BUILDTank / buildCAST

Drew Lindsay owner of Hammerwell Construction is the only builder in Colorado that I know of that has a full staff of Passive house certified tradespeople. The have learned building science and passive house principles that they are wrapping into all their projects, certified or otherwise, with an aim of continuing to build beautiful homes that their clients love living in. I learned of Hammerwell...

Mark Attard, operations manager at HammerWell Custom Homes, and I have a candid conversation about rebuilding after the Marshall Fire. Applied building science and better performing homes needs to be at the heart of the conversation of rebuilding. 1st costs vs. opportunity cost vs. cost of ownership, resiliency, health, fire resistance and more. Cost of construction can’t be laid on the back of en...

Mark Attard Operations Manager at Hammer Well custom homes is helping to lead the company towards a commitment to building exceptional custom homes following passive house principles. In that effort, Mark gained significant building science knowledge that he has applied in a complete retrofit of his own 1990 vintage home. Starting at 17 ACH50, mark improved the thermal envelope, air tightness, mec...

Chief Builder and Owner of Sterling Enterprises, Peter Stuart values creativity, uniqueness, and perfection. Sterling builds for comfort and longevity while believing that advancing their craft leads to innovation and high performance. Peter is leading his team in building their first PHI passive house duplex, applying building science and critical passive house strategies that integrate with thei...

Part II of my conversation with Justin Wilson concentrated more on the creation of Construction Instruction and how it has grown. CI provides leading building professionals with the tools needed to apply building science principles while integrating cost-effective, practical solutions to build better, longer lasting, healthier homes. They offer hands-on training at their Colorado Experience Center...

Justin is an experienced building consultant with a demonstrated history of working in the construction industry. Skilled in energy efficiency, construction, sustainable design and applied building science. He is a principal partner with Construction Instruction and in part 1 of our conversation, reveals unique experiences that lead him to where he is. LinkedIn Profil 1 Construction Instruction Do...

Martin Drake , a coal fired power plant located in downtown Colorado Springs, has burned coal to generate electricity since 1925. It burned its last piece of coal, however, on August 27, 2021 And it will transition to being fully decommissioned on December 31st, 2022. For now, Drake will operate by making electricity using a large natural gas generator. The generator is actually portable and can b...

Creating an Airtight Shaft Liner Area Separation Wall The IECC requires that town homes and duplexes achieve 3 or 5 ACH50 depending on the climate zone the dwelling is built in. My experience is that attached housing is 2-3 time leakier than detached even though detached is generally twice as large. In the past creating airtight attached dwellings has been quite difficult and costly do to the 1” t...

Bill Rectanus is chief operating officer, or COO, at Thrive Home builders, and today he will walk us through his journey to becoming a COO at this regional production builder, how the company began building only DOE Zero Energy Ready Homes, and the planning and economics that need to happen years in advance before a house can go vertical and be brought to market. I learned a lot about the business...

Nigel Watts is successfully bringing the new RHEIA HVAC airtight compact air distribution system to market. Rheia's compact air distribution system is significantly faster to install, located entirely within the home's conditioned space, without using unsightly, expensive bulkheads and chases. Rheia improves comfort and helps maximize efficiency, at a competitive price. NIgel's LinkedIn   RHE...

Chef Rachelle Boucher with KitchenToLife.com , and Chef Andrew Forlines with ChefAF.com speak to with me about one of the biggest roadblocks to the electrification of a home. Getting ride of the gas cook top. Chef Rachelle Boucher KitchenToLife.com In 2018, when the city of Berkeley, CA announced the first all-electric building codes, I immediately knew that this was a huge moment for the planet,...

Since his college days, Jonah has worked on national and international water issues. He has spent over a decade leading the technical direction and development of WaterSense which is the EPA's water efficiency program and has established himself as an expert in the field of water efficiency, conservation, and sustainability with numerous published articles and speaking engagements. Our conversatio...

