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“Code world” is an interesting place where seemingly convoluted language is used to express simple concepts in clearly complicated ways.  The reasons for this are based on “legal” principles and the… 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

Ballast is necessary in ships for stability, balance, trim and to otherwise keep them upright because the alternative is not pleasant. The amount of ballast necessary varies based on the type of ship… Read More

If you take rocks and melt them and blow air through them you get fluffy rocks. And fluffy rocks don’t burn. If you take gypsum and make it into sheets you get “sheet rock”. And guess what? Rocks don… Read More

Seventeen years ago we bought an old house—a fixer upper—over a hundred years old—in Westford, MA. I was going to make sure it would end up energy efficient. Did the rubble foundation thing well—very… Read More

It was the ants that finally did it.1 It wasn’t the shingles that needed to be replaced. It wasn’t the three-dimensional airflow network in the roof assembly. It wasn’t the lack of racking resistance… 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

The American Foursquare, a Sears, Roebuck & Co. kit home, was a staple of small American towns between 1908 and 1940. More than 100,000 of them were built in America. Homes built prior to 1980… Read More

This Measure Guideline describes a deep energy enclosure retrofit (DEER) solution for insulating mass masonry buildings from the interior. It describes the retrofit assembly, technical details, and… Read More

This Measure Guideline describes a deep energy enclosure retrofit (DEER) solution that provides insulation to the interior of the wall assembly with the use of a double stud wall. The guide describes… Read More