While “a watched pot never boils” has been proven to be incorrect, did you know there is an interesting phenomenon that makes that perception feel like reality? How about water can be at 32° F and still not be frozen? Well lets introduce you to two interesting terms; latent & sensible heat and see how
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Living in Arizona, I used to love traveling up to Flagstaff especially during the winter months. One of my favorite places was the Little America as not only did they have a huge roaring fire, an awesome buffet, a great Christmas light display, but some of the largest icicles I have ever seen. Ahhh if
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When reading over a contract or talking to almost any contractor there are three items you will generally hear or see; your project will be built to code, we will follow accepted industry standards, and it will of course pass inspection. Shoot, that all sounds pretty good so no worries right? Well let’s take a
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I love salesmen, the ultimate bringers of truth, justice, and the American way. Oops… I’m sorry about that & yes you can wipe the coffee off your monitor – I promise no more bad jokes. In all seriousness, while there are many well intentioned companies, individuals, and programs that love to talk about “home performance”
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We originally started this series on Radiant Heat with an article entitled “Don’t just jump on the bandwagon” & followed it up by a guest post from Todd Vendituoli on his installation of an under the slab system & the benefits of a Radiant Hydronic System. As promised we are into our third article on
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Just mentioning the word mold or as it is known across the pond as “mould” is enough to send some people directly into panic mode. With the toxic mold scare from years ago many insurance companies (especially after losing millions) no longer cover mold damage or remediation as they consider it a “maintenance” issue. There’s
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The NFRC or National Fenestration Rating Council basically tests & labels glass products used on buildings like doors, windows, and skylights. The label will include who the manufacturer is, a brief description of the product, and the official ratings for one or more of performance characteristics for that product. The NFRC’s also has an online
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Ok, we know the toilet really isn’t sweating over the burial at sea of one aforementioned Barbie doll, performed with full military honors by none other than one little Timmy… so why is it sweating? The short answer is it’s not; it simply is the water in the air (humidity) condensing on a cold surface
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The pascal aka “Pa” is simply a unit used to measure pressure on a manometer. In this context, pressure (p) is the measurement of force acting on a unit area with respect to (WRT) another. One example is when we are testing an HVAC’s system ductwork; we pressurize the entire system to 25 pascals with
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HERS or the Home Energy Rating System is the industries benchmarking tool for modeling a home’s energy use. The system is comprised of two parts; an index and a score. The index is linear with two static points; a “0” equates to a net-zero home (one that produces as much electricity as it uses) while
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