In this episode of the Structure Talk podcast, Reuben Saltzman and Tessa Murry welcome Charles Buell, a veteran in the home inspection community. They discuss Charles’s journey into home inspection, the importance of accurate information in the industry, and the unique challenges posed by the marine climate in Seattle. The conversation delves into the impact of night sky radiation on homes, common issues found in attics, and the evolution of HVAC systems. Charles shares his insights on building science and the necessity for home inspectors to stay informed and educated. In this conversation, He shares his extensive experience building energy-efficient homes, discussing the evolution of construction techniques over the decades. He emphasizes the importance of using common materials to create affordable, energy-efficient homes and reflects on his innovative building methods from the 1970s. The discussion also covers the significance of proper ventilation systems, the impact of regional climates on building practices, and the challenges faced in modern construction, particularly regarding installation errors and the need for skilled labor.
Check this link to learn more about Inspector Empire Builder: https://www.iebcoaching.com.
You can find Charles at www.buellinspections.com, and he can be contacted through charlesbuellconsulting@gmail.com.
Takeaways
Charles Buell has been a significant figure in the home inspection community for nearly 20 years.
Accurate information is crucial in the home inspection industry to combat misinformation.
The marine climate presents unique challenges for home inspectors, particularly regarding humidity and condensation.
Night sky radiation can significantly affect roof temperatures and lead to condensation issues in attics.
Home inspectors must understand the science behind air leakage and its effects on homes.
Ventilation alone is not a solution for moisture issues in attics; the source of moisture must be addressed.
Super-insulated homes can benefit from mini-split systems, but older homes may struggle with efficiency.
Ductwork should ideally be located within the conditioned space to improve heating efficiency.
Home inspectors need to be proactive in educating themselves and others about building science.
The importance of community and collaboration among home inspectors is vital for professional growth. Charles Buell has been building energy-efficient homes since the 1970s.
He emphasizes the use of common materials for affordability.
Buell’s homes featured advanced insulation techniques for their time.
Proper ventilation is crucial in energy-efficient homes.
Regional climate significantly influences building practices.
Many modern construction issues stem from improper installation.
Buell advocates for controlling indoor air quality and ventilation.
He believes houses should not require air conditioning if built correctly.
The importance of skilled labor in construction cannot be overstated.
Buell’s innovative techniques have stood the test of time.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction
08:01 Charles Buell’s Journey to Home Inspection
12:18 The Importance of Accurate Information in Home Inspection
14:56 Understanding Marine Climate and Its Challenges
27:30 Night Sky Radiation and Its Impact on Homes
30:02 Common Issues in Attics and HVAC Systems
34:21 The Evolution of Energy-Efficient Homes
43:20 Building Techniques and Innovations
55:34 Ventilation and Indoor Air Quality
57:11 Regional Differences in Building Practices
TRANSCRIPTION
The following is an AI-generated transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is mostly accurate, it will contain some errors due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Reuben Saltzman: Welcome to my house. Welcome to the Structure Talk podcast, a production of Structure Tech Home Inspections. My name is Reuben Saltzman. I’m your host alongside building science geek, Tessa Murry. We help home inspectors up their game through education, and we help homeowners to be better stewards of their houses. We’ve been keeping it real on this podcast since 2019, and we are also the number one home inspection podcast in the world, according to my mom.
Reuben Saltzman (00:01.344)
Welcome back to the structure talk podcast. I’m Ruben Saltzman your host and today I have remembered to make a call out to our show sponsors immediately Shout out to our sponsors IEB Inspector Empire Builder, fantastic group for home inspectors. It’s all kinds of training on how to be a better business owner and let’s be honest how to be a better human. I have learned so much about just relationships with other people through this group. If you want to learn more about IEB, check out the link in our show notes. That’s my, that’s my shout out to IEB. Love these guys. And now I would like to say hello to my co-host Tessa. Tess, how you doing today?
Tessa Murry (00:47.414)
Hi Ruben. Hey, I’m doing well. How are you?
