This topic contains documents of interest to homeowners.
Stucco and EIFS are common cladding systems that appear similar from the exterior. These systems have very different attributes however. This Digest explains the reasons why face-sealed EIFS are fundamentally flawed as cladding systems for most applications, and describes how drained EIFS can be used successfully in almost all climate zones and exposures. Cracks, lamina deterioration, and movement joints are also discussed.
This digest offers a detailed explanation of the causes of carpet discoloration, particulate deposits on surfaces and "ghosting" of wood stud members on the interior gypsum board surfaces of exterior walls.
Buildings used to be constructed over cellars. Cellars were dank, dark places where coal was stored. People never intended to live in cellars. Now we have things called basements that have pool tables, media centers and play rooms.
Cellars were easy to construct – rubble, stone, bricks and sometimes block. If they got wet or were damp so what? Basements are different. They are not easy to construct if we intend to live in them. They need to be dry, comfortable and keep contaminants out.
Over the last 50 years there has been a notable expansion of living space. The useful conditioned space of building enclosures is expanding to the outer edge of the building skin (Figure 1). Attics, crawlspaces, garages and basements are valuable real estate that are being used to live in or used for storage or places to locate mechanical systems. Basements are viewed by many as cheap space that can easily be incorporated into a home. Keeping basements dry, comfortable and contaminant free is proving to be anything but simple.
Ice dams are a common roof performance problem in buildings that experience snowfall and at least a month of below freezing temperatures. The combination of sufficient roof pitch, adequate insulation just above the exterior wall, and air sealing at the wall-roof assemblies transition are all essential to prevent ice dams. But ice dams can occur even in properly detailed roof assemblies from differential solar snow melt. This digest outlines both the causes and solutions to ice dam problems.
An edited version of this Insight first appeared in the ASHRAE Journal. Perhaps it was the drug culture of the 60’s that turned brains into coleslaw but it is hard to understand the lunatic practice of placing a layer of sand over the top of a plastic ground cover under a concrete slab in California.
An edited version of this Insight first appeared in the ASHRAE Journal.
Think of the good old days—the Civil War, WWI, the Great Depression, WWII—crawlspaces were uninsulated. They were ventilated and they didn’t have ground covers—and they didn’t have problems. Why?
This article was first published in "Perspectives," Volume 17, Number 1. Spring 2009. The on-going consumption of energy to operate, condition, and light a building, as well as the energy embodied in on-going maintenance is the largest single source of environmental damage and resource consumption due to buildings. Reducing the operational energy use and increasing durability should be the prime concerns of architects who wish to design and building “green” buildings.
Joseph Lstiburek's classic list of building practices not recommended for hot-humid climates. This list was first posted on Building Science Corporation's website in 1997.
