When many people start to look at ways to reducing their water usage (especially for gardening) many look to the sky. They do some quick research, crunch some numbers on how much water they can save based on their roofs and jump in their car (or go online) to go buy a 30 to 50 […]
Ten Rules of Roof Design: Really?
Just like clockwork, this last Friday Martin Holladay posted his weekly blog article under the by-line of Musings of an Energy Nerd on Green Building Advisor. While I generally am always looking forward to seeing what he has to say, I was particularly looking forward to reading this one on Martin’s Ten Rules of Roof […]
Air Sealing: The Hot-Roof Option
In our ongoing series on Air Sealing, we are going to pop into the attic for the next few articles. Not only is this a great time of year to work in your attic, but with all the recent snowstorms, those fun little red arrows on the diagram start to make sense – all that […]
Snow is truly one of the best diagnostic indicators out there…
Oh the weather outside is so frightful… While the weather might have made a mess of things, one of the good things it does is allow one to quickly look at their house to spot some hidden issues. As you may recall from science class, the second law of thermodynamics, states that heat moves to […]
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 […]
There’s no such thing as a free lunch – Roofing
Knock, knock – Hello? Hi, I’m Mike & we were just looking at your neighbors’ roof and thought we spotted some damage to yours, would you mind if we performed a free roof inspection? It will only take a few minutes, you see we do lots of insurance repair jobs and most of the time […]
Building Green Homes: Step 6 – Drying In the Roof
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. In our last article, we got all the exterior framing completed & sheathed. In […]
Renovations & Insurance – What is covered & what isn’t
The idea that an article like this was needed was made abundantly clear to me on a recent project I completed. This project required us to completely remove and reframe an existing roof, while leaving the existing walls & floors untouched. During the consultation phase of this project, we covered all the normal items like […]
Working Safely – In the Heat
Well here, we are in July & it’s not only the Southern states lately that are baking in the sun. From DC up to New York, & even here in Alabama many contractors and others found out that a dry heat can quite simply kick your butt. Unlike a high humidity day where the sweat […]
The Rationale for Getting 3 Bids?
The BBB along with quite a few other organizations advise you to get three bids for any project you want done. Why? Well you do want the best price right, and isn’t that all that matters? If you do believe that price is all that matters, ask yourself; Is it truly the best price if the job isn’t done right the first time? […]