BuildingGreen.com offers a course on achieving enduring value through better use of building science. From their announcement:
To meet these challenges, architects and builders must get the building enclosure details right the first time, starting with the earliest stages of schematic design and continuing during construction and during occupancy."
He has it almost correct. The folks that lived in the 100 year old house didn't expect to be able to walk around barefoot in the middle of winter, or to stay cool and refreshed in the summer's heat.
Still, I am overwhelmed by the amount of information in the syllabus:
COURSE OUTLINE
Unit 1: The Science of High-Performance Assemblies
- Hygrothermal Performance: The Key Driver
- How water moves through buildings
- Continuous water barriers
- Capillary breaks
- Drained and rainscreen systems: Managing bulk water, capillary water, and drying
- Continuous air barriers
- How Blower-Door Tests Measure Airtightness
- Continuous thermal barriers
- Understanding thermal bridging
- Reducing Heat Flow Through Windows
- Vapor profiles vs vapor retarders
- How "smart" vapor retarders work
- Combining control layers
- Using WUFI to prevent moisture problems
- Vented and ventilated wall assemblies
- "Vented" crawl space foundations
- Vented and unvented attics and roofs
Unit 2: Getting Details Right
- Residential and Commercial High Performance Assembly Examples
- The Special Challenges of Curtainwall
- "Perfect" Assemblies
- Alternative Assemblies
- Joints: Sealants, Tapes and Gaskets
- Options:
- Adhesives
- Sealants
- Putties and caulks
- Agreeing on terms, and applications
- Avoiding failed seals with bond breaks
- How to choose a sealant that works
- Latex
- Acrylic
- Butyl
- Polysulfide
- Silicone
- Polyurethane
- "Hybrids"–MS Polymers
- Making tapes stay put
- Rubberized asphalt
- Butyl rubber
- Acrylic
- Silicone
- Tape performance: Other considerations
- Assessing service life
- Gaskets
- Compression and memory
- Wet versus dry glazing
- Service life of gaskets
- Assessing product safety
- Liquid Sealants and Chemical Safety
- Flashing Tapes and Chemical Safety
- Gaskets and Chemical Safety
- Case Study: Cape Cod Passive House
Unit 3: High-Performance Design and Construction Process
- How high performance Scopes Of Work differ from standard SOW
- Verifying Performance with Building Envelope Commissioning
- Cx vs. BECx
- Pre-design phase
- Design phase
- Achieving continuity
- Construction Phase
- Mockups
- During construction
- Pre-occupancy
- What gets tested
- Occupancy and operations
- Guidelines and standards
- HOBO data loggers
- Integrated High Performance HVAC
- Case Study: Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery
Unit 4: High-Performance Retrofits
- Assessment
- Evaluation
- Monitoring
- Getting to know the building
- Case Study: Renovation of 46 Blackstone
- Historic masonry in cold climates
- Reduce airflow, encourage vapor flow
- Ongoing monitoring
- Case Study: Edminster-Bohner Home Retrofit
- The damp crawl space
- Ongoing monitoring
- Design Review: Existing and Planned Elements
- Design Review Drawings: Edminster-Bohner Home Retrofit
- Comprehensive Home Assessment Checklist