, and then romex to the switch, which I assume is just a standard 120 v. 15-20 amp wall switch.Ventilation: While some ceiling-mounted cassettes (for example, the Mitsubishi SLZ-KA series) are designed to draw in outdoor air and distribute it to the living space, most ductless heads do not allow for this option. In fact, unwanted intrusion of outdoor air into a ductless head can lead to issues with condensation and temperature …Dana Dorsett gets right to the point, summing up what looks like a common point of view: “An open-hearth fireplace (with or without glass doors) is an inefficient, extremely polluting way to burn wood that has no place in a ‘green’ house,” Dorsett writes. “They are even illegal to use in some locations due to the …This system not including wood burning stove will cost us around 25,000. 2) air to air heat pump (4 heads) propane boiler for radiant floors and hot water. We also will have 45 BTU wood burning stove- hearthstone. this system will cost us around $40,000 not incuding wood burning stove.Get building science and energy efficiency advice, plus special offers, in your inbox. “A whole-house fan creates the breeze and with windows open provides fresh air, reduces or eliminates VOCs and CO2, and cools the house for a lot [less] energy and dollars than running the AC,” he adds. “Am I nuts?”.Feb 16, 2024 · The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) recently unveiled a draft for pilot testing of its new target-setting guidance for the building sector, set to go into effect in the first half of 2024. SBTi is a partnership between the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the UN Global Compact, World Resources Institutes (WRI), and World Wide Fund for ... The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) recently unveiled a draft for pilot testing of its new target-setting guidance for the building sector, set to go into effect in the first half of 2024. SBTi is a partnership between the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the UN Global Compact, World Resources Institutes (WRI), and World Wide Fund for ...Older homes often lack bathroom exhaust fans. In the old days, if the bathroom was smelly or steamy, you were supposed to open a window to air it out. This isn’t a very logical ventilation method, especially when temperatures are below zero, or when the weather is 90°F and humid. Yet this time-honored method of …Introducing the 120-volt Plug-in Heat Pump Water Heater. Geothermal heat pumps have a reputation for being efficient and “green”; is it deserved? In contrast, feedback from owner experience, and substantiated by discussion on industry boards and forums, paints a less flattering picture of the realities of geothermal.One builder posted that when he ended up installing siding he shimmed the map siding at these locations to have a flat wall. @Dennis_vab Zip-R 12 is about $4.30 sq/ft without crazy amounts of sheathing. Im currently working on building a house and will be using Zip-r12 in zone 6a. Nailboard panels for roof as well. ….

Firsthand experience informs this basic plan for installing rigid insulation on the outside of an older building. A retrofitted wall assembly includes foam board insulation fastened to WRB-covered sheathing; furring strips for a vented rainscreen are fastened to the foam and receive the siding. When I purchased my small 1950s vintage Cape Cod ...The first time I detailed a “ slabless slab ” was in 2013. I was working with homeowners who disliked the look and feel of concrete and wanted to install elm flooring they had salvaged. The design plans called for a robust insulation and air-sealing package, which meant an expensive building envelope. To reduce costs—and the overall ...Dec 27, 2023 · According to principal Matthew Fine, the feasibility of building six identical high-performance homes on a single parcel was never in question. What was in question, however, was achieving such a feat “at an affordable level.”. The homes themselves are “fairly modest” and “contextually appropriate,” Fine says. Questions Archive - GreenBuildingAdvisor. The complete source for building, designing, and remodeling green homes. Try for Free. Community and Q&A. A Forum …With 2×6 framing, the only way to get R-30 using common insulation strategies is with closed-cell spray foam. Moving to a 2×8 wall allows for high-density batt options like Rockwool’s ComfortBatt, which achieves R-30 in a 7-1/4-in. batt. Several manufacturers of high-density fiberglass batts can also fit in the 7-1/4-in. …In my recent post, Living the 100-amp Lifestyle, I quoted the Australian philosopher Samuel Alexander as saying, “Efficiency without sufficiency is lost.”. For years, we have been talking about building our homes with greater energy efficiency; in the meantime, on average, they have doubled in size, eating up all those energy savings.IRC on continuous insulation. Building codes have begun to align with building science and we are seeing more areas across the country adopt continuous insulation as part of the energy code. CI requirements with regard to the energy code can be found in the 2021 International Residential Code (IRC), Chapter 11, “Energy Efficiency.”.This U.S. map shows which counties have been assigned to a different climate zone for purposes of building and energy codes. Counties marked in red are now in warmer climate zones with less stringent energy requirements. Counties marked in green have shifted to colder climate zones. Map courtesy Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.The should match the 99% and 1% design temperatures from ASHRAE, which are also given in Table 1A in Manual J from ACCA. If the 1% summer design temperature is 91°F, as in Atlanta, a Manual J report showing that the load calculation was done with 97°F will result in an oversized air conditioner. Actually, even if the load …It “sort of works,” said Green Building Advisor Michael Chandler, but a better option is installing foil-faced duct insulation (not foil-faced bubble wrap) after ducts have been sealed with mastic and checked for air-tightness, preferably by an independent tester. Foil-faced bubble wrap “is not Energy Star or Manual D approved,” he ... Green building advisor, [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1], [text-1-1]