Top all-time · #3078
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Energy Vanguard
Company blog · energyvanguard.com/blogsciencehealth
Energy Vanguard is the company blog at energyvanguard.com, writing about science and health. Since 2016, 25 different Hacker News readers have linked it 31 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-21, and you can follow it by feed.
31mentions?
25HN people?
2016–2026first – last linked?
Too few sampled comments (23) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
A building-science and HVAC blog that HN readers link when discussing insulation, air sealing, R-values, duct design, heat pumps and indoor air quality, often as a source for a point.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 23 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
THE LATEST FROM THE ENERGY VANGUARD BLOG
Most-linked posts?
- /blog/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-04-02
What Hacker News says?
Not in a way meaningful to assessing infectious risk, no. I consider outdoor air to be unshared, except in cases of large dense crowds (such as say outdoor festivals or sporting events). I consider risky shared air to be indoor air with one or more other individuals that are not known to be taking infection-prevention precautions. One can measure CO₂ as a proxy to rebreathed air fraction. For example, a CO₂ reading…
Comment linking /blog/what-a-carbon-dioxide-monitor-tells-you/
on “Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright”Submitted Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death as a story · 427 points
HN discussion> everything that reduces the need for HVAC This is the answer! Even more important than insulation is air sealing, so you keep the conditioned air inside. I've learned an enormous amount about building efficiency from https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/ and https://www.energyvanguard.com/
Comment linking /
on “Pfizer is testing a pill that, if successful, could cure Covid-19”Submitted My undersized heat pump in an Arctic blast as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThe all-in-one heat pump hot water heater pulls in warm air from its surroundings, pulls the heat out of it and puts that into its water. Then it lets out its "exhaust" colder air. Ducting to outdoors improves things, because it doesn't put that cold air back into your basement / utility closet, but you're still pulling heat out of the air - which your house heater now has to put back into the air - and unless your…
Comment linking /blog/will-a-heat-pump-water-heater-freeze-your-basement/
on “DOE announces breakthrough in residential cold climate heat pump technology”Submitted 61 Things We Should Ban to Improve Home Building as a story · 2 points
HN discussionYour first claim was so interesting I had to Google it. But this article suggests it doesn't hold up. https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/will-shading-your-air-co... Moneyquote: "The temperature of the surrounding air has a much bigger effect on cooling efficiency than direct solar gain, and the volume of air pulled in by an air conditioner is huge."
Comment linking /blog/will-shading-your-air-conditioner-save-you-money
on “Efficient Air-Conditioning Beams Heat into Space”Submitted How to Make a Comparetto Cube as a story · 1 points
HN discussion> Maybe give people free HVAC upgrades to filter more particles. HVAC and indoor air quality (IAQ) is a fascinating topic and it takes good design to get it right. In most HVAC systems you can't just stick a higher MERV filter in and expect good results because they are designed for specific amounts of air flow. Thicker filters cause more air resistance which reduces air flow and fan efficiency which means less comf…
Comment linking /blog/7-reasons-your-filter-isnt-improving-your-indoor-air-quality
on “Depression and suicide linked to air pollution in new global study”This is much less of a good idea than you think: https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/75600/The-1-Reason-Power... A whole house fan is a very different story, but it’s only really useful in some climates.
Comment linking /blog/75600/The-1-Reason-Power-Attic-Ventilators-Don-t-Help
on “Cooling a house without air conditioning”I googled this, because I did find it hard to believe, and I think you're correct. According to the below source, for example, heating a home in Atlanta, Georgia throughout the winter months costs about twice as much as air conditioning it in the summer months. [0]: http://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/30576/Heating-or-Cooling-...
Comment linking /blog/30576/Heating-or-Cooling-Which-Costs-You-More
on “Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps”Indoor air quality means different things to different people. There are so many chemicals and particles that qualify as air 'pollution' that I find it helpful to rank how important they are. This article does a good job of quantifying the damage by pollutant, using a metric called 'Disability Adjusted Life Years': https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/which-indoor-air-polluta... You can see that while there are a lot…
Comment linking /blog/which-indoor-air-pollutants-matter-most
on “Air Pollution in Our Homes”It depends on your goals. One saying is that "a good window is still a poor wall". A quality double glazed window still has about 10x the heatloss of a well built wall. Here's a summary with a link to more: http://www.energyvanguard.com/blog-building-science-HERS-BPI... Shades can help with privacy, but what if you want the privacy at the same time you want to be capturing heat? And if requires active control --- we…
Comment linking /blog-building-science-HERS-BPI/bid/55519/A-Good-Window-Is-Still-a-Poor-Wall
on “The Zen of Passive Solar Heating Panel Design (2010)”Matt's videos are worth watching, but it's important to note most his videos are motivated by his sponsorships and it's often hard to parse out when he's shilling and when he's not. Betters resources with real science can be found at * https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/ * https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/
Comment linking /blog/
on “Does LEED Certification Save Energy? Evidence from Federal Buildings”- Mz · 2017-11-25
There are multiple articles readily found about complications of using positive pressure: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/581344_7 http://www.mdedge.com/ecardiologynews/dsm/5224/hospital-medi... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2199002 To my mind, this is actually related: https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/54084/Why-I-m-Not-a-Fan-... One of the problems you run into with any lung related mechanical devices…
