Library

Report on whole-house and spot ventilation strategies for improved indoor air quality.

Report describing the sealing and insulating of HVAC duct systems in existing homes.

Document illustrating guidelines for efficient installation of interior duct systems in new housing.

Report covering the fundamental waterproofing strategies for tub and shower assemblies.

Report describing an analysis method for determining optimal residential energy efficiency retrofit packages and applies the analysis method to a 1960s-era home in eight U.S. cities.

Conference paper making the case that moving ducts to conditioned space saves energy, is practical for production builders (when accompanied by careful pre-planning), and creates significant andmarketable energy savings for homebuyers.

Report discussing development of scopes of work and quality management for builders in mixed-humid climates.

Glossary of terms used by the National Flood Insurance Program

Document describing recommended modeling rules, potential compliance credits, and eligibility criteria for residential night ventilation cooling systems for California’s Title 24 energy efficiency standards.

Report about an experimental evaluation has been conducted on a night sky cooling system designed to substantially reduce space cooling needs in homes in North American climates.

Document providing supplemental information for code enforcement professionals about headers in nonbearing walls.

Report providing guidance on protecting foundation walls and enclosures from flood damage.

Report providing information about improving the energy efficiency and long-term durability of the buildings that are being reconstructed post Katrina in New Orleans.

Article investigating how a linear input/output relationship can be used as a simple model of the performance of a combination hydronic heating system over heating only, DHW only, and combined loads.

Report briefly reviewing past research on the effects of occupant behavior on residential energy use and then covering a two year pilot evaluation of a low cost residential energy feedback system installed in twenty case study homes in Florida.

Article describing how ice dams form on residential roofs, how they damage homes, and solutions to prevent future dams.

Document outlining the approach to quality assurance in the construction process as recommended by Building Science Corporation for new residential construction.

Website providing an online calculator for determining energy and cost savings from installing radiant barriers in attics.

Flyer describing reasons and best practices for raising electrical systems above flood-levels.

Information sheet with the definition and uses for a raised truss.

Illustrations of range tip-over outcomes with and without door locking mechanism.

Research study about two test homes that are examined with the goal of providing case studies that could be applied to other similar New England homes.

Guidance document describing urban heat islands, what they are, how they form, why we care, and including some strategies to reduce them.

Guide providing information for professional builders and contractors rehabbing flooded single-family houses with emphasis on safe practices and the most important activities in the rehab process.

The RERH specifications and checklists take a builder and a project design team through the steps of assessing a home’s solar resource potential and defining the minimum structural and system components needed to support a solar energy system.

Webpage containing downloadable fact sheets covering carpet-related topics including Indoor Air Quality, Asthma and Allergy, Cleaning Products, and Environmental Sustainability.

Document presenting results from testing prototype HVAC duct system designs that would locate the entire length of duct work within the air and thermal barriers of the building envelope. These include one that incorporated a high-side supply register, one that utilized a single soffit located within...

Q&A article discussing how to address moisture issues in an attic in a wet and humid coastal climate.

Initiatives of smoke-free housing policies in New York State.

Guidelines to assist builders in designing and constructing homes equipped with a set of features that make the installation of solar energy systems after the completion of the home’s construction easier and less expensive.

The RERH specifications and checklists take a builder and a project design team through the steps of assessing a home’s solar resource potential and defining the minimum structural and system components needed to support a solar energy system.

Specifications to assist builders in designing and constructing homes equipped with a set of features that make the installation of solar energy systems after the completion of the home’s construction easier and less expensive.

Literature review from NFPA on the use of insulation to protect the piping in home fire sprinkler systems from freezing conditions.

Standard that covers the minimum performance and acceptance criteria for an air barrier (AB) material or system for framed walls of low-rise buildings with the service life of the building wall in mind. This link directs to a preview of the version of the standard that was published in the year 2011...

Article describing ways to protect roofs from water infiltration by using self-adhering underlayment in vulnerable locations such as roof valleys, eave edges (to help deal with ice dams), rake edges, roofs to vertical walls (such as dormers), sidewall protection, the bottom of dormer valleys, and...

Report about the impact on the loads when common safety factors are applied to the load calculation process using two houses that meet the 2009 IECC prescriptive path modeled as the accurate baseline.

Document identifying differences between the requirements for construction documents for high performance housing and the documents that are typically produced for conventional housing.

Research study providing a comparison of selected retrofit activity typically done, versus that same retrofit activity approached from an integrated high performance remodeling and quality management perspective.

Article describing three ways to strengthen the roof-to-wall connections in an existing home.

Question and Answer article in Energy Design Update describing the cost and savings benefits of electronically commutated motors (ECMs) for HVAC equipment.

Case study of new home construction in the hot-dry and mixed-dry climate zones.

A book describing seismic retrofits to help contractors and engineers understand how to properly retrofit a home in a cost-effective manner.

Article describing the risks associated with vented and unvented crawlspaces in different climate zones.

Document providing an overview of the Thermal Bypass Checklist for the ENERGY STAR Qualified Homes program.

Guide describing details that serve as a visual reference for each of the line items in the Thermal Enclosure System Rater Checklist.

Research study investigating the thermal efficiency of fasteners, namely drywall screws and siding nails, in high-performance wood-framed walls.

Research study describing a detailed 3D computational fluid dynamics model that evaluates the thermal performance of uninsulated wall assemblies.

Report discussing Building America whole house systems research within the broad effort to reduce or eliminate the environmental impact of building and provides specific recommendations for future Building America research based on Building Science Corporations experience with several recent...

Document presenting analysis results, focusing on relative humidity (RH) excursions, which are defined as unique events of indoor RH above a threshold.

Document providing a case study of commissioned performance measures that justify costs for these demonstration and "live" show homes.