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One of the dirty little secrets that never gets talked about is that water leaks through building papers, building wraps and housewraps and runs down between them and the sheathings that they cover.… Read More

I remember sitting around listening to stories my dad and his friends would tell when they were hanging around in the basement playing cards. They would laugh uproariously, tease each other, get… Read More

The Parthenon was constructed around 450 B.C. as a temple to the Goddess Athena (Photograph 1). More recently a temple overlooking Vancouver was constructed by the contractor Gauvin the Younger to… Read More

It was the ants that finally did it.1 It wasn’t the shingles that needed to be replaced. It wasn’t the three-dimensional airflow network in the roof assembly. It wasn’t the lack of racking resistance… Read More

Decks are disarmingly simple. The ones we are going to deal with have conditioned space under them. They are nothing more than roofs that you walk on. But we tend to mess them up royally. Perhaps it… Read More

Blue Hawaii[1]Hawaii is a magnificent place – except if you want to build there.  Huh?  What’s so difficult about building on islands in the middle of the Pacific?  Check out Photograph 1.  Waikiki… Read More

…. at Fulton and his steamboatHershey and his chocolate bar….OK, this is one of my all-time favorite songs.  George and Ira Gershwin.  Performed for the first time by Ginger Rogers.  But everyone… Read More

General Limit States Design, Hygrothermal AnalysisAt a basic level a wall is an environmental separator.  It keeps the outside out and the inside in.  Easy to say, not always easy to do.To function… Read More

There.  I said it.  It just does not work.  OK, it works sometimes1.  But it does not work in tight building enclosures and certainly not in new houses, apartments, townhouses and row houses. … Read More

* Credit to architect Edward Mazria: I think he said this first, if he didn't say it first he sure says it well.Many “green” buildings don’t save energy (see “MIS-LEED-ING” sidebar). Why? They have… Read More