In all fairness, it has been a long week already with very little time to play catch up, much less work on a full blog article. While it has been a busy week, it sure has been interesting with some small little items that may be of interest.
ACI Conference: North vs. South Smackdown
In case you have not heard, San Francisco this week is home to the ACI National Home Performance Conference & one of the items on tap was the North vs. South Smackdown (which I sadly am missing). In this “Smackdown”, we have two of the industries icons; Michael Anschel of Minneapolis, and Carl Seville (Green Curmudgeon) of Atlanta get to tear into each other’s version of what Green truly is and the building practices used. While I was not there, through the power of Twitter, we have access to a transcript of some of the events that transpired… (and of course my comments) Many thanks to EnergyVanguard & EnergyCircle for the bulk of these…
GreenCurmudgeon– believes radiant barrier are only solution to a bad original design (agreed)
American windows universally trashed by both North and South (LOL, buy better windows…)
Window frost in Minnesota – point for @GreenCurmudgeon when he said it’s a good reason not to live in such a cold climate
Cellulose: “Doesn’t belong in old homes. Doesn’t belong in walls” says @michaelanschel (really, that’s ok I will hold onto this for just a sec…)
“Insulation is the problem. If you don’t insulate, buildings work beautifully” @michaelanschel (me thinks, he might have had a few beers to many before this started)
Batt insulation is impossible to install correctly @GreenCurmudgeon — Only licensed people and the Japanese should be allowed to @michaelanschel (No he’s not being racist, just pointing out that it requires a very detail orientated individual to get it done properly) (Tweet fixed per comment below)
Both @GreenCurmudgeon & @michaelanschel agree that open cell spray foam is better than closed cell. (Both need to have their heads examined – especially Michael who says cellulose should not be in walls due to moisture concerns – as if a sponge is better…)
They like the Owens Corning Energy Complete, latex based, pink spray stuff. Low toxicity (I sense an insulation article coming up)
On to energy sources: they dislike ethanol and fracking. @michaelanschel likes nukes (Agreed, agreed, and while I may not love the byproducts of nuclear energy – it sure does beat the problems with every other “fuel” source)
Uniform agreement, including by @EnergyVanguard, that HVAC req’s of EnergyStar 3 are its Achilles heel
Big thumbs up to Japan for getting through the recent disaster b/c of good building codes
Michaelanschel Henry Gifford is a foolish fool for suing the USGBC
@michaelanschel calls Passive House obsessed with energy at the expense of everything else and other bad things — Living Building Challenge is wonderful but @GreenCurmudgeon wonders if we can get there — HES HERS BPI HERETIC @michaelanschel — Passive House = Fanatical. NAHB = Protectionist. Energy Star and USGBC = Political, say @michaelanschel and @GreenCurmudgeon (umm, just wow which leads us to our last tweet below, which makes one wonder if some of it maybe caused by comments like those above)
GreenCurmudgeon Our industry couldn’t sell bottled water to desiccated people in the desert.
CEA:
As many of you recall, I took a great course for Commercial audits, where if one met the requirements (Engineering degree, 10 years in the field, or something similar), & passed the test, they could become a Certified Energy Auditor through the Association of Energy Engineers. After passing the test and awaiting the 8-week review process, my certificate arrived today.
Alabama RRP:
While I am still livid over this mess (Alabama RRP articles), I sent in all the appropriate paperwork two weeks ago. As you may recall there are three parts to this…
- While the Safe States program mentions an online form, “There are still issues with the online application and it is not functional. Apologies for the inconvenience and we are working to fix them. As of right now printing and mailing is our only option.” Well within 12 days, we received our Safe States card.
- UPDATE: As for the State Certified Form, it showed up today (Fri. April 1st) & just like Safe States – they do not have an online form yet. Per the DPHS inspector, they have approx. 160 individuals that have registered with them so far – out of 387+ in the EPA database. Amazingly I am number 34, so I am wondering if that 160 number includes all the abatement firms, testers & renovators, or if they legitimately have 160 in so far that are still being processed?
Speaking of Inspectors, yes folks if you send in the “Pre-Renovation form” you can expect a visit. In our case he was in & out within 5 minutes as we were already down to studs. Now of course, one must wonder how many locations they have visited where the form has not been sent in…
Thanks for the recap of the smackdown. There were some misunderstanding in the various tweets which I think deserve some clarification:
The comment on cellulose insulation not belonging in walls referred to packing it into existing walls and the problems with bulk moisture. Our point was that you probably shouldn’t insulate any existing walls with anything unless you are positive that there is a complete weather barrier behind the siding and all flashing is in place. Too much chance of water damage and mold formation
The suggestion that only Japanese be allowed to install batts was all Michaels
I’m not as down on windows as Michael is, mainly because in normal climates we don’t have the condensation and freezing problems that those crazy people living in the far north do.
