Tag: ventilation

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Ice Dams-Why They Form and How to Reduce their Risk

There is a lot of confusion as to why ice dams form on roofs in cold climates.  This is understandable, some years we experience heavy ice dams, other years have little to no issues.  Changes in weather from year to year can have a major impact on their formation.  I’ve seen new homes with ice dams that are completely related to winter freeze/thaw cycles.  That being said, most ice dam issues are directly caused by certain characteristics of the home, namely insulation levels and air tightness.

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Building Science-Tight Homes and Negative Pressures, When Should We Be Worried?

This post originally appeared on the Green Building Advisor Website.

A couple years ago I was asked to perform a blower door test on a new home.  The home was small with a footprint of only 1130 square feet.  When the test was completed, the test report indicated an air leakage rate of 91 CFM at the test pressure of 50 Pascals, .33 ACH50.  Completely unexpected for this code-built house.  (I actually measured the volume of the home again and ran the test two more times before I was convinced I had an accurate test.)  The contractor contacted me some time later and indicated the homeowners were noticing air coming through the exterior light switches when the dryer was operating.  The dryer was producing close to the same negative pressure as my blower door every time it was being used, a negative pressure of about 50 Pascals.  Is this a problem?

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Building Science-Ice Dams

This year seems to be a good (or bad depending on how you look at it) year for ice dam problems in my area, the intensity of ice dams seems to change year to year.  I was recently on an ice dam diagnostic with an insulating contractor and a general contractor, the home was built in the early 1990’s and there is evidence there have been issues from the beginning.  We spent a couple hours testing this home, I’ll get into what we found in a bit.

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Building Science-Existing Construction Improvements

This three-part series first appeared on the Green Building Advisor website and has been condensed into one post.

An unconditioned and uninsulated crawlspace, an unsealed and uninsulated forced air heating system, and an uncovered dirt floor, which by the way has a sewage leak.  If this were your home and you wanted to make improvements, where would you start? Continue reading “Building Science-Existing Construction Improvements”