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So does the air control layer go on the outside or the inside?  How about both sides?  How about one in the middle? Do I want one water control layer?  How about two or three?  Yes, yes, I know…if… Read More

It is pretty weird to dig a big hole and drop a building into it.  A one story house with a basement is really a two story house that you dropped into the ground burying one story.  Think about it…… Read More

Remember the good old days when we had filters right at the single central return that we could easily change (Photograph 1).  We didn’t have to go to the furnace or the air conditioner.  The filter… Read More

Everyone is running around sealing the outside of buildings and the term “air barrier” has gone from obscurity to buzz word in less than a decade.  But if you look at the physics we are sealing the… Read More

First there were the Etruscans.  Then there were the Romans.  Then there were the Goths.  Then there were the Medici.  Then Leonardo1and Michelangelo.  Tuscany survived the barbarians and the Black… Read More

Weed[2]…..we call it “weed” because it pretty much grows anywhere “in the wild”…outside.  Did I mention “outside” in pretty much uncontrolled conditions. Wow, have things changed.  Folks are moving… Read More

A building is an environmental separator. In fundamental terms its function is to “keep the outside out” and the “inside in”.  The outside provides “environmental loads” as does the inside. When… Read More

A little bit of history…back in the day the United States was known for its manufacturing prowess[1].  In high speed and high volume production “punching[2]” was and is the least expensive method of… Read More

…articulaciones* y esquinas y penetraciones...much more stylish…much more interesting than English.  The battle to control water entry is won at building joints and corners[1] not so much at… Read More

How can you take a system with thousands of years of history and screw it up?  Easy.  Keep improving it until it does not work.  Babylonians used it. Egyptians used it. Greeks used it.  Romans used… Read More