by srmi | Feb 12, 2013 | Education
Converting Research to Suggestions Ruth Colvin Clark has spent much of her career in adult learning, reporting about research into which educational strategies work and which don’t. Her book Building Expertise is based on over two hundred research reports, as...
by srmi | Feb 7, 2013 | Energy News
Neglectful Design I understand why developers and contractors want to build commercial buildings out of steel. For cost and flexibility of design, it’s hard to beat steal beams, girders, and studs. The design error is to overestimate the R-value you achieve with...
by srmi | Feb 5, 2013 | Energy News
What is a Passive House? The passive house concept was pioneered in the Northern U.S. and Canada in the late 1970s and early 1980s when it was called “superinsulation”. European builders have improved the superinsulation technology and applied it to both...
by srmi | Jan 24, 2013 | Conferences, Energy News, Events / Seminars
I routinely field calls from potential customers asking about our online Energy Auditor course. I’m asked questions like: How hard is the course? Is there lot of math? How long is the course? How much study time will I have each week? I provide answers like;...
by srmi | Jan 21, 2013 | Energy News
My Experience as a Trail Blazer My friends laugh when I make the well-worn announcement, “You won’t believe this, but I got lost.” I’m famous for losing my way and leading others with me in the wrong direction. Like the time I guided my sister Sue and three mutual...
by srmi | Jan 17, 2013 | Energy News
Productivity and Unemployment: A Relationship Labor productivity is an index of economic output divided by labor input. This figure rises and falls several times a year and productivity often spikes at the same time that unemployment spikes. During a spike like this,...
by srmi | Jan 11, 2013 | Energy News
Our Current Energy Standards-Making Process Engineers and other contributors often write national energy standards, or change them without a clear idea of the desired benefits or the unintended consequences. The process of updating standards resembles software...
by srmi | Jan 4, 2013 | Energy News
Bruce Manclark and I were training contractors in Pacific Power’s mobile-home weatherization program in a mobile-home court in Yakima, Washington during 1994. We were working on three mobile homes with about 30 participants; insulating, air-sealing, and performing...
by srmi | Dec 21, 2012 | Energy News
A Misunderstood Truth When I was six years old, my Dad’s business needed a new warehouse. While the workers built the building, I wondered how my Dad got the money to pay them so I asked. He said: “Son, our customers pay for everything.” That’s...
by srmi | Dec 14, 2012 | Energy News
Weatherization and home performance practitioners should reconsider the value of window treatments, especially storm windows. Early energy conservation programs overused storm windows and storms were subsequently banned from some weatherization programs because...