Reuben Saltzman (00:51.756)
I can’t complain. It’s a good day. I mean, I can, we could use some snow here in Minnesota, but I’ve been harping on that for the last like six weeks in a row now. Nothing has changed. Other than that, I’m doing pretty well.
Tessa Murry (01:02.336)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (01:05.996)
It’s been a very dry winter, not a lot of snowmobiling for you, sadly.
Reuben Saltzman (01:09.646)
Absolutely none and none last year either we can we can only we can only hope yeah
Tessa Murry (01:17.44)
There could be worse things in the world though, right?
Reuben Saltzman (01:20.3)
Yeah, most other people aren’t complaining about the lack of snow. You know, it does make it does make transportation a lot easier. Let’s be honest. It makes it easier to inspect houses. We get to inspect roofs. We’ve got two home inspectors in training in the company right now. And it’s really nice to be able to teach them all about roofs for lots and lots of weeks this time of year. I mean,
Tessa Murry (01:31.584)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (01:45.974)
Everything could be completely buried right now. So there’s there’s a lot of pros to it, Yeah.
Tessa Murry (01:49.204)
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Well, should we introduce our guest today? I’m so excited. We have someone, I know we say this a lot, very special on today, but we do. We do have someone very special. And we were just discussing before we started recording, I don’t think we’ve had Charles on our show before, so it is very long overdue. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (02:00.6)
But Charles, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (02:14.936)
So overdue. Yes. my gosh. We got we got Charles Buell on the show and Charles has got to be one of my oldest friends in the home inspection community outside of people here in Minnesota. I’ve known Charles for I don’t know how long have we known of each other Charles like has it been 20 years yet? Probably close to that. Yeah, yeah. And and I don’t mean
Tessa Murry (02:20.938)
Welcome, Charles.
CHARLES BUELL (02:39.056)
It’s gotta be close, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (02:44.352)
just internet friends like he and I have hung out a lot. I mean, when my family went on vacation out to Seattle, which is where Charles is located, we spent like a couple days together. Charles took my whole family hiking in the mountains. Yeah, he went on this like underground city walking tour of downtown Seattle. He did all that with the family and
Tessa Murry (03:00.32)
Really?
Tessa Murry (03:08.873)
Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (03:11.274)
Whenever I mean, if I was just in Seattle recently teaching a class, we got breakfast together, like we just will hang out. And that’s besides any conferences we see each other at. So it’s just always delightful to spend time with Charles, just one of the sweetest guys and one of the most knowledgeable home inspectors you will ever meet. Such such a nice guy.
Tessa Murry (03:21.036)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (03:30.91)
Amen. Amen.
CHARLES BUELL (03:32.089)
I’m not sure how we even met. we meet on an active rain maybe?
Reuben Saltzman (03:35.532)
It was active rain. Yep. Yep. And for anybody who doesn’t know what that is, it’s a, it’s a blogging platform where he and I both blogged like we’d be blog Charles would blog basically every day. I’d be doing it about once a week and we would just read each other’s stuff and comment. And we got to chit chatting online and then we turned into phone calls. And man, we used to spend like
Tessa Murry (03:38.219)
Huh.
Reuben Saltzman (04:03.074)
hours a week just talking on the phone. Remember that? Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (04:06.005)
Yeah, yeah. But you know, it’s kind of interesting because all that blogging is still working for us. You know, I get calls all the time from people and comments that still come in on those posts. And I went in there, maybe a couple of years ago, and there were like, my blog had over 10 million hits.
Tessa Murry (04:07.786)
What a soup.
Reuben Saltzman (04:13.454)
It is.
Tessa Murry (04:13.74)
I’m
Reuben Saltzman (04:31.082)
my goodness, wow.
CHARLES BUELL (04:32.056)
I mean, it’s unbelievable what an engine that was back in those days and anybody that got a start with their blog on there.
Tessa Murry (04:39.916)
Hell is.
Reuben Saltzman (04:43.478)
Yeah, yep, yep. That’s where I really kind of cut my teeth blogging and getting kind of a good outer shell, being a little bit impervious to criticism on that platform because boy, you’d get a lot of it one way or the other.
CHARLES BUELL (04:48.88)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (04:58.99)
Yeah.
