Whisperer's Bookstore
Building Science is intense. These are some of the books that helped me learn it, and a bunch more that have helped me learn in general.
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Switch: How to change things when change is hard. Chip and Dan Heath This is basically the playbook for change. Do yourself a favor and get a copy. One of the best books I've ever read. |
Measured Home Performance by Lew Harriman You'll see themes of my book in here. Do things right the first time. Measure as much as you can. Learn what works and what doesn't. It's based on the work of California rock stars like Mike MacFarland of Energy Docs and Gavin Healy/Dan Perunko of Balance Point Home Performance. Lew cowrote the EPA's Moisture Control Handbook too. |
The Home Comfort Book
by Nate Adams Learn how your house actually works so you can solve problems the first time. Also available in digital form for less here. Signed copies available here. |
Want a signed copy of The Home Comfort Book?
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The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman I told you these weren't all building science related! Whenever my wife and I get out of balance, it's usually because we aren't feeding the other's love language needs. We try to read this every year. |
Residential Energy 6th Edition by John Krigger This is the textbook for my world. I meant my book to serve as an onramp to this one. |
Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock A group of laymen were pitted against intelligence officers with full access to classified material and asked to predict world events like the fall of Qadaffi in Libya. The laymen ended up destroying the pros. It turned out how they went about predicting was what made the difference. In our world, we make predictions of what's going to happen to client homes. Many say that it's not predictable. We disagree, and the methods in this book are very similar to ours. |
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Water in Buildings by Bill Rose This is an intense textbook about moisture in buildings. Bill Rose has one of my favorite lines ever, which happens to be about attic ventilation. It's from 2009 when Britney Spears' antics were in the news daily. "Attic ventilation is the Britney Spears of Building Science: no newscast would be complete without it, but it contains absolutely no substance." If figuring out why interests you, get the book. Otherwise air seal the bejeebers out of your attic and move on with life. (That's his main point...) This is Allison Bailes of Energy Vanguard's favorite book, he was the one that told me about it. Allison is one of the other people worth reading in the Building Science world. |
Contagious by Jonah Berger Another one of my favorite books. It goes through the science of all the ways things catch on. I need to reread it! |
Builder's Guide: Cold Climates
by Joe Lstiburek Joe basically coined the term building science, his company is Building Science Corp. He's a wildly opinionated guy who actually goes out in the field to see problems and figure out the causes. Which makes him pretty amazing (and uncommon, frankly.) You can't go wrong reading his stuff. This is one of several guides, there are other ones for mixed climates and dry climates. |
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Green Building: Principles and Practices for Residential Construction
By Carl Seville and Abe Kruger Great textbook about new construction. Crazy deep with great illustrations. Once you've read The Home Comfort Book you're ready for this one. |
My House is Killing Me by Jeffrey May Jeff is a good explainer of causes and spot solutions to mold and allergens in your home. If you have allergies in your home, I recommend getting this book. A big weakness is that he does not focus on solving root causes. If you have dust or mold in your house, filter the dust and keep the house dry. That's fixing root causes with Home Performance work. That said, his expertise is awesome and well outside my wheelhouse. This is an easy read. (We both have columns in Healthy Indoors Magazine.) |
Residential Ventilation Handbook
by Paul Raymer Highly detailed book about bath fans, fresh air ventilation, and more. Geek level 9/10. |
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Guerilla Marketing
by Jay Conrad Levinson If you have a small business, you should read this. |
Buildings Don't Lie
by Henry Gifford Henry works in New York City on big apartment buildings. He's figured out through experience how much of how buildings work is counterintuitive and put it all in here. |