Thanks Carl not only for the comment but the corrections – I fixed the one above on the Japanese for you. I honestly see it as a cultural comment and nothing wrong with it. I did leave the other comments as they are, and will let the comment do the talking (no arguments on the water issue for sure).
Ahh the joys of Twitter & trying to convey full meaning in 140 characters – almost as bad as some of those interviews we do occasionally & seeing what gets printed from a 20+ minute conversation.
Hopefully I can catch the next N vs S smack-down (assuming Michael has healed up enough by then of course) – I promise I will try to behave….
Thanks Carl not only for the comment but the corrections – I fixed the one above on the Japanese for you. I honestly see it as a cultural comment and nothing wrong with it. I did leave the other comments as they are, and will let the comment do the talking (no arguments on the water issue for sure).
Ahh the joys of Twitter & trying to convey full meaning in 140 characters – almost as bad as some of those interviews we do occasionally & seeing what gets printed from a 20+ minute conversation.
Hopefully I can catch the next N vs S smack-down (assuming Michael has healed up enough by then of course) – I promise I will try to behave….
Thanks Carl not only for the comment but the corrections – I fixed the one above on the Japanese for you. I honestly see it as a cultural comment and nothing wrong with it. I did leave the other comments as they are, and will let the comment do the talking (no arguments on the water issue for sure).
Ahh the joys of Twitter & trying to convey full meaning in 140 characters – almost as bad as some of those interviews we do occasionally & seeing what gets printed from a 20+ minute conversation.
Hopefully I can catch the next N vs S smack-down (assuming Michael has healed up enough by then of course) – I promise I will try to behave….
Thanks Carl not only for the comment but the corrections – I fixed the one above on the Japanese for you. I honestly see it as a cultural comment and nothing wrong with it. I did leave the other comments as they are, and will let the comment do the talking (no arguments on the water issue for sure).
Ahh the joys of Twitter & trying to convey full meaning in 140 characters – almost as bad as some of those interviews we do occasionally & seeing what gets printed from a 20+ minute conversation.
Hopefully I can catch the next N vs S smack-down (assuming Michael has healed up enough by then of course) – I promise I will try to behave….
Thanks for the recap of the smackdown. There were some misunderstanding in the various tweets which I think deserve some clarification:
The comment on cellulose insulation not belonging in walls referred to packing it into existing walls and the problems with bulk moisture. Our point was that you probably shouldn’t insulate any existing walls with anything unless you are positive that there is a complete weather barrier behind the siding and all flashing is in place. Too much chance of water damage and mold formation
The suggestion that only Japanese be allowed to install batts was all Michaels
I’m not as down on windows as Michael is, mainly because in normal climates we don’t have the condensation and freezing problems that those crazy people living in the far north do.
Thanks Carl not only for the comment but the corrections – I fixed the one above on the Japanese for you. I honestly see it as a cultural comment and nothing wrong with it. I did leave the other comments as they are, and will let the comment do the talking (no arguments on the water issue for sure).
Ahh the joys of Twitter & trying to convey full meaning in 140 characters – almost as bad as some of those interviews we do occasionally & seeing what gets printed from a 20+ minute conversation.
Hopefully I can catch the next N vs S smack-down (assuming Michael has healed up enough by then of course) – I promise I will try to behave….
Thanks Carl not only for the comment but the corrections – I fixed the one above on the Japanese for you. I honestly see it as a cultural comment and nothing wrong with it. I did leave the other comments as they are, and will let the comment do the talking (no arguments on the water issue for sure).
Ahh the joys of Twitter & trying to convey full meaning in 140 characters – almost as bad as some of those interviews we do occasionally & seeing what gets printed from a 20+ minute conversation.
Hopefully I can catch the next N vs S smack-down (assuming Michael has healed up enough by then of course) – I promise I will try to behave….
Thanks Carl not only for the comment but the corrections – I fixed the one above on the Japanese for you. I honestly see it as a cultural comment and nothing wrong with it. I did leave the other comments as they are, and will let the comment do the talking (no arguments on the water issue for sure).
Ahh the joys of Twitter & trying to convey full meaning in 140 characters – almost as bad as some of those interviews we do occasionally & seeing what gets printed from a 20+ minute conversation.
Hopefully I can catch the next N vs S smack-down (assuming Michael has healed up enough by then of course) – I promise I will try to behave….
Thanks Carl not only for the comment but the corrections – I fixed the one above on the Japanese for you. I honestly see it as a cultural comment and nothing wrong with it. I did leave the other comments as they are, and will let the comment do the talking (no arguments on the water issue for sure).
Ahh the joys of Twitter & trying to convey full meaning in 140 characters – almost as bad as some of those interviews we do occasionally & seeing what gets printed from a 20+ minute conversation.
Hopefully I can catch the next N vs S smack-down (assuming Michael has healed up enough by then of course) – I promise I will try to behave….