BUILDTank / buildCAST

Martin Holladay is a self-made building scientist who followed a passion that led to a career in investigating how to build comfortable, efficient, and resilient buildings and then writing about it. First in JLC, then in Energy Design Update, and finally for Green Building Advisor. All publications Martin’s either started or helped to bring to prominence. He learned quickly that if he had a questi...

Pat Heulman says he is a retired professor from the University of Minnesota, but in reality, in retirement, he has stayed on as an adjunct professor.  Lucky for the University students and others in the industry, like me and you, he is still sharing his vast knowledge. He teaches residential energy and building systems, as well as advanced building science courses. He is a cofounder of the Cold Cl...

Ken Levenson is the Executive Director of the Passive House Network. He graduated from Pratt Institute in Architecture and practiced architecture for 20 years in New York City where he discovered Passive House and became a Certified Passive House Designer. He was a founding board member of New York Passive House, the National Passive House Alliance, and the Passive House Network, all nonprofits de...

Lisa White joined PHIUS after earning a degree in Environmental Sustainability with a minor in Architecture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Master’s in Energy Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago. With PHIUS Lisa has worked as a PHIUS trainer, as the Certification Manager, and has been a longtime member of PHIUS’ technical committee that developed the P...

Ross Trethewey thinks Zero to 360 and is the founder of TE2 Engineering. TE2 is a full-service engineering design and consultation firm that specializes in high performance HVAC design, renewable energy design and MEP design. Thanks to Travis Brungart and Joe Cook at Catalyst Construction, I met Ross at the BS and Beer Building Science symposium held in September in Denver. Ross can explain mechan...

The Building America Solution Center grew out of the Department of Energy’s Building America Program. A Program that has been a source of innovations in residential building energy efficiency and performance for over 25 years. The Building America Program leverages cutting-edge building science research to develop the solutions and best practices needed to advance energy efficiency in the homes we...

Todd Usher is the Founder of Addison Homes a South Carolina home building company specializing in building healthy, high-performance homes that emphasize increased comfort and durability, better indoor air quality, greater energy efficiency, and the use of sustainable materials with lower embodied carbon.  How does he do this, he partners with the Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready Home prog...

Bill Spohn is the President and CEO of TruTech Tools and much more. He is an entrepreneur who is willing to listen, learn, and cooperate with an eye towards bettering the world in small and large ways and in any way he can. He is involved in so many interesting thinks that we jumped straight into questions, followed up with a discussion about what he calls his capstone project, a Net Zero Energy m...

A Scope of Loss Report is the insurance industry term for an estimate of the rebuilding cost of a lost house due to a severe event like fire, hurricane, or tornado. It does not reflect the cost of the house that will be rebuilt. It reflects rebuilding the specific house that was lost, exactly as it was, to the current building codes. The goal of which is so that the insurance industry knows what t...

Steve Baczek is a nationally recognized architect, who has been designing and developing custom residential structures for over 28 years. After architecture school he had the opportunity to work with Joe Lstiburek and Betsy Pettit at Building Science Corporation. But since then, he has really honed his unique perspective, knowledge, and ability to be a bridge between architecture and sound buildin...

Amy Bach, Executive director of United Policy Holders and Lisa Hughes Marshall Fire Survivor and Marshall Fire Local Liaison for United Policy Holders are my guests on this buildCAST.  We discuss the impact of fire specifically, but natural disaster and the destruction of home, its impacts on people and the insurance nightmare that they face. United Policy Holders has stepped into this space to ad...

Dr. Diana Fisler is an experienced building materials scientist turned Entrepreneur who is Interested in the interface between early building technology innovation and corporations that bring these technologies to market. She’s running her own research in this space as the CEO of EcoSnap, a technology she is bringing to market that speeds up and lowers the cost of the installation of mini split he...