It was a great place to get your notions corrected.
Reuben Saltzman (05:06.754)
Yes, yes, for sure.
Tessa Murry (05:07.724)
I didn’t realize you guys had such a sweet bromance. I, you know what I was going to say? I thought before we started recording two hours, I just thinking, Charles, you’re such an inspiration to me because even though you might be, quote, retired on paper, you are someone who is always learning and extremely curious.
Reuben Saltzman (05:14.861)
yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (05:18.64)
you
Tessa Murry (05:34.788)
And you take, I think you take a very lighthearted approach to some very kind of complicated things and you make learning very interesting. You’ve done so many things throughout your career. You started out as a, well you’re kind of a designer, you’re a builder, you were a general contractor for decades. You were trying all these new kind of cutting edge ways of building houses, which I find fascinating. That was way…
Reuben Saltzman (06:03.298)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (06:04.108)
you know, beyond your time period and, you know, super insulated houses and, you know, just all these things that are fascinating. But you continue to kind of dabble in things and learn and share your wisdom with other people. You do this blog, you teach online, you’re… You know what, I go on Facebook every once in a while, but every time I go on, I’m like, you know, I’ll see, you know, questions or…
or comments from other home inspectors or spray foam people. And there’s Charles in the comment section telling everybody the facts about it.
CHARLES BUELL (06:40.068)
Making a nuisance of myself. Making a nuisance of myself, generally.
Reuben Saltzman (06:42.562)
Yeah
Tessa Murry (06:45.068)
You know, I just, I appreciate who you are, Charles, and I appreciate your spirit and your energy and everything that you bring to this industry. But Ruben, I was gonna say, I feel like you’re similar in that way. Both you and Charles, you you approach things with that same curiosity and can-do attitude, and you both blog, you share your information. You’re just good people. So I feel like I’ve got kind of two Charles’ on today.
Reuben Saltzman (07:14.166)
All right, yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (07:14.224)
Well, I feel like Ruben and I both, when we hear something on the internet and our radar goes off, that sounds like bull crap. So we both head to our basements, or in his case his garage, and we attempt to disprove, prove, or sort it out. And there’s a standing joke in our house that if I’m doing electrical experiments in the basement,
Reuben Saltzman (07:25.547)
You
Reuben Saltzman (07:35.127)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (07:36.127)
Yes.
CHARLES BUELL (07:43.012)
comments will come in, well, Julie must be away.
Reuben Saltzman (07:50.094)
Yeah, yeah, she doesn’t she doesn’t care for the lights dimming while you’re doing your mad science tests work in the basement
Tessa Murry (07:54.688)
My gosh, I’m sure Anna’s the, it’s the same thing for Anna when you’re doing plumbing experiments, Reuben.
CHARLES BUELL (07:54.806)
Yay!
Reuben Saltzman (08:01.804)
Right? my goodness. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking of. Well, Charles, if you would just kind of take us through what brought you to getting into the home inspection field. What led up to this? mean, Tessa kind of alluded to some of that, but share your your path with us.
CHARLES BUELL (08:17.84)
We out.
CHARLES BUELL (08:22.16)
Well, basically it got to the point where I couldn’t hammer nails anymore. I was a builder, active builder, not just a general contractor that brought in subs. I was doing the work. My business model was we would spend three months in design and making plans and then we would do the project. So I had to have
Reuben Saltzman (08:27.287)
Okay.
CHARLES BUELL (08:51.938)
employees that liked that model and what better person for that than sport climbers. They loved coming in and working for three months and then going climbing for three months. So it was a good relationship. Most of my employees were climbers in some respect. So when I couldn’t really…
Tessa Murry (09:07.041)
Hmm.
CHARLES BUELL (09:20.718)
hammer nails anymore, or my shoulder from sport climbing wouldn’t allow me to do that. And nobody could really figure out what was wrong with my shoulder and on top of not having any insurance to get anything fixed if they did figure it out. So I morphed into home inspector. My brother-in-law was owned a house master franchise and he said,
you ought to take this class and become a home inspector. So in the middle of all that, licensing was happening in our state. so I got involved in working that out. He actually proposed the first licensing proposal with a senator here. And so I got to be part of working that. And of course,
Eventually that just went out the window and it eventually happened though. I took his, he originally owned the course, the Carson Dunlap course that, and taught it privately to people. And then Bellingham Technical College took over the course from him. I think bought him out or whatever, but.
