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What is The BTL (or the Building Tightness Limit)?
What is the Building Tightness Limit? Which is really just an energy auditor way of asking, “Doesn’t my house need to breathe?” What is the building tightness limit? What does tightness measure and...
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What is ASHRAE (And, Yes, They Are Rocket Scientists)?
ASHRAE is a name I throw around a lot in the credits section of audits. And why not, they’re authoritative guys. But…who or what the heck is ASHRAE? ASHRAE is not a group of mad scientists, not...
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What is ROI (Return on Investment)?
Working through these glossary definitions, it starts to feel like Acronyms R Us. And here’s another one. Return on Investment, abbreviated ROI, is where the nuts and bolts of weatherizing your home...
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What’s In a Name? Namely, Pascals…
What are Pascals? We all know who Blaise Pascal is, often getting into rousing dinnertime conversations about the man over cognac aperitifs (OK, almost nobody outside university math and philosophy...
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Air Barriers – Another Wicked Important Part of Your Home
Your home’s air barrier is that wall your sofa is pushed up against. Thank you, good night! Important note: First thing…air ‘barrier’ is a bit of a misnomer (and an outdated term). Barrier implies...
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What is EPS Foam (Seriously, Why Am I Insulating With Packing Peanuts)?
What is EPS foam insulation (also called expanded polystyrene or bead board)? How is EPS foam insulation used in my home? What is the EPS foam’s R-value and how is it different from XPS foam (aka...
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What Is The Building Envelope (or Building Shell or Building Enclosure)?
I talk about it all the time but what the heck is the building envelope (or to use the more appropriate modern term, what is the building enclosure)? Why is the building envelope important? As a...
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What is Radon (Yes, It’s Radioactive…No, It’s Not A Godzilla Villain)?
What is radon? Radon is one of those New England boogie phrases like ‘standing water’ or ‘Olympia Snowe’. Just frightening. But what is radon and why do your neighbors insist on mitigating it? Yes,...
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What Is A Thermal Barrier (Yes, That’s Your Insulation)
What is the thermal barrier and why do we need such a fancy term for fiberglass insulation? And for a change, instead of five sentences of contrived SEO mumbo jumbo, let’s jump into it. What is The...
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What Is A Weather Resistant Barrier (Ohhhh…That’s What Tyvek is)?
There’s a great deal of functional overlap between materials that act as an air barrier, vapor barrier and as a weather resistant barrier. We’ve covered air barriers and vapor barriers in previous...
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