December 2023 - Why the Blower Door Beats Every Shortcut

Jeff Flaherty opens with a quality assurance visit on a job done by another contractor, and the findings are not good. Open block walls in the basement, questionable air sealing buried under blown-in insulation, and cantilever floors testing 51% connected to the outdoors. Jeff walks through why documenting work with geotagged, timestamped photos isn't optional, why closing bedroom vents when kids go to college actually makes your furnace less efficient, and why the air barrier and insulation barrier have to line up or none of it works. He also covers a home where moisture was condensing on the roof nails and the plywood tested at 52% moisture content, the homeowner who declined to fix the attic, did a full tear-off instead, and was back two years later with the same problem. Plus a retired Xerox engineer whose Ecobee data showed his home was within one degree floor to floor after Wise Home Energy's work, when it had never been close before.