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...
by srmi | Dec 4, 2012 | Energy News
Worldwide Northern Hemisphere prosperity was so high for so long that many of us forgot just what’s essential and what’s not. Now with the economic downturn and disappearance of jobs, people are becoming more independent and resilient. What is Simple...
by srmi | Nov 27, 2012 | Energy News
The combustion safety testing part of Chapter 8 of the RESNET standard is being revised and we are wrestling with all the issues raised in your blog post “Questioning Worst-Case Depressurization Testing”. I have sent a link to this blog to the RESNET...
by srmi | Nov 13, 2012 | Energy News
I recently read some legal documents and technical standards that reminded me how much I hate the word shall. Dictionary definitions of shall include: must will can should intends to Why would anyone use such an ambiguous verb in documents that are supposed to give...
by srmi | Nov 5, 2012 | Energy News
Over lunch a few days ago I stopped by the hardware store and picked up a Pro-Lab do-it-yourself, short-term radon gas test kit. Cost was $12.99 with $30 paid later for analysis. The kit was hanging next to other DIY test kits. Asbestos, lead, long term radon, radon...
