Document Search

One of the most difficult buildings to build is a building with a swimming pool because–wait for it–there is a swimming pool inside. It gets even worse when the pool is in a ski resort on a… Read More

As my friend Mac Pierce likes to point out: you could get a blindfolded drunk epileptic to cross Niagara Falls on a high wire without a net, but it wouldn’t be a good idea. There are some wall… Read More

Folks are building houses and retrofitting existing houses with increased airtightness, and this is great. They use a blower door to help measure leakage, and this is also great. But then they think… Read More

This green roof stuff is getting out of hand. It is dumb to do a green roof to save energy. If dirt were energy efficient, we would call it insulation and put it in walls. It is just dirt. Insulation… Read More

Decks are disarmingly simple. The ones we are going to deal with have conditioned space under them. They are nothing more than roofs that you walk on. But we tend to mess them up royally. Perhaps it… Read More

Historically, so many problems have occurred with parapets that we have a name for it: “parapetitus.” They have a long history—which of course is not always clear—that allows me to embellish without… Read More

Imagine a three-dimensional molecular billiard game with billiard balls that are sometimes sticky, and where the rules depend on where you are on the table. Then assume that there are many different… Read More

Spray polyurethane foam (SPF), the high-density stuff,1 is the only product (so far) that can perform all of the functions of the principal control layers of the “Perfect Wall.”2 The functions are… Read More

You can’t replace experience and judgment with lab tests and a computer simulation. But when you add lab tests to the experience and judgment and have an adult supervise the process, you might be… Read More

Ice dams (Photograph 1) happen when the outside temperature is below freezing, the roof deck temperature is above freezing, and there is snow on the roof.1 The warm roof deck causes the snow on top… Read More