Brief provided by Agent Malin. Code name: El Presidente.
BuildingGreen’s building science expert shares reflections, hopes, and—as always—practical building advice after receiving two national teaching awards.
By Candace Pearson
Peter Yost lives and breathes by the motto “There’s no hygrothermal free lunch” (a phrase borrowed from his friend and mentor Joe Lstiburek). Any student of Peter has that phrase as fundamentally entrenched in their brain as ’I’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’.
Hygro refers to water, and thermal refers to heat. In buildings, you really can’t manage heat without also managing moisture. For example, if you increase how much insulation is in a wall, you may also be increasing the risk of moisture and mold problems.
There are four ways that buildings can get wet:
Quality installation of the two types of site-manufactured foam insulation is no easier than fiberglass batt and no less important. Here is how to avoid the most common problems.
For me, the creative tension between beauty and green performance came to a head in 2006, when I began working with the staff of Architectural Record on their new magazine: GreenSource. (GreenSource is no longer a separate magazine; it’s now an insert in the products magazine SNAP. And I’m no longer involved with it.)
With each new program, ILFI continues to push the building industry (and now other industries) toward greater stewardship and a “living future.”
I’m just back from Portland, Oregon where I attended the annual Living Future Conference.
The Living Future Conference was created by the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) initially to provide a networking and learning venue for designers and builders involved in creating buildings that are being certified through the Living Building Challenge.
We oversized our PV system so that we will be able to use solar energy to power around-town driving with a plug-in hybrid