More Bang for Your Environmental Buck

“Without a question, we need better air tightness and better insulation. That is the best place to spend your dollars,” shares Paul Kriescher, Expert in Mechanical Design Engineering and Energy Management and Executive Producer and host of Heart of a Building. Paul explains that people often have costly misconceptions regarding how to make their building more energy efficient. In today’s episode, Paul discusses his feelings of dismay when he sees that even custom built homes are being made with little regard to future performance, and how involving an engineer right from the start would fix a lot of the issues. 

 

According to Paul, the goal for any building should be for it to last for a minimum of 100 years. While fixing up old buildings to make them more energy efficient should be a priority, there isn’t enough of them to rely solely on solar panels. Many people make the mistake of thinking that solar panels are the first step to making their home more efficient. But Paul explains that If a building is made like swiss cheese, putting solar panels on is not going to fix the underlying problem. The best way to begin making a home or building more environmentally efficient is to tighten up the building by adding better insulation and fixing air leakage.

 

Tune into this week’s episode of Better Buildings, Better Society for a conversation to learn more about how to improve buildings without solar panels and what other options are available to you, so you can begin to increase energy efficiency in both new construction and renovations. 

 

Quotes

• “Even people building custom homes are building them really poorly. When it comes to performance, I have been asking, “where are the engineers working on this?” (9:34-9:44)

• "The best way to get some replication of great projects is to share the stories." (12:20-12:25)

• "100 year construction is what we should be aiming for. Fix those old buildings. We don't want to tear them down because of the embodied carbon that's in them." (23:54-24:17 | Host)

• “If you are a financially-minded person, and you are in development, you have to look at passive houses." (25:20-25:26)

• “I believe the built environment is responding. It moves and shifts slowly, but it is shifting." (39:35-39:44)

• "Without a question, we need better air tightness and better insulation. That is the best place to spend your dollars." (52:15-52:21)

• "I wish I would have been wise enough to look for help in areas where we are still learning.” (55:03-55:09)

 

Learn more about Paul Kriescher:

Phone: (303) 525-1158

Email: PaulK@heartofabuilding.com

Heart of a Building’s website – www.HeartofaBuilding.com

Heart of a Building on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/heartofabuilding/

Heart of a Building on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR-nkC9oPAE98ZoPO0AucPA

Heart of a Building on Linked-In - https://www.linkedin.com/company/heart-of-a-building/?viewAsMember=true

Learn more about Better Buildings, Better Society:

Website | https://www.dma-eng.com/

LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/dma-engineering/

Steven’s Personal LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-forrester-36a91517/

Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/dma_engineering/ 

 

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