Back in December we wrote about a change in the 2018 IECC that laid out a new, prescriptive path for the use of buried ducts in standard vented attics. This practice offers the potential to save significant energy over typical vented attic designs, and can even rival the savings of an unvented attic done with ccSPF under the roof deck, at much...

When a new version of the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) is completed there can be a good deal of lag time between publication and market impact. This is because states need to adopt the new code, a process which is measured in years, not weeks or months. However, there can be exceptions to this general rule. The 2018 IECC laid out...

Vented attics have a number of benefits, but also one well known and pesky downside: it is very hard to perfectly air seal the ceiling plane given the number of penetrations you have. This results in energy losses but also, often times, pulling less hygienic air from the attic into the home itself. LG Squared, a firm out of Atlanta offering...

We talk a lot about the importance of quality insulation installation, especially for batts. If the home is getting a HERS rating, Grade III installation means 5% of your insulated area is modeled as uninsulated. For those in California, failing to meet their definition of quality, a Quality Insulation Installation (QII), means wall cavity R-value...

As fall approaches it’s time to consider options to weatherize your home. This means making improvements that can help improve comfort and lower energy bills, in the winter months and beyond. For homeowners trying to prioritize their home improvement dollars, and time, the question of what to focus on first often comes up. We’re going to make the...

Addison Homes, a green builder in Greenville, South Carolina, certainly didn’t set out to cause trade partners to grumble, murmur or gripe. They set out to build DOE certified Zero Energy Ready Homes (ZERH) to provide their customers with the energy savings, comfort and indoor air quality such homes deliver. To do that, Addison Homes had to get...

HERS ratings are fast becoming a norm for residential new construction. In 2008, 100,000 homes received a HERS rating. In 2016, we passed the 100,000 market in just the first half of the year. The growth in HERS ratings has in turn elevated HERS raters into an increasingly important advisory role for many builders. More than just providing a...

Over the years, there has been significant discussion about batt insulation slumping and loose fill insulation settling. Manufacturers often discount these claims as inaccurate or the result of rumors spread by competitors. They do this because they have test data they believe proves these defects are not real issues. But the perspective of...

Among the trickier areas to properly seal and insulate is around electrical boxes. These can often be sources of air leakage and are notoriously hard to properly insulate with batt products without excess compression. A new product, box shell, seeks to address both of these problems. As the site shows, the “shell” fits neatly around the electrical...

We’ve all seen the technique; it is very common in the building industry. A product manufacturer shows how their product can reduce or eliminate the need for other associated products, typically those that comprise some building system. The approach gets customers to think about costs holistically versus piecemeal. This happens in many industries,...