In short the answer is generally yes, they should be closed up during the winter months. If you follow our Monthly Maintenance Schedule, we recommend the month of October as a good time to do this. There are a couple of reasons for this with the first being you want to prevent frozen water lines &/or […]
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 […]
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 […]
Day 2: ENERGY STAR V.3 Training
Well today was the last day for the mandatory class, where we finally went through the final three checklists. We started the day off with a RemRate file & simply told to get it into compliance with the new version of ENERGY STAR. As a quick tip for any fellow raters, do not forget about […]
RIP: Solar Powered Attic Ventilator’s
Welcome to a new series, based on putting numerous bad building practices and so-called green myths & misconceptions to rest. While I wish I could take credit for this idea, I do have to give the credit to this week’s – Let’s Blog Off. Needless to say, it was supposed to be based on writing […]
Building Green Homes: Step 3 – Footings & Foundations
In this series on Looking Back & Looking Forward, we are reviewing a green home we built over 2 years ago, the lessons learned and more importantly, how we can (or even how you can) utilize those lessons on future builds. As a quick recap, we have looked at some of the unique issues we […]
January is National Radon Month
Should you be worried? Believe it or not – this is actually debatable by some people. According to the EPA, they estimate that there are over 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year directly attributable to Radon gas. This would make Radon the second leading cause of lung cancer. On the other side of the coin, […]
Granite – Maintenance, Upkeep and a Geiger Counter?
Besides laminates, granite is one of the most popular materials around for countertops. What isn’t there to love about it? It is a durable product that can last for centuries. It can easily handle a hot pan being placed on it. It does not chip or scratch easily, and no one else will have one […]