Alpen High-Performance Products is an American window and door manufacturer that designs and builds some of the most energy efficient window and door products in North America and the world.  Alpen’s core products draw on a 30 plus year history of industry leadership in advanced, high-performance window and glass manufacturing.  They are an innovative company that has partnered with the Department...

If you’re not talking about it, if you’re not Marketing it, and most importantly if you’re not helping the consumer connect with it on an emotional level or a level where they can clearly understand the benefit to them, then you’re simply giving it giving it away. Pamela Brookstein manages the Value for High Performing Homes program at Elevate, a nonprofit organization dedicated to designing and i...

Karen Benner is a GREEN Realtor and founder of Clayton Avenue Consulting. She brings her 20 years of experience and a large builder perspective and discipline to her new Offsite Dirt show called “Building Better with Karen.   Offsite Dirt is a media and an event company that showcases all the current news, techniques, technology, influencers, and conversations in offsite construction and is hostin...

Mike Missimer principal and owner of MGI Mechanical has almost 30 years of experience in the HVAC industry, he has used his engineering background and love of learning to question the rules of thumb that are interwoven into the HVAC world. He has learned firsthand that you get what you inspect not what you expect, and therefore has helped develop and promote sound repeatable commissioning practice...

Gayathri Vijayakumar is a Principal Mechanical Engineer at Steven Winter Associates. For over 17 years, she has specialized in evaluating residential and multifamily buildings with an emphasis on high-performance construction and renewable energy systems. Early in her career, Gayathri provided technical assistance to sustainability projects by performing energy modeling and conducting cost-benefit...

Keith Dennis, President of the Beneficial Electrification league finds himself translating the languages of law, engineering, and business to pursue a vision where electrification has broad market acceptance as a necessary strategy to meet the economic, consumer, and environmental goals of our country.   Keith and the Beneficial Electrification League help to educate the wide breadth of policy mak...

Perks Deconstruction provides a comprehensive and strategic deconstruction and demolition service that allows homeowners and contractors to salvage, donate, and recycle as many materials as possible during the building process. Anna Perks, owner and founder of Perks Deconstruction is driven by the pursuit of offering more sustainable building and demolition options. She has more than 12 years of e...

Glenn Mathewson, creator of buildingcodecollege.com, likes to talk and I have to say I was a little nervous about our buildCAST conversation.   Glenn started his construction career as a carpenter’s apprentice, then began to framing homes and later started his own remodeling and deck building company. In 2005, he became a building, plumbing, and mechanical inspector for the City of Westminster, Co...

B Public Prefab is an offsite construction solution for the homes buildings thermal envelope that integrates bulk moister, air, vapor, and thermal control into its wall and floor panels. Their unique component-based, Lego like panels, have been developed for maximum design flexibility and with Passive House high performance in mind. From how homes are built to how they are lived in, Edie Dillman i...

Ed Fronapfel is a forensic engineer who I first met when he taught a thermography class I attended.  Later he became the student when he participated in an Energy Rater class I taught. Ed has built and sold several successful engineering companies on the back of his ability to distill information and present it in understandable ways. Over the years we have been discussing the disconnect between e...

It doesn’t matter the size of the house that’s built, Builders are passionate about what they do. Zack Giffin demonstrates that in this conversation about tiny homes. In 2018 I happened to be at the code hearing where Appendix Q for tiny homes was adopted for the International Residential Code. This year I was asked by the state of Colorado to represent the energy code on a working group trying to...

Jake Bruton owner of Arrow Building continues to push the home building industry forward. As a carpenter running a business and helping to mature an industry, Jake’s skill and enthusiasm has brought him national attention and a platform to continue his effort to educate our industry through online content, publications, and speaking events.  He is one of the leaders of what I call the Instagr...

Gene Myers is the Founder of Thrive Home builders. I went into our conversation focused on learning more about ESG or Environmental, Social, and Governance and how this new way of looking at business is affecting the construction industry, especially for those who are not national Wall Street Builders. As soon as we began, I was reminded first, what humble, open, and simply nice Gene is, and secon...