This month’s extreme cold snap in Texas and resulting failure of the state’s power grid offers some important lessons in the rear-view mirror. This week, we look at three takeaways from this month’s crisis and how we can better prepare for the next one.
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Builder Ryan McCoon, LEED APH of Endura Performance Homes, has more than 30 years’ experience in the residential construction industry and has built 60 homes ranging in price from $500 – $1.5M in Traverse City, MI area. As a high-end custom builder, Ryan has the weight of his client’s expectations at the forefront of his mind as he completes their homes. He takes care to ensure that the projects are attractive, healthy, and have lower operating costs and increased durability for many years to come.
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According to Construction Dive, a study of 730,000 COVID-19 tests found that construction workers had the highest positivity rate for asymptomatic cases of any occupation. Therefore, to reduce widespread illness and keep pace with the high demand for residential construction, it’s essential to get workers vaccinated. Multistate, a full-service state and local government relations company, has published a comprehensive dashboard of the COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan for all 50 states.
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Homebuyers are increasingly concerned about the safety of the products that are used in their homes. When it comes to insulation, there’s a lot of information out there, but it can be hard to separate fact from fiction. Insulation Institute has just released a new guide, Fiberglass Insulation A Guide to Better Indoor Air Quality, which details the significant benefits of using fiberglass insulation, whether you’re a builder, installer, or homeowner.
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Architect Terry Smith of TDSA Architecture in Washington state recently contacted NAIMA with a question about how to properly insulate various types of roof trusses – both conventional and scissor type. Terry rightly pointed out that insulation is intended to be most effective when uniformly applied or layered to cover the full extent of the space being insulated. But there are instances, such as narrow areas near the top plate of scissor trusses and sloped ceilings, where that is not possible.
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Despite the pandemic, demand for HERS-rated homes increased 24 percent in 2020 versus 2019, according to Residential Energy Services (RESNET). In 2020, 299,755 homes received a HERS Index Score, breaking the record for the number of rated homes in a year. The previous record from 2019 was 241,664 rated homes.
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At the Insulation Institute, we aim to deliver the most useful educational content on energy efficiency and best builder practices for our readers. Here are the topics that proved to be the most highly ranked among our loyal readers this year. If you missed any of these, let’s hope the slower pace as we wind down 2020 will offer you a chance to review our reader favorites.
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A new report from E4The Future says energy efficiency (EE) – the largest U.S. energy sector — can repower America’s economy as we work to overcome the pandemic’s economic effects. The annual report highlights the significant job losses due to COVID-19. Overall, employment is down nearly 14 percent in 2020 versus 2019, a loss of 321,900 jobs.
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A newly released study of the insulation industry’s economic contributions to the U.S. economy in 2019 details more than 564,000 jobs generated and $36 billion in payrolls that supported families and communities around the country. Those jobs in the manufacturing, distribution, and installation of insulation will be a critical component of the nation’s continued economic recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the study’s sponsor, the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
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The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has released a long-awaited study detailing archaic building codes’ impact on communities. The report concludes that 65 percent of counties and municipalities in the United States have not adopted modern building codes. These communities incur an additional $1.6 billion a year in property damage due to flooding, strong winds, and earthquakes – costs that could be averted altogether if building codes were up-to-date.
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