Are your windows locked? We don’t tend to think of air leakage in the summer like we do in the wintertime. When it’s cold, we can feel the cold drafts wafting through the house. (more…)

        An even simpler way to think about how to situate parts of a house with regard to climate and weather is to imagine yourself standing outside on your property on a sunny, windy winter day. To stay warm, you would naturally turn away from the north wind and face the southern sun. You might even turn your collar up. By making this simple adjustment, you would be sheltering yourself from the wind and maximizing the solar heat gain from the sun. Well, that’s exactly what architects do for houses when they place the garage in the path of the prevailing wind and position the windows toward the sun. The house is responding to the climate in the same way you would. These ideas are the first steps in passive solar design. And best of all, there’s no added cost for any of this. By merely acknowledging and responding to the climate of the site, the house will live in harmony with the nature around it. (more…)

These days, it seems like everything anyone sells is energy efficient, green, or sustainable in some way. Those are the words plastered on the products we buy because without those claims, a product is virtually unsaleable in this climate (pardon the pun) of environmental zeal. This is a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say, but sometimes it’s a bad thing. The good thing is that energy efficiency can save you money and possibly the planet, if you buy into that hysteria. Even if you don’t conserving resources is simply a responsibility we all have. (more…)