BUILDTank / buildCAST

BUILDTank / buildCAST

By Robby Schwarz

At BuildTank, our mission is to use what we learn applying building science to affect meaningful change in the construction industry. The buildCAST is the next step. Through broad conversations, we learn something new from our guests’ story that could be the catalyst to take sustainable buildings to mainstream building. Concentrating on the quest's “story” as much as on their expertise revealing a journey and key information that can help us attain our goal to move our industry forward and make high performance building mainstream building .

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#3-2024 BUILDcast Focused: Short, Concentrated, Informative

BUILDTank / buildCASTFeb 07, 2024
00:00
05:49
#10-2025 Lisa Morey – Colorado Earth and Nova Terra
May 10, 202558:29
#9-2025 Sam Myers Building Scientist at Retrotec
Apr 27, 202552:57
#8-2025 Steve Baden – A retrospective with RESNET’S founding Executive Director

#8-2025 Steve Baden – A retrospective with RESNET’S founding Executive Director

Thanks for listening to the buildCAST. In this episode we hear from Steve Baden, the founding Executive director of the Residential Energy Services Network or RESNET. RESNET is the governing body of the HERS home energy rating industry which was established in 1995 by the National Association of State Energy Officials, Energy Rated Homes of America, and the National Mortgage Industry Association to develop a national market for home energy rating systems and energy-efficient mortgages.  I was in the first energy Rater training and became the 32nd certified rater in Colorado in 1995.  Soon after I met Steve at the first RESNET conference held at the Florida Solar Energy Center when I was on the board of directors of Energy Rated Homes of Colorado.

Even before Jimmy Carter’s infamous, wear a sweater speech from the oval office Steve’s path to energy efficiency came though politics. He found himself in Alaska at the state energy office leading an initiative called “Warming Homes for Alaskans” which received the 1993 national award for the most outstanding state housing program, and which set the stage for a national home energy rating program that RESNET grew out of.

Steve has worked in the residential energy efficiency field for 30 years, including eighteen years with home energy ratings and energy mortgages on both the state and national levels, and ten years administering the Alaska State Energy Office. Steve is the founding executive director of RESNET and has just announced that he will be retiring on December 31st, 2025.  I have known Steve from the beginning of the founding of RESNET and my time as a board member of Energy Rated Homes of Colorado and was so happy to have the opportunity to recap his career on the buildCAST before his last day. 

Thanks for all you have done for the Industry Steve.

Steve Baden on LinkedIn


RESNET - Residential Energy Services Network


Apr 13, 202501:05:52
#7-2025 Nicole Tysvaer (Tis-vare) and the Queen of Zero in new homes and renovations.

#7-2025 Nicole Tysvaer (Tis-vare) and the Queen of Zero in new homes and renovations.

Thank you to Nicole Tysvaer Founder and CEO of Symbi Homes for being on the BUILDCast. Symbi Homes is a sustainable construction firm reinventing home building with an emphasis on wellness, energy-efficiency and technology. Symbi short for Symbiosis immediately got my thinking about building science, systems thinking, and the synergistic interactions that take place in construction of high performance homes. Symbi Homes has decided to follow the DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program specifications to guide their path to high performance building. Uniquely they have also chosen to apply these high-performance specifications to a Queen Ann Victorian complex form as well as in their current remodel and addition current project. To me this beautifully demonstrates that homes of all shapes and sizes can pursue high performance building when project goals are clearly defined from the start.


Nicole Tysvaer on LinkedIn

Symbi Homes

DOE Zero Energy Ready Home Program

Symbi Homes - Upcoming Educational Sessions

May 2025 - date and time tbd - Retro Rambler Pre-Drywall Walk Through (Kensington, MD)      

  • Take a look inside the walls of this mid-century deep energy retrofit and addition project working towards Zero Energy Ready certification. 

August 2025 - date and time tbd - High-Performance Builder Expo  (Kensington, MD)      

  • Tour the completed Retro Rambler high-performance home and learn about the sustainable products and processes used to create a net zero ready retrofit.

For more information and updates on these events, sign-up for news on the Symbi Homes website.

Mar 31, 202558:43
#6 – 2025 Mike Collignon Green Builder Coalition and the Water Efficiency Rating Score
Mar 16, 202501:02:41
#5-2025 REDT Homes- Becoming a regional production LEED Platinum builder in Colorado
Mar 03, 202501:02:43
#4- 2025 Stephen Kane and the SPAN Smart Electrical Panel
Feb 16, 202555:52
#3 -2025 Jacob Deva Racusin Co-Founder and Director of Building Science and Sustainability with New Frameworks
Feb 02, 202501:01:47
#2-2025 Rob Howard, of Howard Building Science
Jan 20, 202557:50
#1-2025 Randy Williams – Applied Building Science, Energy Performance, and Cold Climate Construction
Jan 08, 202556:43
#11-2024 BUILDcast - FOCUSED Certainteed Solar Shingle & RHEEM HPWH

