The HTRC – Page 51 – The Homeowners & Trades Resource Center

Going Off Grid in the 21st Century: Water Filtration

Lately in our going off the grid series we have been focusing on water where we have covered everything from pumping & storing the water, to rain water harvesting & we even looked into greywater systems. This has brought us to one of the most important points we need to remember and that is that […]

Deep Energy Retrofits, Historical Properties, and the Conversation

Recently a group of us started an interesting conversation on Deep Energy Retrofits (DER) & Historical Homes that spanned Twitter, blogs, and a whole host of other social media platforms with a ton of useful links. While the terms holy war, invaders, and boxing match came out of it, so did some great questions & […]

20 reminders for a healthy and safe home

One of our favorite mantras is a healthy home is a safe & well maintained home. Codes were written and our constantly being updated to ensure health & safety of all occupants. Numerous organizations, government groups, and others are constantly pushing safety. My goodness, one can’t turn around without seeing some sort of warning label […]

Going Off Grid in the 21st Century: Rain Water Storage Tanks

In our last few articles, we have covered all the aspects from harvesting the rain water to pre filtering it and delivering it to the tank. This leads us to another important aspect which is where are we going to store it? Is one tank better than another, what are the options, should I just […]

Hitting the Road: Vacation / Camping Checklist & RV Toolkit

With summertime fast approaching, many just can’t wait to hit the roads & go on vacation. When we first started out it was packing up the vehicle & sleeping in tents at a campground or staying at a hotel. As we started getting just a tad older & the family grew (6 kids & a […]

Deep Energy Retrofit’s – The Conversation

Well seeing I started a small mess on Twitter… Earlier this week, I caught some of the conversation between the players listed below, regarding DER or Deep Energy Retrofits and “Historic” homes. After piecing together as much as I could, I mentioned that maybe we should all cover our takes on it via our respective […]

Composite & Vinyl Decking – 10 common enemies to avoid

While we love building wood decks, many customers are opting to go with composites & vinyl decking materials due to the reduced maintenance that is involved. There are a few items that we stress / i.e. bust a few common myths like there is no such thing as a no-maintenance product. The next big item […]

Alabama Energy & Residential Code

The speculation is now at an end, after two years of deliberations & countless meetings; as of March 12th the Alabama Energy and Residential Codes (AERC) Board voted to adopt a statewide building & energy code called the AERC which will go into effect October 1st, 2012. This was officially announced by Jim Byard Jr. […]

Let’s Blog Off: COOKIES!!!

You know when I saw the topic of this week’s Let’s Blog Off was on cookies I couldn’t help but laugh & wonder if the Cookie Monster managed to sneak in & post this topic… After that nice little laugh and thinking that I didn’t really have anything to add to the topic (much less […]

BPI at the Crossroads: (Exams, New Certifications, Standards)

Lately BPI (aka Building Performance Institute, Inc.) has been growing exponentially and making plenty of waves in the certification field. Just this last July they had 25,000 “active” certifications and closed out 2011 with 31,662. Originally there growth while slow was also pretty steady as shown on this chart of BPI accredited contractors. Enter in […]