Tag: building science
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274: Doing Windows Well
There are not many new ideas in the building industry. The basic concepts have been around for a while. ‘High-performance’ products and design details that might be described as ‘innovative’ here in New Zealand are likely to be standard practice somewhere else. With building experience in Europe and Scandanavia Richard Eden is well placed to…
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257 The Atlas of Comfort
Germán Molina trained as an engineer in Chile and has recently completed fascinating research posing the question ‘what is comfort?’ at Victoria University in Wellington. Having come from ‘the warm side’ of engineering, Germán has long had an interest in energy efficiency. He didn’t expect to be researching human behavior and social science.
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216: Studio Origami
I’m always interested in the perceptions of architects and builders who have been trained or have experienced living in Europe and then come to the Southern Hemisphere. Their reaction to typical houses in New Zealand and Australia usually involves a level of disbelief. A common sentiment is that they’ve never been colder, despite this being…
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199: What Does a Building Enclosure Engineer do?
What does a building enclosure engineer do and why might you need one? There’s a new building enclosure team in town. They’re called Oculus and I caught up with one of their Senior Building Enclosure Engineers to find out a bit more about what they do, and why.
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185: What is Airtightness and Why do we Need it?
The topic of airtightness keeps coming up. Derek Ward of Clioma House shared his thoughts on the topic back in episode 103 and Jon Davies of Pro Clima went into some detail in episode 163. This episode is a reading of a presentation I prepared recently on the topic of airtightness, why we’re scared of…
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179: Why managing moisture is so important for indoor air quality
Terry Brennan literally wrote the book on managing moisture for improved indoor air quality. He is a lead author of a landmark 2013 Environmental Protection Agency book titled “Moisture Control for Building Design, Construction and Maintenance” which has since become a standard reference document in the industry in the US.