So now that course is taught at Bellingham, which I teach at. that’s how it happened. And of course, I was inspecting for 18 years and now I’m just doing consulting. I have a legal business name consulting, but you know.
Reuben Saltzman (10:50.498)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (11:01.902)
Okay, all right.
CHARLES BUELL (11:10.22)
It’s fun, so I’m teaching and doing some consulting and generally making a nuisance of myself on the internet as much as possible. Well, there’s no shortage of people coming on and saying idiotic things. And who’s going to counter that? There is no, there’s no police.
Reuben Saltzman (11:18.158)
You’re sharing your wealth of knowledge
Reuben Saltzman (11:34.797)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (11:34.896)
You know, and it comes from there being so much bad information taught in general to home inspectors. It doesn’t matter what course you take, even my own school, the courses have bad information and we’re constantly attempt to fix all that, but it’s entrenched in our industry.
Tessa Murry (11:35.133)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (11:42.819)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (11:43.221)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (11:59.202)
Yeah. Yeah. And I, I used to, I used to help with that, you know, probably 10, maybe up to seven or eight years ago, I used to help with that a lot on the internet. And eventually I just kind of gave up, but, Charles is carrying the torch.
Tessa Murry (12:00.396)
in our world. Yeah, misinformation.
Tessa Murry (12:14.484)
It’s too exhausting.
CHARLES BUELL (12:18.786)
Yeah, I’m I’m stubborn and it is kind of entertaining. I’m retired, so I have time. I feel like I can be a voice, although I feel like it’s not appreciated much. Some days, I feel like there’s a whole swarth of the industry that would…
Tessa Murry (12:19.014)
We appreciate you, Charles. Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (12:48.644)
just as soon not know what’s accurate and what is.
Tessa Murry (12:52.179)
Mm-hmm.
CHARLES BUELL (12:56.886)
Accurate information doesn’t seem to be important as much as just making money. Does that make sense?
Reuben Saltzman (13:04.888)
Yep, yep, I agree.
Tessa Murry (13:06.312)
yes. And I don’t think it’s just home inspectors. I think that’s just kind of where our culture and society is at these days. It’s like fact checking that is out the window. You watch a real on TikTok and you know, you think that that’s that’s the truth. so it’s I appreciate people out there like you Charles that have just a wealth of knowledge and experience to back it up and do the research as well.
CHARLES BUELL (13:17.924)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (13:34.864)
Yeah, but I’ve seen a, you’re welcome. I hope that it helps some people. But you know, when I see the growth of absurd things like the Flat Earth Movement and some of these other people that don’t believe we ever went to the moon or that we…
Tessa Murry (13:35.754)
We need more people like you out there. So thank you. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (13:54.828)
Mm.
CHARLES BUELL (14:02.864)
There’s no such thing as space outside, know, that somehow, all of that really bothers me that we’re at a point where it’s an accepted rationale that it’s okay to think the Earth is flat. I mean, I don’t get how that happens. I mean, it’s flat locally.
Tessa Murry (14:27.98)
We don’t believe that on our podcast and hopefully our listeners are with us on that too. We try to bring on people like you, Charles, that have experience and have wisdom and knowledge that we can share to hopefully help educate us all to be better at whatever we’re doing. Can we dive into Charles?
We’re doing this series interviewing different home inspectors from around the country to hear about different types of housing stocks, the typical problems they run into, how climate effects are building, building science issues that are specific to your geographical location. Last week we had on someone from kind of a mixed dry climate Kansas City area and we, Brian Stanley, he…
you know, he kind of blew my circuits because one of the first things he said was that they don’t really have any building code or regulations or requirements for licensing for like general contractors or home inspectors. And so it is the wild, wild west where he is. And so it’s just, you know, it’s been, it’s been very fun and interesting, at least for me to hear.
from all these different people all over the country about how they handle their business and their challenges they face. And so I of want to dive into that with you today and hear some of the things that you’ve learned over the years and challenges that you see with your housing stock out in Seattle area, the West Coast, and specifically the marine climate. Would you call yourself in the marine climate?
