This week we are participating in the 7th annual, week-long, “Still Climbing Out” Bathroom Blogfest. This year (which is our first) we will be joining numerous bloggers from across the U.S., Canada, Dubai, and the U.K. who have signed up to participate. It does appear that there are actually two topics this year, customer experience […]
Common Sense Building: Making Sense of Radiant Heat (FAQ)
We originally started this series on Radiant Heat with an article entitled “Don’t just jump on the bandwagon” & followed it up by a guest post from Todd Vendituoli on his installation of an under the slab system & the benefits of a Radiant Hydronic System. As promised we are into our third article on […]
BS4D: NFRC Labels (Windows, Doors, Skylights)
The NFRC or National Fenestration Rating Council basically tests & labels glass products used on buildings like doors, windows, and skylights. The label will include who the manufacturer is, a brief description of the product, and the official ratings for one or more of performance characteristics for that product. The NFRC’s also has an online […]
Common Sense Building: Radiant Hydronic Heating
Heating ones house via radiant heat has been around for over 5000 years & is generally credited to the Koreans with their “ondol” system and is still in use today. The genius of this system & the later “hypocaust” systems developed by the Romans is that one heated one’s whole house from under the floor […]
BS4D: Radiant Barriers
A Radiant Barrier (RB) is a product designed to only block radiant heat transfer from happening and is rated based on its reflectivity & emissivity values per ASTM C 1313. In order to qualify as a Radiant Barrier it must have a reflectivity rating of .9 or more (the higher the better). A radiant barrier […]
BS4D: Heat & Transfer Methods
Heat is energy and refers only to the transfer of this energy between or through items and not the stored energy of the item (aka its temperature). While this difference might appear to be subtle, it is very important to understand the distinction between the two, & how this transfer takes place. One other important […]