#11-2024 BUILDcast - FOCUSED Certainteed Solar Shingle & RHEEM HPWH

Dec 23, 202408:08
#26 - 2024 Robby Riffs on the 2027 International Energy Conservation Code
Dec 15, 202454:24
#10-2024 BUILDcast - FOCUSED Joe Medosch & Measure Quick

#10-2024 BUILDcast - FOCUSED Joe Medosch & Measure Quick

Dec 09, 202417:48
#25-2024 - Josh Butzbaugh - Building America Solution Center HPWH Installation Tool
Dec 01, 202401:09:29
#2024-24 Robert Lewis – The History of Radon
Nov 17, 202401:04:51
#23-2024 Dennis Helblig – Continuing to Bring Solar Energy to New Construction
Nov 04, 202401:00:50
#22-2024 Scott Doyle - RESNET Quality Assurance
Oct 21, 202458:59
#21-2024 Nick Hurst and the EPA Indoor airPLUS Program

#21-2024 Nick Hurst and the EPA Indoor airPLUS Program

Early on in my carrier when working for a regional production builder, the president and owner suggested that indoor air quality was that path forward to communicate the benefits of applied building science, resilient, and energy efficient construction. I think he was right, but it still has taken living through covid to get the consumer to understand its importance to health in our homes.  Version 2 of the Indoor airPLUS program, which has just been released, will help us better understand the complexities of indoor air quality while pointing to relatively simple things we can do to ensure we build for better air quality.  It’s more than ventilation and filtration, it’s the fundamentals of applied building science and systems thinking, packaged in such a way that builders can truly market the benefits.

Nick Hurst is a renaissance man who, as you will hear, has been able to incorporate his love of music with his work in applied building science. He comes from the construction industry but has changed his focus from being a contractor and educator to being the EPA’s program manager for the Indoor airPLUS program. After learning more about Nick’s path to the EPA we hunker down and work our way through this newly released program.  I must note up front that although we accurately reflect the direction of version 2 of the IAP the discussion reflects the opinions of Nick and myself and not necessarily those of the EPA.

Nick Hurst on LinkedIn

Indoor AirPlus Version 2

Formaldehyde Emission Standards for Composite Wood Products

Frequent Questions for Consumers about the Formaldehyde Standards for Composite Wood Products Act

Oct 07, 202401:12:01
#20-2024 Stephen Davis - Product Manager and Director of Building Science for Quadrant Performance Materials.
Sep 23, 202401:16:58
 #9-2024 BUILDcast FOCUSED - Rock Wool and Warm Board from the IBS show
Sep 13, 202411:22
#19-2024 Dave Roberts Retires from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory

#19-2024 Dave Roberts Retires from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory

I was able to speak with Dave Roberts just before he retired from the National Renewable Energy Lab after a full carrier leading a group of talented engineers and scientists who have been leveraging computer modeling and simulation to address pressing residential building efficiency, electrification, and carbon related issues in our country.

 

I first met Dave when he worked in software development with REMRate which at the time was the most widely used energy modeling software developed to create the RESNET HERS Energy Rating Index. He has been heavily involved with RESENT over the years as a member of the ANSI standards development committee and chair of the software calculations subcommittee.  We have become friends, and I wanted to be sure to speak with him on the buildCAST before his retirement to be able to better understand his carrier and catalog is contribution to our industry. 

 

Unfortunately, my side of the conversation did not record well and sounds a bit rough, but luckily for you Dave did most of the talking and he is well worth listening to. What he has to say puts a lot of our applied building science and other work with residential buildings into better context and he leaves a research question on the table for us to aspire to answer, hopefully in the near future.

 

Thanks, Dave, for all you have done, and I truly hope you have a wonderful and fruitful next stage of life.  All the best.

Dave Roberts on LinkedIn

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

RESNET

Sep 09, 202453:51
#18-2024 Eric Werling - Formerly the DOE Building America Program Director and now the Principal Consultant at Home Innovation Strategies

#18-2024 Eric Werling - Formerly the DOE Building America Program Director and now the Principal Consultant at Home Innovation Strategies

Aug 26, 202401:00:20
# 17 – 2024 Peter Yost Principal of Building Wright

# 17 – 2024 Peter Yost Principal of Building Wright

Aug 12, 202401:02:31
#16 -2024 Eric Kaiser Industry Engagement Manager Tru Tech Tools
Jul 29, 202401:02:51
#8-2024 BUILDcast FOCUSED - LG’s new Heat Pump Water Heater With Voya Milasinovic
Jul 22, 202409:06
#15 -2024 - Ben Bogie of Building Performance Cooperative
Jul 15, 202458:58
#14 -2024 Joe Medosch, what is Measure Quick
Jul 01, 202401:03:29
#13 -2024 Sara Gutterman CEO Green Builder Media
Jun 16, 202451:02
#7-2024 BUILDcast FOCUSED - Cold Climate Heat Pumps with Shawn Lemons