Comment linking /blog/54084/Why-I-m-Not-a-Fan-of-Positive-Pressure-Mechanical-Ventilation
on “A Callout: Parts for an Iron Lung” > No, this is Australia. Houses are more like tents than actual buildings. Pre-AC being ubiquitous (or being invented), the way for people to cool off in summer was to have airflow. Insulation was a more of a cold climate thing, as keeping the heat in / cold out was more intuitive when burning wood or coal: thermal boundaries were more 'needed' when there was snow outside. Having thermal boundaries in your structure…
Comment linking /blog/Myth-A-House-Needs-to-Breathe
on “A near 100pct renewable grid for Australia is feasible and affordable”Ever since buying a house I've been engrossed in this topic along with indoor air-quality and mechanical HVAC systems. There's so much to know about these topics and I feel it helps when dealing with HVAC companies to make sure I'm getting what I want and not be price-gouged. One expert I follow on these topics is Allison Bailes, he has a blog entry on a similar topic of duct design[0]. I find his way of breaking do…
Comment linking /blog/basic-principles-duct-design/
on “Duct Size vs. Airflow (2012)”R-Values. Exponential going the wrong direction. After R-15 or so you slip into the long tail. Good article here- http://www.energyvanguard.com/blog-building-science-HERS-BPI... PH is performance based, but the religion is a bit excessive on R. I do greatly value the air tightness and the quantitative approach. High R-Value walls are tough to build and get expensive quick. Double wall, exterior sheathing, more parts…
Comment linking /blog-building-science-HERS-BPI/bid/76941/The-Diminishing-Returns-of-Adding-More-Insulation
on “Show HN: Acre Designs (YC W16) - Zero-Energy Smarthomes as a Consumer Product”> Also just a guess: is the story with heating that your heat pump is sized based on your max heating load, and so losing up to 25% of its capacity on the coldest days means it would never be able to catch up? The unit I have has a HSPF2 rating of 10.5. It's very efficient at the transfer of the heat available. Heat pumps can extract more energy than the consume. New heat pumps can operate over 300% efficiency. The…
Comment linking /blog/can-a-heat-pump-work-in-minnesota/
on “Batteries and Renewables Are Saving Texas During the Heat Wave”He talks about transport and heating That doesn't leave much left when you look at the energy flow once you remove domestic, commercial and transportation usage and replace it with electricity. A tiny amount left for plane s(and reducing per flight as planes get more efficent and battery planes start coming to market), and industrial gas usage. https://www.energyvanguard.com/attachment/llnl-us-energy-flo...
Comment linking /attachment/llnl-us-energy-flows-sankey-diagram-2021/
on “Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid”> It was set to 69 and held steady at 67 running for 8.5 hours. It wasn't until the temperature outside broke 36 that the inside temp slowly started to climb. This may be normal. Standard practice, per ASHRAE, is to design for 99% of days, and for the remaining 1% (~4 days per year) the system may have to run 24/7 (either for heating or cooling): * https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/we-are-the-99-design-tem... * ht…
Comment linking /blog/why-an-oversized-air-conditioner-is-a-bad-idea/
on “Heat pumps can't take the cold? Nordics debunk the myth”> Typically only around 90% of the energy is recovered, even in ideal conditions. As opposed to the 0% of energy recovered when a house "breathes" (i.e., leaks like a sieve) and lets out all the conditioned air? > That sounds good, but considering that for 'good air', you really want to be replacing the air fully every 10 minutes. [citation needed] ASHRAE 62.2 does not mandate nearly that much air exchange. A 2,000…
Comment linking /blog/lstiburek-has-new-ventilation-standard-resistance-may-not-be-futile/
on “Insulation: First the body, then the home (2011)”>> Tracking your humidity […] > I know nothing about the product other than seeing some enthusiasm for it on HN, but writing like this would typically be enough for me to discount purchasing anything from the company. There is a bunch of research on which things grow (or do not grow) at various humidity levels, and having your structure be in the 40-60% range tends to help in reducing various things you don't want t…
Comment linking /blog/bad-advice-about-indoor-humidity-in-cold-weather/
on “Cooking on gas could be behind kids' asthma symptoms”DIY forum, https://ecorenovator.org/forum/ HVAC blog, https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/ HVAC pro forum, https://hvac-talk.com/vbb/ Heating forum, https://forum.heatinghelp.com/
Comment linking /blog/
on “Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers for Healthier Energy-Efficient Homes”> Metal buildings don’t breathe. Humidity condenses on the metal, turns into mould, then you have real problems. Neither do modern homes made out of timber and wood sheathing. This is a good thing. Humans need to breathe, not buildings. Buildings need to be able to dry: * https://www.energyvanguard.com/book-house-needs-breathe-or-d... * https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/myth-a-house-needs-to-br... * https://www.gr…
Comment linking /blog/myth-a-house-needs-to-breathe/
on “Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers for Healthier Energy-Efficient Homes”Because in the winter the thermal energy within your room will “flow” out of those “cold spots” at surprisingly high rates; in summer those spots act as space heaters. In both scenarios they will adversely affect the ambient temp of the room. In short, whatever method you use to heat/cool the room will have to work harder and will take longer. Here’s [0] a good overview of heat flow in this context, with some hints…
Comment linking /blog/Flat-or-Lumpy-How-Would-You-Like-Your-Insulation
on “Heat pumps of the 1800s are becoming the technology of the future”> None of this really exists in the residential sector, but maybe it should. The requirements exist in the IRC [1] but are frequently not enforced in many jurisdictions. [1]: https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/2018-building-code-makes...
Comment linking /blog/2018-building-code-makes-change-in-ventilation/
on “Ask HN: Do you measure and/or mitigate CO2 in your living space?”
