Go Green! (and Not Just a Little Bit)

So you are planning a building or remodeling project and you want to ‘go green’. Mainstream advice in the U.S. will steer you to the Energy Star/LEEDS standards — and your project will use 15% less energy than one ‘built to code’ — and 30% less than the average American home. Sounds pretty good, eh?
Well, [...]

Save With Your Appliances

In the typical U.S. home 20% of electrical energy used is used by appliances. The biggest users are, of course, those appliances with the intended function of producing heat or coolness — water heaters, clothes dryers, refrigerators and freezers, air conditioners, and so on.
At a minimum, the conscientious consumer should be sure to buy “Energy [...]

How to Need Less Heating and Cooling

After your house is ‘tightened up’, that is you have insulation in place and ventilation rather than drafts, there are many other steps you can take to lessen your heating and cooling loads.
Wind protection is the first thing to consider in cold weather. As you know, there is often a big difference between the temperature [...]

Heat

Thermal comfort for us humans falls within a narrow range of temperatures (extended one way or the other a bit by humidity, air movement, activity, clothes, age, health, etc.). Therefore, when the weather doesn’t cooperate, one of the main tasks of our shelters is to produce a thermal comfort zone for us.
Heat is actually a [...]