Energy Vanguard Blog
Asthma and Poor Indoor Air Quality — The Trouble with Homes
I grew up with really bad asthma. Not being able to get enough air into your lungs, in case you haven't experienced it, is pretty scary. I remember lying in bed during one asthma attack, gasping for air, wheezing loudly, and feeling like I was going to die. A trip to the hospital for a shot opened up my lungs again that night, but I continued to suffer asthma attacks even into my mid-twenties. I'm one of the lucky ones who managed to 'outgrow' this...
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3 Ways to Tell if That Contraption Is a Heat Pump or an AC
So, you've got a heating and cooling system in your home. There's a metal box outside that makes noise, and you control it with the thermostat on the wall. Can you tell me right now whether it's a heat pump or just an air conditioner? This is a really important question to be able to answer when you're talking to an engineer or contractor at a cocktail party.
The diference between the two is simple. An air conditioner moves heat from inside your...
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The Mystery of the Ventilating Dehumidifier
Sometimes I find the most amazing mysteries in people's homes, usually in nasty crawl spaces or attics. Here is one such story. The photo at left shows a whole-house dehumidifier. It's tied in with the heating and cooling system, which you can see right behind the dehumidifier. The mystery is in the way it's tied in.
These dehumidifiers can also be set up as standalone units, without tying into the HVAC system. If that were the case, the two ducts...
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Vapor Retarder? Vapor Barrier? Perms? What the Heck?!
I was rereading one of Joe Lstiburek's articles last week. The man has a way with words (and I'm not just talking about the four-letter ones). This article was called Understanding Vapor Barriers and is perhaps the clearest, most direct explanation I've read on the topic. It's got some nice Joe-quotes, too, of course. Here's one:
It is frightening indeed that construction practices can be so dramatically influenced by so little research and reassuring...
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The Pretty Good House, Part 2
Let's get back to the Pretty Good House concept now. Last month I wrote part 1, called What Would a "Pretty Good House" Look Like? There I discussed mainly the design, building envelope, and heating and cooling systems. Here I'll take it further and look at water (management, conservation, and heating), performance, verification, commissioning, and homeowner package.
I'm going to keep it simple here because that's really the whole point. We need...
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