With 27 years’ experience as an insulation contractor in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area, Cardice Howard’s knowledge base about energy-efficient home construction is extensive. She’s seen that builders who work collaboratively with all trades achieve the best results, a better HERS score, and the desired home energy efficiency or air tightness targets....

With 2018 coming to a close, we reviewed the most read blog posts of the year. Air sealing was our most popular topic. With more states adopting stronger energy codes, readers were very interested in how to use high-performance building practices and proper air sealing to achieve new air tightness targets.

New Video Covers 5 Top Air Sealing Areas in New Homes

Many builders challenged with meeting new, more stringent residential building energy code requirements like the 2012 or 2015 IECC have been having a tough go of it. One HERS rater reported earlier this year that roughly 50 percent of builders in his region of Texas would fail an initial blower...

If technology is a bullet train, home building is a bicycle. Technological changes occur at a dizzying pace, but the main design of the bicycle – like that of a home, has changed very little in centuries. However, while home design principles haven’t changed much, architects and builders have more knowledge than ever before of building science and...

Deadlines, details, and demands are part and parcel of any construction project, whether residential or commercial. Project managers are largely responsible for overseeing all the aspects of a construction job and a well-trained, experienced, and attentive superintendent or project manager can be the difference between having a flawlessly executed...

No, we’re not talking about a collective Weight Watchers group-loss goal or the number of plastic straws no longer used by quick serve restaurants, but insulation. According to the results of a new survey released by NAIMA, its member companies in the U.S. and Canada used 3.2 billion pounds of recycled materials in the production of residential,...

While only two U.S. states currently have a mandated goal of zero net energy (ZNE) home construction after 2020, Oregon and California, it’s becoming increasingly clear that ZNE homes will be much more prevalent in the not-too-distant future as states and municipalities look for ways to reduce carbon emissions and ultimately mitigate the impact of...

As communities and municipalities look to adopt improved building energy codes to meet climate or resiliency goals, including additional requirements for solar PV energy production is a common discussion point.

There are often suggestions to allow for a larger PV system and forego other energy efficiency improvements that were included in the last...

Early this year, Insulation Institute set out to train as many contractors as possible how to achieve Grade I installation with fiberglass batt insulation. We selected three trainers to conduct half-day sessions in four states: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas. Thirty-three sessions have been conducted or planned, and 700...

Air Sealing: Whose Job Is It Anyway?

An average of 22 subcontractors are involved in the construction of a new home.[1] With dozens of people involved, there can be a lot of confusion about whose job air sealing is, particularly if details aren’t spelled out within the scope of work or aren’t communicated effectively.

Ensuring that new...