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As in most things gone horribly wrong, it is a bunch of seemingly small things that come together to create an almost unimaginable nightmare—in this case the “perfect stucco storm.”Unlike most water… Read More

Buildings don’t work the way they used to.1 Folks are always saying stuff like this. But let me make the case regarding just one factor and you decide. There are other factors of course, but I want… Read More

Mold is pretty easy to understand.  No water no mold.  Any questions?  Well, there are a few.  For one we have more mold today, but we don’t have more water.  What’s with that?  We’ve always built… Read More

…. at Fulton and his steamboatHershey and his chocolate bar….OK, this is one of my all-time favorite songs.  George and Ira Gershwin.  Performed for the first time by Ginger Rogers.  But everyone… Read More

General Limit States Design, Hygrothermal AnalysisAt a basic level a wall is an environmental separator.  It keeps the outside out and the inside in.  Easy to say, not always easy to do.To function… Read More

If we don’t call things by their right names we don’t really understand how things work.1 If we don’t understand how things work how can we prevent problems from happening? Or how can we fix problems… Read More

If someone invented wood today it would never be approved as a building material. It burns, it rots, it has different strength properties depending on its orientation, no two pieces are alike, and… Read More

Flanged windows and foam plastic insulating sheathing.Sometimes I don’t get it.  Why would anyone deliberately recommend a thermal bridge when it is completely unnecessary?  The window industry must… Read More

Of course the crazy way we speak about the Second Law does not help: “In an isolated system, a process can occur only if it increases the total entropy of the system.” Huh? It makes you want to hate… Read More

I did a bunch of wood foundations in the early 1980’s.  Time of Blondie, Kim Carnes and the Police.  I learned a great deal…some good…. some bad.  The bad taught me a lot of things to avoid.  At the… Read More