The HTRC

The Homeowners & Trades Resource Center

BS4D: The truth behind a watched pot never…

While “a watched pot never boils” has been proven to be incorrect, did you know there is an interesting phenomenon that makes that perception feel like reality?  How about water can be at 32° F and still not be frozen? Well lets introduce you to two interesting terms; latent & sensible heat and see how […]

Notes from the Field: A tale of two reports & getting your money’s worth

Infrared Thermography is a very interesting field and if variety is the spice of life, who can argue with spending one day in the mechanical rooms of a hospital and the next seeing everything that goes into making a helicopter simulator work? From lumberyards to newspapers with a sprinkling of manufacturing facilities mixed in; it […]

Wacky Weds; I wonder why the bathroom still stinks

This is not what LEED meant when they said to reduce waste… In order for the fan to work optimally the line must be as straight & short as possible. (See I was good & didn’t say one word about the overcuts & how hard that was going to be to air-seal) For more on […]

Common Sense Building: Dryer Venting

I have seen a lot of things in my time, but seeing a gutter downspout in the attic, which was being used as a dryer vent was definitely worth a double take. As you can tell from the pics, there wasn’t too much lint that ever made it out of the “vent.”  Now as for […]

Common Sense Building: Build Radon Out

As many of you probably already know, January is National Radon Month. Just like CO, it is an odorless & tasteless gas; however, unlike CO there are no warning signs that it might be affecting you until it is too late.  It is estimated that elevated levels are found in 1 of every 15 homes […]

A Contractors Oversight… the conclusion

Just as a reminder, this is the second part of a guest piece by Jay Preston on: A contractor’s oversight turns into my first big project? When we left off last week, the dreaded while we are it disease kicked in & besides rerunning the vent line, he had also decided to swap out a […]

Wacky Weds: Clothes dryer taking forever to dry?

Amazingly the home inspector missed this… As mentioned in our latest article; Section M1502 in the IRC governs dryer exhausts – the salient points for new or retrofitting work (2009 IRC) are that it must terminate outside & be at least 3’ from any opening (so far so good.) With the exception of the piece […]