Library

Fact sheet providing an overview of the FEMA document Wind Retrofit Guide for Residential Buildings.

Report summarizing the requirements to strenghthen new homes against property damage caused by high wind occurrences per the IBHS Fortified Homes High Wind Standard for New Homes.

Fact sheet summarizing the changes to the flood provisions in the 2012 I-Codes that appear in the 2015 edition.

Florida building code including all the amendments and additions by Florida for the wind-borne debris regions and the high-velocity hurricane zone.

Report summarizing the requirements for strenghtening and protecting the roof, openings in the house, and creating a continuous load path to strengthen walls and foundation per the IBHS Fortified Homes Hurricane Standard for New Homes.

Guide describing the requirements by FORTIFIED Home™ for improving the home's resistance in severe thunderstorms, straight-line wind events, and high winds at the outer edges of tornadoes.

Guide describing the requirements by FORTIFIED Home™ for improving the home's resistance in severe thunderstorms, straight-line wind events, and high winds at the outer edges of tornadoes.

Report providing builders in the hot-dry and mixed-dry climates with guidance for building homes that have whole-house energy savings of 40% over the Building America benchmark with no added overall costs for consumers.

Article from the Sierra Club explaining 5 steps to take to ensure your home's resistance to wildfires, including site maintenance and roof construction guidelines.

Article describing thermal bridging, construction practices that encourage thermal bridging, and solutions.

Article describing methods for venting a vented attic and a roof assembly over an unvented attic.

Guide developed to help contractors, building operators, and city officials successfully adopt cool roof and pavement technology.

Article describing methods for thermally isolating a garage in a Passive House-certified multifamily building.

Energy Star web page providing guidance on attic ventilation.

Report examining the structural properties and applications of an innovative studless building system, detailing its testing regime and providing an engineering guide for architects and engineers.

Report on the design and evaluation of extended plate and beam.

Case study on the design and evaluation of extended plate and beam, located in Mount Joy Pennsylvania.

Report describing advanced framing techniques, including discussion of cost and energy savings.

Report describing approaches to using less wood in home building that minimize waste.

Fact sheet describing advanced framing techniques that reduce the amount of lumber used in constructing wood-framed houses while providing more space for wall insulation.

Fact sheet describing advanced wall framing.

Manual describing best practices or home construction in Alaska and northern climates.

Website article interviewing the inventor of the Larsen truss, a history of its use, and a discussion of its advantages and disadvantages.

Report on adding insulation to load-bearing mass masonry buildings.

A publication highlighting recommendations that contribute to improved overall performance in the structural shell and focus on good connection details to tie together exterior walls, roofs and floors.

Webpage providing mapping tool for obtaining ground snow load, based on ASCE 7-10, for any location in the contiguous United States, with the exception of locations requiring a case study due to extreme local variations in ground snow loads. Fee required for some data.

Technical fact sheet describing ways to construct asphalt shingle roofs to be more resistant to high winds and hurricanes; also published in FEMA P-499 “Home Builder’s Guide to Coastal Construction: Technical Fact Sheet Series.”

Report about a project that examines implementation of advanced retrofit measures in the context of a large-scale weatherization program and the archetypal Chicago, Illinois, brick bungalow.

This report outlines research activities that are expected to facilitate the adoption of energy retrofits by remodeling contractors and roofing contractors using retrofit panels which applicable to many existing house designs in most climates and markets.

Technical article describing issues and moisture concerns related to weatherization efforts.

SPFA website signup page to access SPFA documents.

Article from California Earthquake Authority on the benefits of retrofitting homes to withstand earthquake forces, with a focus on foundations, walls, and chimneys.

Brochure explaining the essential basis for advanced framing and some of the more common advanced framing details.

Report providing water management details for roof assemblies.

Presentation describing details for installing structural insulated panels (SIPs).

A book about structurally insulated panels.

Report investigating implementation of advanced framing in both production and prototype built homes built in a variety of climate regions across the USA.

Report comparing a variety of roof insulating strategies to present their advantages and disadvantages according to several comparison criteria.

Report considers a number of promising wall systems that can meet the requirement for better thermal control.

Presentation about advanced framing techniques.

Article describing the control layers (air, thermal, and vapor barriers) needed to build homes successfully in very cold locations.

Document presenting some of the key technical properties of many of the most common building materials.

Document containing recommendations on how to brace roofs and gable end walls based on lessons learned from analyzing the destruction from hurricane Andrew.

Website providing CAD files and drawings of advanced framing details.

Website providing information about building plans for the ENERGY STAR thermal bypass checklist.

An article discussing how different metal roof materials and attachment methods affect the ability of the roof to thermally expand and contract and the durability of different solutions.

Information sheet containing images and descriptions of cantilevers.

Document with information from a workshop addressing framing materials for residential buildings in California. A copy of the document can be requested at the resource link, and an online copy of the document can be found by searching for it on the California Energy Commission's Library Online...

Case study characterizing the framing factors for the exterior walls, ceilings, and floors of 180 wood-framed low-rise residential buildings across the United States.

News article from SFGate explaining and giving figures on how chimney failure is the most common type of damage to homes during an earthquake.