by srmi | Sep 17, 2013 | Energy News
John Krigger has practiced home performance and energy efficiency for more than 30 years. Over that time he’s collected a lot of research papers and articles.. We were doing some house cleaning recently and came across some of these older articles and papers in...
by srmi | Sep 7, 2013 | Energy News
Foundation Moisture Problems Many brand new homes have foundation moisture control problems even though these problems are easy to prevent during construction. The moisture problems include the following. Crawl spaces and basements become moisture sources by leaking...
by srmi | Aug 27, 2013 | Energy News
Dampproofing and Waterproofing for Foundations For basements and crawl spaces, install dampproofing, waterproofing, capillary breaks, insulation, and drains as soon as possible so that rain during construction doesn’t create moisture problems in the new home....
by srmi | Aug 18, 2013 | Energy News
Irrational Exuberance about Heat Pumps The Passive House and Net-Zero movements have spawned some irrational exuberance about heat pumps. When you build a home that requires less than 5 BTU/hr per square foot of floor space, you can often heat and cool it with...
by srmi | Jul 8, 2013 | Energy News
Characteristics of H2O A molecule of water contains two relatively small hydrogen atoms and one relatively large oxygen atom composing the compound with the chemical name H2O. Water is the only common substance that we encounter in all three of the states of matter:...
by srmi | Jul 3, 2013 | Energy News
In this post, Brittney Marino, a writer for Total Mortgage Services, explains energy efficient mortgages. Saturn has given her the opportunity to “guest post” on our blog. Please direct any questions regarding the content to Brittney. How Can an Energy...
by srmi | Jun 23, 2013 | Energy News
Questionable Guidance from the IRC The International Residential Code (IRC) identifies two different ways to build a new-home crawl space that resists frost heaving: place the footings below the frost line (historical frost-depth) or heat the a home to 64 degrees for...
by srmi | Jun 3, 2013 | Energy News
Cellulose the Air Barrier According to some experts in our industry, cellulose insulation has truly miraculous powers. Many years ago we noticed that blower-door readings dropped significantly after we dense-packed the walls of an existing home with cellulose...
by srmi | May 24, 2013 | Energy News
Building Energy Efficient in Alaska We at Saturn are pleased to announce a new project with the Alaska Craftsman Home Program (ACHP) to republish their excellent new-construction manual, Northern Comfort. Northern Comfort is all about building heavily insulated homes...
by srmi | May 15, 2013 | Energy News
Bad Siding In the past decade, the building industry has introduced pre-weathered galvanized siding for buildings. Same idea as weathered new blue jeans I guess. However if you look at the new building shown here, you’ll see that the siding is quickly...