#7-2024 BUILDcast FOCUSED - Cold Climate Heat Pumps with Shawn Lemons

12 Minutes of concise information for you on Cold Climate Heat Pumps.


Enjoy

Jun 07, 202412:26
#12 -2024 Asa Foss EnergyStar and NextGen electrification for new homes
Jun 02, 202401:03:12
#11-2024 Allison Bailes HVAC Design and All Things Heat Pumps
May 20, 202401:03:37
#10-2024 Emily Mottram Architect and the Pretty Good House
May 05, 202401:05:59
#6-2024 BUILDcast FOCUSED - Dr. Robert Tino Sonora 10 Minutes on the Economics affecting the building industry

#6-2024 BUILDcast FOCUSED - Dr. Robert Tino Sonora 10 Minutes on the Economics affecting the building industry

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

Apr 22, 202410:39
#9-2024 Dr. Ian Giammanco and IBHS’s Thunderstorm Ready Home
Apr 22, 202401:05:31
#8 -2024 IBS and all things Heat Pump Water Heating
Apr 08, 202451:46
#7-2024 Devon Tilly – The Art of Construction a platform that is bring people together in the construction industry

#7-2024 Devon Tilly – The Art of Construction a platform that is bring people together in the construction industry

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, BS and Beer is only a platform that brings together lifelong learners who turn out to be the master facilitators affecting change in the construction industry.  I see now the journey that Devon took me on as cohost on these podcast and am thankful that I had the opportunity to take it with him.

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

Mar 24, 202401:28:50
#4-2024 BUILDcast-FOCUSED (Navien Hydro-Furnace)
Mar 20, 202408:48
#3-2024 BUILDcast - FOCUSED (10 Minutes on the Federal tax Credits)
Mar 15, 202409:53
#6-2024 Robert Tino Sonora Clinical Professor of Finance and adjunct professor of economics at the College of Business, University of Montana

#6-2024 Robert Tino Sonora Clinical Professor of Finance and adjunct professor of economics at the College of Business, University of Montana

Mar 10, 202401:12:20
#5- 2024 Enrico Bonilauri – A report on the performance of 12 Building Standards

#5- 2024 Enrico Bonilauri – A report on the performance of 12 Building Standards

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.

Enrico Bonilauri on Linkedin

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 EVALUATING ZERO NET ENERGY AND ZERO NET CARBON BUILDING PERFORMANCE

Feb 25, 202401:01:46
#4 – 2024 Kohta Ueno from Mentee to Mentor
Feb 13, 202458:18
#3-2024 BUILDcast Focused: Short, Concentrated, Informative
Feb 07, 202405:49
#2-2024 BUILDcast-FOCUSED: 9 minutes with Martin Holladay
Feb 02, 202410:46
#3 – 2024 Paul Raymer – The Renaissance Man of Building Science

#3 – 2024 Paul Raymer – The Renaissance Man of Building Science

Paul Raymer comes from a long line of inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs. He’s added writing to the mix, and has published 4 novels, three of which follow his protagonist, Jon Megquire’s, trials with buildings and murder, and three handbooks, including the residential ventilation handbook, that give one the information needed to select and install appropriate ventilation systems for any home.

Paul’s not an engineer, but he has the mind of one. Taking a correspondence course in consumer electronics launched his entrepreneurial and inventing carrier. He’s started several companies and invented and developed a wide array of products in a number of different industries. Around the time of the oil embargo in the late 1970s, Paul was swept into the magic of building science when he moved into an old inn on Cape Cod that needed a lot of work and a lot of energy to keep warm.  He has become an expert in ventilation and is currently working with the consulting firm ICF and the EPA’s Indoor airPLUS program.

I think writing is Paul’s real passion, however, so I put a link in the show notes to all his books. He says that “Writing is the transfer of information and ideas.  It is like writing music or painting, photography, or any other art.  The right words can create sounds or smells or images or people.  It weaves together the magic of imagination in other human minds.


Paul Raymer on LinkedIn

Paul Raymer books, blog, and more:

ASHRAE Standard 62.2. - Ventilation and Acceptable Indoor Air Quality in Low-Rise Residential Buildings

Indoor airPLUS

RESNET ANSI Standard 380

Jan 29, 202450:42
#1-2024 BUILDcast /FOCUSED: short and sweet info for you
Jan 20, 202404:18
#2-2024 Martin Holladay - a self-made building scientist
Jan 14, 202401:07:09
#1 - 2024 Pat Huelman, a career in Building Science Education and Research
Jan 01, 202458:11
#26 -2023 Ken Levenson Executive Director at The Passive House Network
Dec 18, 202357:06
#25 -2023 Lisa White Associate Director PHIUS on all things PHIUS
Dec 04, 202356:19
#24 -2023 Ross Trethewey Principal Te2 Engineering. Making HVAC design understandable.
Nov 20, 202301:00:54