Bill:
I looked at the referred site. My comments:
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There’s a person who should get out of the office a bit.
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She’s bought and paid. Look at how many vent companies she recommended.
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She should look at some alternate stuff like “recent” research going back to the 1950’s
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As one researcher said (may be Joe Lstiburek): You can draw all the arrows you want on paper to tell the air where to go but you can’t guarantee it’ll go there.
I will now quote another different source of “new” information about attic ventilation. From a 1980’s paper, *Attic Ventilation and Air Sealing: A Technical Review of the Issues, *prepared for the NY State Energy Research Authority and NY Dept.of State:
“Some attics have no problems even when “undervented”, while other attics develop problems with presumably adequate venting.”
"HOUSE-TO-ATTIC AIR LEAKAGE: The moisture and, to some extent, thermal implications of house-to-attic air leakage were first noted by FB Rowley of the U. of Minnesota in the late 1940’s. In the early 1960’s, other Canadian and American researchers indicated that air leakage is indeed more important than vapor diffusion, but few practioners paid attention."
“The primary driving forces for transporting air --and therefore moisture–into attics are inside/outside temperature differences and building height, yet neither of these factors are taken into account in current ventilation standards.”
“In fact, there is no guarantee that provide a specified area of venting openings will yield some desired level of ventilation.”
Here’s another opinion of the state of the field of architecture in North America regarding building science. From the front page lead article of the June 2005 issue of Energy Design Update Teaching Architects Building Science:
"In his recently published book, Water in Buildings, (Bill) Rose quotes Max Abramovitz, the architect of the United Nations headquarters in NY, who lamented in 1949, “Actually. I am very concerned that the science of building is going to disappear. I wonder if you realize how very few men are left today who are expert in building science. They are very rare and they are passed around among the large architectural offices. You have to dig them out of their holes and revive them”
My comment after teaching a couple of terms at the architectural faculty of a university:
No wonder that about 50% of lawsuits against architects today are for water leakage; If you’re not taught the basics, you can’t build good buildings. Design and the fine art sensibility run through most architectural schools today. Another comment from the article when talking about building science at the likes of MIT and U. of California at Berkeley, " But at both schools the curriculum has not been extended, so the number of building technology courses is still relatively small!"