CHARLES BUELL (16:20.014)
Yeah, Marine four, yeah.
Tessa Murry (16:21.772)
Marine 4. Yeah. And for anyone listening to we, we a year ago, we we did the same series and we had on Jim Caden from Oregon to represent the marine climate. So if you’re curious, go back to that episode and listen, it was very fun and very interesting to hear his perspective on things too. But I’d love to hear it from your perspective, Charles. So where should we start to what do want to talk about with your housing stock? And what’s unique where you are?
Reuben Saltzman (16:41.774)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (16:49.808)
Well, Marine IV is clearly the biggest difference. We are impacted by that aspect of building science more than anywhere else in the country. And I don’t know if Jim talked about that, but the whole notion of night sky radiation cooling, it affects us hugely because
In your winter, for example, in Minneapolis, I would bet that your average daytime humidity when it’s 20 degrees out is somewhere around 10 % or maybe 20 % relative humidity on a wet day. It would be low, am I correct? I know Syracuse was. Yeah, well.
Reuben Saltzman (17:45.492)
yeah, yeah, very low. I don’t know what it is exactly, I know it’s low. Tassad, you know what?
CHARLES BUELL (17:49.942)
Well, here are…
Tessa Murry (17:54.144)
don’t have the specifics on that. But I mean, we do have humid days. We do get, you know, hot, humid summer days, but it’s, it’s, it’s nothing like, you know, southern Florida.
CHARLES BUELL (18:05.936)
But the difference in the maritime northwest is that, let’s say it’s 35 degrees out, it’s gonna be 90 % humidity. And it’s different than in Minnesota where when it’s 35, it’s likely under 40 % humidity. So the problem with that is, and now,
Tessa Murry (18:19.884)
Mm.
Tessa Murry (18:31.66)
Mm-hmm.
CHARLES BUELL (18:35.276)
You have absolute humidity and relative humidity are obviously when you the colder you get the higher the humidity humidity goes up the absolute humidity is critical but ours air you bring that cold air into a vented soffit and into the attic space it’s humid enough that it can condense on the roof sheathing
You probably don’t see that much in Minnesota unless you’ve got air leakage from the interior. Where it shows up here worse is in houses that are absolutely airtight. You know, you’re under 1 ACH50 and you got mold all over your sheathing. Yeah, it’s crazy.
Tessa Murry (19:05.75)
Thanks.
Reuben Saltzman (19:08.812)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Tessa Murry (19:09.642)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (19:16.97)
That is so interesting.
Reuben Saltzman (19:21.774)
Crazy.
Tessa Murry (19:22.22)
Yeah, I have to think about that for a second because yes, with our housing stock in a cold, very cold climate, that warm moist air is leaking out through the cracks in the building envelope and with stack effect and positive pressure at the top of the building, that humid air is pushing up through those attic bypasses and then
gets in that cold attic and condenses, like you said, on the underside of the roof deck. So when we see frost in the wintertime, like you said, it’s typically because of these leaks between the conditioned space and the unconditioned space. But what you’re saying is when you see frost in the underside of roof decks where you are usually, well, it’s the worst when that plane is sealed between the conditioned space and the unconditioned space, when the attic is sealed and it’s coming from outdoor air, that’s
got a lot of humidity that’s then condensing on a cold roof deck because of night sky radiation? that?
CHARLES BUELL (20:22.896)
Yeah, and I don’t want to, I should clarify that it’s not that it’s worse, it’s just totally unexpected. You got a house under 1 ACH 50, it ain’t leaking into the attic much. So why is there still frost in the attic? Well, because what happens is the night, the clear night sky, the cold of space is theoretically negative 400 plus degrees.
Tessa Murry (20:30.59)
okay, yeah.
Tessa Murry (20:36.053)
Right.
Hmm.
