Free Floor Plan: 10 Ways Passive House Design is Different Than Normal Home Design If you want to download the floor plan, please scroll to the bottom of the article. This is a guest post by Mike Duclos. Mike is founder of The DEAP Energy Group, a firm providing a wide variety of deep energy… Continue reading “Free Floor Plan: 10 Ways Passive House Design is Different Than Normal Home Design”
Robert Bean + HeatSpring = Integrated HVAC Engineering Training The way a building functions represents an incredibly complex intersection of numerous fields, including architecture, design, engineering, environmental and health sciences, and construction. As each field evolves, it becomes increasingly necessary, but also difficult, to understand how they are interrelated.… Continue reading “Robert Bean + HeatSpring = Integrated HVAC Engineering Training”
NESEA, Mike Duclos and HeatSpring Launch Passive House Design Training If you’re a professional in the building industry, you’ve probably heard of the growing Passive House movement. You may even be familiar with the basic principles. If you have clients who want to apply the Passive House standard to an… Continue reading “NESEA, Mike Duclos and HeatSpring Launch Passive House Design Training”
5 Keys for Greening Commercial Roofs Dr. Jim Hoff currently serves as vice president of research for the Center for Environmental Innovation in Roofing in Washington, D.C., and president of TEGNOS Research Inc., a consulting organization dedicated to expanding understanding of the building envelope. He’s also… Continue reading “5 Keys for Greening Commercial Roofs”
Your Invitation –> NESEA Building Energy Trade Show Discount, Startup Alley, Building Energy Masters Series Meetup Next week is the Building Energy Conference. I’m going to be there, and there’s going to be a lot of fun things happening. I’ve gone to the NESEA show ever year since I was 16, and my buddy Gilbert from… Continue reading “Your Invitation –> NESEA Building Energy Trade Show Discount, Startup Alley, Building Energy Masters Series Meetup”
5+ Trends that will Drive the Growth of the Hydronic Industry in the Next 3 Years: A 30-Minute Conversion with John Siegenthaler There are a variety of forces changing the dynamics of the hydronic heating and renewable thermal industries that were not happening five years ago. While hydronic distribution is still attractive for similar technical reasons that it was five years ago—comfort,… Continue reading “5+ Trends that will Drive the Growth of the Hydronic Industry in the Next 3 Years: A 30-Minute Conversion with John Siegenthaler”
Free Hydronic Design Video From John Siegenthaler This ten minute video is all about fittings. Fittings can be an afterthought, but they are a critical component for designing a high-performing hydronic heating system. In this video, John Siegenthaler outlines the universe of fittings, and even tells you… Continue reading “Free Hydronic Design Video From John Siegenthaler”
Free 26 Minute Lesson on Performing Heat Loss Calculations for Net Zero Energy Homes Calculating heat loss, and designing for minimal heat loss, is absolutely critical to designing and building net zero energy home or to passive house standards. Watch this 26 minute video lesson, from Marc Rosenbaum’s Zero Net Energy Homes course to… Continue reading “Free 26 Minute Lesson on Performing Heat Loss Calculations for Net Zero Energy Homes”
Full Case Study of 8 Net Zero Energy Homes The following post is a case study of 8 Net Zero Energy Homes that were designed by South Mountain Company (SMC). SMC’s Marc Rosenbaum is teaching a class on Net Zero Energy Design that will give you all of the… Continue reading “Full Case Study of 8 Net Zero Energy Homes”
3 Reasons Why Education Technology Is Needed to Save the World: Low Cost, High Speed, Very High Quality This is the first, in what may become, a lot of video articles. In some ways writing is the best medium for clear and concise communication (although I’m a poor writer), I also think are times when video is a… Continue reading “3 Reasons Why Education Technology Is Needed to Save the World: Low Cost, High Speed, Very High Quality”
5 Best Practices for Designing Online Courses This article is for businesses and instructors that want to understand best practices for designing online courses. It’s based on our experience training more than 8,000 students. Since 2011 all of our students have used online or blended learning. The… Continue reading “5 Best Practices for Designing Online Courses”
How Does An Online Learning Course Work? We can get a lot of questions about how exactly an online learning course works. This article outlines the 5 elements needed for an awesome online learning course. This article is for two people: Students that want to take a… Continue reading “How Does An Online Learning Course Work?”
[Proof Included] When and Why 100% Online Courses Are Better Than Face to Face Training The following is a capstone project completed at the end of a 100% online course. If you think online training courses are poor quality, think again. Read more in detail below. This article is for two specific people. 1. Students… Continue reading “[Proof Included] When and Why 100% Online Courses Are Better Than Face to Face Training”
How 30 People Learned to Design a Zero Net Energy Home Last year the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association launched a year-round ‘Masters Series’ to extend the reach of popular Building Energy Conference. Marc Rosenbaum, one of the most popular presenters at the conference, taught a Zero Net Energy Homes course –… Continue reading “How 30 People Learned to Design a Zero Net Energy Home”
The Future of Comfort. How the World Cup Might Help Your Help Your HVAC Business. How did Qatar win their bid to host the 2022 World Cup? In this video, Wolfgang Kessling explains how his team designed a comfort strategy that helped make it happen. Yes, comfort. Here’s why I wanted to share this video with… Continue reading “The Future of Comfort. How the World Cup Might Help Your Help Your HVAC Business.”
[Photos] How to Frame a Super Insulated Home There has been a lot of hoop-la and craziness around passive homes, net zero energy homes, and super energy efficient homes. I’ve been amazed at how easy it can actually be. My friend is building a house that will burn… Continue reading “[Photos] How to Frame a Super Insulated Home”
The Best Sales Tool For Small Renewable Energy Companies I’m in the search for the best sales tool to sell solar pv, solar thermal and geothermal. I am building a renewable energy company, and I’m focused on building the most profitable company I can. We’re a small company, we haven’t… Continue reading “The Best Sales Tool For Small Renewable Energy Companies”
The Entrepreneur vs General Contractor. Who Will Win the Clean Energy Race? There’s an interesting split in the residential and light commercial clean energy space lately. As consumer demand is surging and some “old” solar pv players are moving to bigger projects (Nexamp no longer does residential and is installing 4.5 MW… Continue reading “The Entrepreneur vs General Contractor. Who Will Win the Clean Energy Race?”
How to Size a Heating and Cooling System – 101 Older space conditioning systems (more than 10 years old) are often unreliable and much less efficient than a modern system. When it’s time for a new replacement, choosing one of the correct size (heating and/or cooling output) is critical to… Continue reading “How to Size a Heating and Cooling System – 101”
11 Tips for Proper Manual J Calculations for Geothermal Contractors Many geothermal and general contractors pay a subcontractor to perform Manual J calculations when its required. Accurate heating and cooling loads are absolutely critical to properly designing a geothermal system (See 4 Steps to Designing a Geothermal System) and according… Continue reading “11 Tips for Proper Manual J Calculations for Geothermal Contractors”