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Five Integrated Pest Management Strategies to Consider Pests include insects and animals that have a harmful effect on humans, food or living conditions.  Pests include insects, termites, ants,… Read More

Sometimes obvious things are not so obvious.  And when you miss them, they can be expensive….and embarrassing.  And often the embarrassing is worse than the expense….”that was dumb”…”.that hurts”…and… Read More

We looked at exterior spray foam previously (BSI-048: “Exterior Spray Foam”, April 2011). Exterior spray foam typically is used in commercial applications.  Most residential applications use interior… Read More

Crawlspaces continue to be a mess ever since we decided to insulate them and put air conditioned buildings on top of them1.  We were here before (BSI-009: “New Light in Crawlspaces”, May, 2010)…but… 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

I remember sitting around listening to stories my dad and his friends would tell when they were hanging around in the basement playing cards. They would laugh uproariously, tease each other, get… 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

It’s pretty easy to deal with new basements. They are not hard to insulate. The majority of them do not leak or smell and the buildings on top of them are generally not rotting.1 If you want a… 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

Crawlspaces stink, they rot, and are just plain icky. Photograph 1 shows the modern crawlspace, which is a forest of water droplets on the underside of fiberglass batt insulation. The exposed wood… Read More