CHARLES BUELL (20:52.676)
Fahrenheit, so really, really cold. And so the roof gives up its heat to space and your roof surface temperature can drop well below freezing. So if your roof surface drops below freezing, it’s certainly doing the same thing inside or at least low enough the dew point to happen on the interior sheeting. So then you get condensation on that sheeting.
Tessa Murry (21:04.972)
Thank
Reuben Saltzman (21:19.246)
Yeah, and Charles, want to just stop on that for a minute to explain that to some of the listeners because nights reverse, I don’t know, it’s not reverse radiation. But usually when we think of radiation, we think of the sun radiating heat towards the earth. But the idea that the earth radiates heat and the just that whole phenomenon is
I mean, I know the first time I learned about it a long time ago sitting in a home inspector class, it kind of blew my mind just thinking about that differently. Yeah, yeah.
Tessa Murry (21:53.932)
Yeah, it’s really…
CHARLES BUELL (21:54.594)
Yeah, everything radiates. And normally we’re talking about dealing with preventing sun radiation from coming into the house and heating the attic and melting the snow on the roof and causing ice dams and whatever. But it goes the other way. Sometimes the roof is the hottest thing in the environment.
Tessa Murry (21:57.728)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (22:02.602)
Now, if you’re preventing sun rays…
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (22:19.318)
Well.
CHARLES BUELL (22:23.404)
heat goes to cold. So if the roof is 30 degrees, it’s going to give up its heat to space and suppress the temperature below 30. I’ve measured my roof at 40 degrees at the roof surface 25 degrees.
Tessa Murry (22:29.45)
Thank you.
Tessa Murry (22:43.276)
That is so interesting. Is this night sky radiation phenomenon something that happens everywhere all over the world, all over the country? You just need a clear night sky. Is that the key?
CHARLES BUELL (22:48.912)
It absolutely does.
Yeah, yeah, it absolutely does. And your attic is, let’s say your attic is 25 degrees, you’ve got moist, warm air leaking into that. isn’t the roof surface the same temperature above freezing? Why is the roof surface colder than, well, it’s the night sky and you have clear nights there, but.
Tessa Murry (23:22.465)
Thank you.
CHARLES BUELL (23:22.69)
In a super insulated airtight house, you’re not bringing moist air. It’s not being pushed into the soffits, into the attic. It’s pulling, it’s pushing dry air in there. If anything, it’s going to lower your humidity in the attic. Whereas we’re raising the humidity.
Tessa Murry (23:38.284)
Thank you.
Tessa Murry (23:41.932)
Yeah, because your marine climate has so much moisture in the air. Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (23:44.994)
Yeah, and it’s a really problematic thing that nobody really knows the exact answer. I have some theories as to how to prevent it. You can prevent it with hot roofs, know, insulate them.
Tessa Murry (23:49.504)
Hmm
Tessa Murry (23:57.982)
I was just going to say, do you move that thermal boundary up to the roof deck so it’s not a vented space anymore? You bring that inside the conditioned space and make it an unvented roof.
CHARLES BUELL (24:04.592)
That’s.
CHARLES BUELL (24:08.398)
That clearly works, but as Steve teaches us, you gotta be damn careful with that. You gotta get it right every time, 100 % of the time. that’s why I’m still, I still think a vented roof is safer, but maybe a quarter inch of foam underneath the roof shingles instead of putting, making an underlayment that’s,
Tessa Murry (24:16.149)
No.
Tessa Murry (24:20.734)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (24:36.528)
quarter inch foam or something. Something to just break that. It doesn’t take very much. But I don’t know. That’s all yet to be determined. don’t know that there’s a… And then add the proximity to water or a big swimming pool in the backyard or any of these things that are increasing the humidity level being pushed in the South advance. You’ve got…
Tessa Murry (24:38.924)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (24:43.65)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (24:44.883)
very interesting.
CHARLES BUELL (25:06.352)
Plus opportunity for that cold roof to condense out.
