BUILDTank / buildCAST

Dr. Robert Tino Sonora 10 Minutes on the Economics affecting the building industry

Dr. Ian Giammanco is the Managing Director for Standards & Data Analytics and a Lead Research Meteorologist at the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety Center. He has been instrumental in the creation of IBHS’s Thunderstorm Ready Home program which was created in the wake of severe weather events. In 2023 alone 20 states were impacted by 19 severe convective storm events, each causing over $1 billion in damage.

Building from the Fortified Homes, Fortified, Roof, and Wildfire Prepared homes programs the voluntary Thunderstorm Ready Home program is another example of the results of applied research and inspection that IBHS is doing to impacting the built environment in positive ways.

Dr. Ian Giammanco on LinkedIn

About Dr. Ian Giammanco

IBHS Thunderstorm Ready Homes

Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS)

IBHS Research video

The ability to take a deep dive into construction topics is never greater than at IBS. Because of the electrification of our home’s movement, my work in the Marshall Fire rebuild and the huge incentives that are now available to those electrify their homes, I chose to dive into heat pump water heating. Yes, they are more efficient at heating hot water, but several questions still needed to be answered. Are they loud, how much do they lower the ambient room temperature, what’s their recovery efficiency, can you use a recirculation loop, why is the contracting community still dragging their heals, and are they more difficult to install and maintain, where just a few? I was able to speak with American Standard, AO Smith, Rannie, did you know they now are offering a heat pump water heater, and Rheem whose conversation will be released on a buildCAST FOCUSED episode.  I was also able to speak with Master Plumber Eric Aune after one of his IBS trade floor in booth talks.  All in all, I think I was interesting to hear the relative consistency of answers from the different manufacturers of water heating heat pumps and to feel a little more grounded in my ability to recommend their installation.

AO Smith Heat Pump Water Heaters

Rinnai Heat Pump Water Heaters

Eric Aune

Aune Plumbing and Heating

Mechanical Hub

Make Trades Great Again Podcast

Haven IAQ

I could not find a link to a Canadian 380 Ventilation Standard but I found this

Ventilation and the indoor environment

Devon Tilly is a visionary who sought me out to partner on a deep dive series on his Art of Construction podcast. He speaks often about platforms and master facilitators, and it took me quite some time to better understand that he is a big thinker whose objective is to bring the construction community together. Platforms can be companies, networking groups, like BS and Beer Metro Denver that I started, or other such organizations that are the catalyst that bring people together to effect change and move an industry forward. Master facilitators are those individuals that help lead the way to creating dynamic synergistic outcomes when people are brought together around a common interest.

There are four parts to this deep dive series, but only edited versions of episodes 3 and 4 are included here, largely Because episode 1 is an interview of me and episode 2 is about a larger commercial efficiency program.  Episodes 3 and 4 give us a better understanding of Devon and his goal of building a master facilitator community as well as discussing some interesting building science around windows and heat pumps.  

Links to Full unedited versions of each podcast can be found in the show notes

Loosely Devon’s Art of Construction deep dive series revolved around BS and Beer Metro Denver. But in reality,

Devon Tilly on LinkedIn

Mountain View Windows

The Art of Construction

Deep Dive Series Episode 1: Foundations in Building Science

Deep Dive Series Episode 2: Energize Denver

Deep Dive Series Episode 3: LIVE BS + Beer Q&A

Deep Dive Series Episode 4: Building science in action, with heat pumps

Navien Hydro

Section 45L Tax Credits for Zero Energy Ready Homes

Homeowner Tax Credits

I reached out to Dr. Robert "Tino" Sonora, clinical professor of finance and adjunct professor of economics at the University of Montana and one of my oldest friends, because I had just listened to a “Planet Critical” podcast that posed the question, in countries that print their own currency, can we make the electrification transition faster. The premise of this question uses Modern Monetary Theory, which I cannot claim to understand, but in my simplistic mind I learned that we may want to question the politic argument that our federal government must balance the budget and that our $34 trillion dollar debt is a problem.  

The simplistic analogy that equates the federal economic budget to a family’s budget and debt is bogus.  Having a balanced family budget and little debt is important but on a nation state scale, and especially in a country that prints its own currency, it is not crucial. Look at the fact that the United States has carried a debt since 1775 in order to pay for the American Revolution. So this lesson in economics may just create more questions than it answers but I am so thankful to Tino for expanding our understanding of one aspect of the transition from a fossil fuel based economy to a renewable based economy.

Robert Sonora at University of Montana

Robert Sonora on LinkedIn

Planet Critical – “What We Get Wrong About Money , with Steven Hail”

There is no doubt that Enrico Bonilauri is a passionate advocate for performance based Passive House construction. He has recently researched and publishing a white paper report comparing twelve building standards used in the United States which concludes that current building codes and building programs fail to deliver resilient and healthy buildings for their occupants.

His conclusions are the result of modeling 50 homes to determine the minimum compliance requirements in each of the twelve building standards using the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) software.

Enrico boils his thoughts down to why Passive House performance-based construction should be widely adopted by stating in his paper that, “… one of the greatest challenges the American construction industry faces is to start setting specific goals to how a building performs. That is, instead of setting prescriptive requirements for individual building components.”

We see all the time that builders just want to be told what to do prescriptively, if instead, we concentrated on what we must do to perform would we be in a better place?  I don’t know but we will figure it out together through my conversation with Enrico Bonilauri of Emu Passive.

Emu Passive Report on Building Standards

Emu Passive Report on Building Standards YouTube

EMU Passive Building Science

Ice Box Challenge

ANSI/ASHRAE STANDARD 228, STANDARD METHOD OF

I first met Kohta early in my carrier after I got laid off from a builder, started my own company, and then that same builder became my client.  When I worked for them, we

As you will hear, serendipity fell into Kohta’s lap, as he started a lifelong mentorship with Joe Lstiburek and Betsy Pettit, the founders of Building Science Corporation.  Over time Kohta has become one of the great Building Scientists that we look up to and now the mentee is mine and many others mentor.

I believe that Kohta is wicked smart, but he is also one of the most humble and gracious people I have met, and that is what I appreciate most about him. 

Kohta thank you for all you do for the construction industry.

Kohta Ueno on LinkedIn

Building Science Corporation

Kohta Ueno in Fine Homebuilding Magazine