The HTRC

The Homeowners & Trades Resource Center

Let’s Blog Off: TV Shows & Advice

This week, the Let’s Blog Off crew decided to ask – What’s your Favorite “Guilty Pleasure” TV Show? Well as many of us occasionally like to do, we are going to take this one off the rails a little. I would have to say my favorite show that falls into their criteria (in a roundabout […]

NAHB Business Management Training

One of the interesting parts about NAHB (National Association of Home Builders) as compared to most other certification or organizational entities is an emphasis on Business Management.  For many of their “entry-level” (for better lack of a term) courses one must take Business Management for Building Professionals.  Thus in order to receive the CGP designation […]

NAHB CGP: Certified Green Professional Training

Well, here we go again, same ole’… Yes folks, one more class & another set of initials – this time though it is required for a new Energy Efficiency program being launched for customers of Huntsville Electric  this coming July. Assuming everything works out, expect an article or two later this month or early in […]

Safety Sunday: The Sun and You

Ahhh, Memorial Day is generally seen as the start of Summer Break & Vacations. For many that means plenty of hiking, kayaking, cycling, tubing down the river, going to the beach, visiting new places, and lots of travel. This also generally means a lot of sunburns which to put it mildly – generally hurt like […]

Air Sealing: Attic Walkways & Storage

In the last article we did in our Air Sealing series, we were dealing with an issue many people with regular attics have – namely an un-insulated attic hatch. In this article we are going to deal with two other problems many homeowners have; and that is a way to store items, while allowing for […]

Why you shouldn’t ask, what color should I…?

All right, I admit it; I almost skipped this week’s Let’s Blog Off. While the question is simple (What is your favorite color? – no seriously, that is the question), I could easily answer it on Twitter using only 5 of the 140 characters required. I had an epiphany or two on what I could […]

Safety Sunday: You’re Business

With the numerous disasters that have impacted many locations like Japan, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Memphis, Oklahoma… many business owners are looking around & wondering – What If, Am I Ready, Are We Ready? In reality I have to say, there is no way of knowing until after the dust settles, but with some foresight & […]

Air Sealing: The Attic Hatch

In our ongoing series on Air Sealing, we are going to focus on the dreaded attic hatch, or as Allison Baile’s of Energy Vanguard so eloquently calls it, “A Mind-Blowing Hole in Your Building Envelope.”  Instead of crunching the numbers as he did, one just needs to walk by one in a hallway during the […]

Safety Sunday: Visualization & Role Playing

STOP – DROP – ROLL; In case of emergency, stand and move in an orderly fashion to the nearest exit; In case of smoke, touch the door with the back of your handbeforeopening it…  I am pretty sure most everyone reading those words will automatically picture where they learned them (practiced / heard) and maybe […]