Welcome to this bonus session of the BUILDCast. I am happy to bring to you A conversation about Zero Energy homes that took place at the 2021 EEBA (Energy & Environmental Building Alliance) High performance Home Summit. I had this conversation as a session at the conference with individuals that have been working to build, promote, and educate us about building science based construction that...

Greg D. Fisher, Architect is a design and service-centered practice focusing on simple, progressive, authentic and responsible designs since the firm’s inception in 1993. In 2020 Greg started down the road of designing and building a Passive house for him and his wife in Fort Collins Colorado. Listen to his journey to architecture and then to Passive house. Advantage Architectural Woodwork This is...

Performance Construction Manger Mitsubishi Electric Tane US HVAC, Shawn has focused his worked in Energy and resource efficiency, sustainable buildings, and community abundance. He enjoys contributing his experience and intuitive problem-solving skills to what he calls a history-changing industry. He believes there are countless opportunities as we face the nexus of energy, water, food, transporta...

An assortment of short conversations I had with the sponsor exhibitors at the 2021  EBBA High Performance Summit EEBA Aprilaire Dettson Energy Panel Structures SIPS Graphen Stone Panasonic Resideo RetroTec Sonnen USA Dupont

An assortment of short conversations I had with the sponsor exhibitors at the 2021  EBBA High Performance Summit - Part II BOAN-Nutone Etopia USA Extreme Panel Technologies  Mitsubishi Electric Tane US HVAC R-Control Panel Santa-Fe Dehumidifiers  Stego Industries  SunNova Huber ZIP System

I had a great conversation with Corbett who is juggling all things that his company Building Performance Workshop is doing. Performance Testing and home diagnostics, a home diagnostics book, training, podcast, TV show and YouTube Channel. All in an effort to help homeowners live their best life in the homes they have chosen. Corbett introduces himself on his website this way. “Hi. I am Corbett Lun...

The story about how Gary Klein got into hot water is a long one which we delve into in this episode of the BUILDCast. It takes us from the east cost of the United State to Lesotho in Africa, back to the United States and on to California. Throughout his journey Gary took his own path and followed what interested him the most while looking for big problems to solve. Gary is passionate about helping...

C.R. Herro, Vice president of Innovation at Meritage Homes, leads Meritage’s Business Innovation Program which combines design, efficiency, sustainability, and new technologies to establish a new standard in home building that provide better comfort, healthier air, and cost less to own and operate. C.R. earned a Bachelor of Science at Arizona State University in Physical and Life Science, master’s...

Chris and his team provide a variety of strategic services to both private and public sector interests related to buildings and building product performance. Their Specialties include Building Science; Building Science Education and Training; Building Performance and Product Research, as well as, Building and Energy Code Development; Fenestration and Insulation Performance, and Energy and Power Po...

About 23 years ago I almost created a sister company to my energy rating company BUILTWright that I was going to call WasteWright. Construction waste recycling was all the rage and there were all kinds of ideas regarding how to offer production builders solutions that fit within there building process. I almost bought a Packard Grinder which was portable and would allow me to grind construction wa...

Joe Medosch took a wide and varied route to become the Healthy Building Scientist. On his journey he became an artist, electrician, home inspector, and professor. He did marketing and sales and now is on a small team at Hayward score tasked with developing questions and providing best practice advice to homeowners to address indoor health issues that they are facing. Hayward Score: Of the 23,000 b...

In his spare time, as he claims to be retired, Steve Andrews is an energy consultant, free-lance writer, and mentor to many of us in Colorado. He worked primarily in the residential sector and was very active with the Denver Homebuilders' association and the development of Colorado’s home energy rating system in the early 1990’s, called E-Star Colorado. This was when states were the RESNET provide...

David B. Goldstein has worked on energy efficiency and energy policy since the early 1970s. He currently codirects Natural Resource Defense C ouncil’s Energy program. Goldstein has been instrumental in the development of energy efficiency standards for new buildings and appliances that are currently in effect at the regional and national levels in the United States, Russia, Kazakhstan, and China....