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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

It is just shocking, just shocking that some molecules have a positive electrical charge and a negative electrical charge.  Water is a molecule with one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms held together… Read More

Maybe not. For years I have said that dog won’t hunt1. I have come around. The engineer in me likes tools. I can’t help it – it is a genetic defect we engineers are born with. With therapy we… Read More

Vitruvius had it right 2,000 years ago: “…if a wall is in a state of dampness all over, construct a second thin wall a little way from it…at a distance suited to the circumstances…with vents to the… Read More

Sometimes we make easy things hard. And sometimes we make hard things easy. With continuous insulation and punched openings both things are true.The physics is easy. A wall has to control water, air… Read More

So what does “net zero” mean anyway? And what is the difference from a “zero energy house”? A zero energy house is “off grid” and makes all the energy it needs on site using renewables. This is not… Read More

"linings and warmth . . . "1How do you insulate uninsulated masonry buildings on the inside? Carefully. There I go again with the obvious. It is trickier to do it on the inside. But it is often less… Read More

Chicago is well known for a bunch of things—among them a baseball team that does not win, fabulous pizza1, and uninsulated masonry buildings. The Windy City2 does not want to be known for its… Read More

Prologue - Folks sometimes ask me how do I know “that”? How could I possibly know that “that” would happen? I chuckle and answer “that’s because I have good judgment…and good judgment is based on… Read More

Putting ductwork outside is bad enough, but putting ductwork in an attic is even worse (Photograph 1). Attics are even hotter than outside during the summer and as cold as the outside in the winter.… Read More