Insulation Thermal Capacity: A Better Metric for Thermal Insulation in Summer
Thermal capacity is the ability of an material to delay and reduce a heat wave as it moves through a building assembly. It works alongside thermal resistance, and it measures a complementary property. R-value quantifies how much an assembly resists……
Wildfire Smoke Filter Isn’t Enough: How to Really Protect Indoor Air
Wildfire smoke is back in the headlines, and it’s not going away. Smoke drifting down from Canadian wildfires has blanketed New York City, New Jersey, Boston, and much of the East Coast, affecting millions of people. Out West, builders in……
Title 24 Multifamily Compartmentalization: What It Means, Who’s at Risk, and How to Pass
California just changed the rules for multifamily construction—and most of the industry hasn’t caught up yet. For the first time, Title 24 requires compartmentalized blower door testing on attached dwelling units. Every unit now has to prove, with a physical……
Passive House, Warm, Hot, and Humid Climates, and Multi-Family Study.
Passive House strategies are gaining ground across the United States, though adoption remains slower in warm, hot, and humid regions. A significant factor is the persistent misconception that Passive House does not perform well in high-temperature or high-humidity conditions. The……
Are You Ignoring the Biggest Thermal Bridge in Your Building?
American construction is currently undergoing a massive and necessary transformation. Builders, architects, and developers are rapidly adopting continuous exterior insulation to meet stricter energy codes and higher performance standards. We insulate our walls better than ever before, wrap our buildings……
The glass edge thermal bridge: the PSIg value
We continue our series of articles on thermal efficiency of windows, describing the glass edge thermal bridge. As far as thermal bridges go, this one is inevitable, and it represents the weakest point of a well designed thermal envelope. It…
Energy efficiency of windows: the Uf value
After covering thermal transmittance U and resistance R of opaque assemblies, and insulated glass, we now cover one of the most critical areas of the thermal envelope: window frames. Good windows are the cornerstone of a performing building for both…
Mold and condensation: if the solution is worse than the problem
We cover here two real examples of mold and condensation problems, with thermal insulation installed on the inside of existing masonry walls. In both cases, the solutions were chosen on an empirical basis, and turned out to be worse than…
What’s an insulation material?
With more and more people talking about building energy efficiency and passive houses, it has become more and more common to hear about insulation. In this article, we explain what an insulation material is, to try and shed some light……
Airtightness: why is it so important?
With this article, we address one of the most important topics in the field of energy efficiency: the airtightness of the thermal envelope. Whether the building is a new construction or a renovation, its airtightness plays an important role for…