Vincent Deorio CEO, Mike Davidson Sales and Marketing, and Ben Walker Sr Architectural Manager at RedT homes, share what it’s taking to grow their company into a regional production builder that is offering LEED platinum homes. Their unique business model incorporates land acquisition, entitlement and design, architecture, and construction along with real estate-focused marketing and sales. Their focus on integrated design and thoughtful execution is helping them reimagine what sustainable development, construction, and sales means in Colorado.

RedT Homes

LEED for Homes

buildCAST #9-2022 Sand Adomatis and the Residential Green and Energy Efficient Addendum

Starting in tech, moving into solar, Stephen Kane found his home at SPAN where he is helping builders integrate smart electric load management to lower the cost of electrifying homes while giving homeowner’s a better user experience.  Our conversation touched on both new construction and existing homes as the move toward electrification is touching both worlds.  I have to say that I found our existing home conversation particularly interesting since I am on a glid path to electrification of my own home. That being said, I see this technology helping manage not only operational cost, but also the cost of construction. We are now not beholden to installing huge capacity panels when our real life loads never, or rarely, match the code calculated electrical loads.

Stephen Kane on LinkedIn

SPAN

SPAN Tech Portal

SPAN on YouTube

Jacob Deva Racusin, based in Vermont, is the Co-Founder and Director of Building Science and Sustainability with New Frameworks. He is also the lead researcher and BEAM Tool Co-Developer with Builders for Climate Action.  As a builder, consultant, researcher, designer, and educator, Jacob has merged his passions for ecological stewardship, relationship to place, and social justice with building science, climate action, and sustainable design and building.

 Jacob Deva Racusin on LinkedIn

New Frameworks

Builders for Climate Action

BEAM Carbon Estimator

Yestermorrow Design Build School

Rob Howard began his construction career with Habitat for Humanity where he built ENERGY STAR homes through Advanced Energy’s System Vision program. When he became director of construction at Habitat he built the first Net-Zero Energy Home in North Carolina in partnership with the Appalachian Energy Center in 2005. He now only builds DOE Zero Energy Ready Homes and was a 2024 Housing Innovations award recipient.

Uniquely and parallel to Rob’s building career is his career as an academic.  Rob holds a bachelor’s degree and a renewable energy technologies diploma from North Carolina State University and a master’s degree in sustainable technology and building science from Appalachian State University where he now serves as a full-time faculty member.

Rob’s practical and academic background made our conversation particularly fun as he was able to interweave his passion for building science into mainstream applications which, to me, helps better explain why everyone in the construction industry should embrace applied building science in the proustite of our modern everyday home.

Rob Howard on LinkedIn

Howard Building Science

DOE Zero Energy Ready Home

Advanced Energy

South Face

Pocket Neighborhoods

Happy New Year!

I begin 2025 with a conversation I had with Randy Williams. Randy is well known for his Northern Pro Build blog that concentrates on applied building science, energy efficiency, and cold climate construction. He followed his brother into the building industry and quickly made a name for himself once he caught the building science bug. He was introduced to building science when he became an energy auditor during the economic downturn of 2009. He now describes himself as a building science nerd and supports himself by applying it as a contractor, energy auditor, and regular contributor to Fine Homebuilding, Journal of Light Construction, and Green Building Advisor.

For me, it was really fun to have this conversation with Randy, building science nerd to nerd. Our time together flew by because we were just talking about our shared passion.

Thanks much for your continued support and likes.

Randy Williams on LinkedIn

Norther Built Pro - A Cold Climate Construction and Energy Blog

Randy Williams on Fine Homebuilding

Robby got selected to be on the 2027 IECC consensus committee to develop the new energy code and his mind started turning, about if he really wanted to go through this for the fifth time. To quite his mind he starting talking. So here is his riff on the 2027 IECC.

BUILDtank inc

Josh Butzbaugh, Senior Project Engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, has been focusing his research on Heat Pump Water Heaters (HPWH). His research has helped to demonstrate the impact HPWH’s can have on efficiency, carbon reduction, and peak demand response. The problem with implementing the technology is that replacement happens at a point of failure and consumers want a new water heater installed immediately, generally within 48 hours. Now that the inflation reduction act funding is offering a 10-year incentive to consumers and industry to install HPWHs the DOE has put forward a tool designed specifically to help plumbing contractors quickly assess the opportunity for successful installations.

Josh shares his research and knowledge and guides us through the new heat pump water heater installation tool on the Building America Solution Center. Thanks, Josh, for speaking with me and helping us understand more about HPW Heating as well as some of the obstacles to deploying newer technologies.

Josh Butzbaugh on LinkedIn

Building America Solution Center Heat Pump Water Heater Installation Tool

DOE Career Skills Training Grant Program

Robert Lewis is the Radon Program Manager at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. He wrote a paper and presented on the History of Radon from 1470 to 1984 which I found to be an interesting way to approach the subject of Radon in our homes. Early in my career I combined home inspection with energy ratings and offered a radon measurement service. At the time I had to get an EPA radon certification and ever since I have been puzzled by how little builders think about radon and the installation of a simple passive radon mitigation system. As Robert says and alludes to in our conversation, “radon mitigation systems in new construction are a cost-effective insurance policy to protect against lung cancer since you have no idea of the potential of the problem until the house has been occupied.

My conversation with Robert not only discusses history, but also what radon is, how it migrates into our homes, as well as mitigation systems. I don’t think we can talk about high performance homes, without also including Radon in the conversation.

Robert Lewis on LinkedIn

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Radon Division

2024 IRC Appendix BE Radon Control Methods

EPA Radon resources

AARST is now Indoor Environments Association™

EPA Indoor airPLUS program