Reuben Saltzman (25:11.446)
And, you know, while we’re on this, just one other thing that helped me understand it a little bit more and just see it a little bit more here in the Twin Cities is with that night sky radiation, it’s when you have those clear nights where we don’t have any cloud cover. It means that your roof and the earth can see outer space. There’s no protective layer. It will radiate its heat to outer space. And then when that happens, all those surfaces get really cold.
Tessa Murry (25:11.756)
I love you.
CHARLES BUELL (25:19.248)
you
CHARLES BUELL (25:26.64)
you
Reuben Saltzman (25:41.07)
And then we get frost in the morning. That’s what causes all that frost. And if you have a night where you’ve got this big heavy cloud cover, you’re probably not going to have frost the next morning. Or if you do, it’s going to be very, very minor. But then if you look where your car is parked on the street, you notice there’s never any frost there. And it’s because the street can’t see the sky. Your car is blocking it. That was the best way for me to kind of grasp this concept.
Tessa Murry (25:43.53)
Mm-hmm.
CHARLES BUELL (26:01.533)
Hey, that’s right. That’s right.
Tessa Murry (26:06.88)
Mmm.
CHARLES BUELL (26:10.284)
It’s a great way to think about it. You can go out in the summer when it’s nighttime. You can hold your arms outstretched and you can feel the hot concrete radiate to the underside of your arms. You’ll feel different temperature than the top side of your arms. Your arms will be giving your…
Tessa Murry (26:12.513)
Hmm.
CHARLES BUELL (26:34.446)
giving up your heat to the night sky and taking on the heat from the coming off the concrete or asphalt. And Ruben, you snowmobiling, would you rather, do you feel more comfortable when you’re at 35 degrees and it’s cloudy or clear?
Reuben Saltzman (26:53.579)
cloudy, for sure. Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (26:54.776)
Yeah, it’s the exact same thing. Same temperature and yet cloudy. You won’t be affected. You’re insulated from the night sky then.
Tessa Murry (27:04.14)
Thank you.
Reuben Saltzman (27:06.498)
Yep. Yep.
Tessa Murry (27:07.116)
Yeah. This topic is so interesting. I know you’ve taught it before at different conferences, home inspector conferences, correct? This night sky radiation and the impact of that on durability and all these things for houses and how to identify it as a home inspector and report on it. It’s so interesting though because it…
CHARLES BUELL (27:08.164)
it’s
CHARLES BUELL (27:16.592)
Yeah. huh.
Tessa Murry (27:30.656)
Hopefully somebody listening, this is new information for them and they’ll take that and digest it and implement it into their own practices for diagnosing issues and how they inspect. But I feel like the industry is still even struggling with the concept of how air leakage from the house can get into an attic space that’s cold and cause frost in the attic.
you know, as we were talking earlier about these online platforms of like still seeing a lot of inspectors posting pictures of dark staining in the attic and being like, this is a problem with a roof leak or something. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, just add more ventilation. Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (28:07.184)
What’s the cure? Ventilation is always the cure, right? It needs more ventilation. Those really tweak me. You want to get me going, just say I’m going to get in there and I’ll always say, well, ventilation is really the cure. one way I teach this is I ask the students to…
Let’s say you got too much moisture in the attic, so you’re going to increase ventilation. So let’s say we have a roof leak. It’s actually dripping in the installation. How much ventilation do we have to add to fix that? You know, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a leak. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a physical bulk water leak or moisture from
Tessa Murry (28:43.734)
Thanks.
Reuben Saltzman (28:45.43)
You
Tessa Murry (28:48.619)
my goodness. Yeah, let’s stop the bleeding before we add more band-aids. Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (29:01.648)
heated condition air leaking into the attic. It’s still moisture in the space and you’re not going to fix it necessarily with more ventilation. I think you have to have a certain amount and you want ventilation to deal with heat. Ventilation is for maintaining in attic temperature the similar ambient temperature. That’s all. That it gets rid of incidental rat pee, that’s okay.
Tessa Murry (29:09.708)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (29:29.69)
but it’s not gonna deal with a bee vent that’s coming apart or an act, you know.
Reuben Saltzman (29:37.676)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (29:38.026)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, speaking… Okay, so talking about attics, what do you typically… What kind of things do you see in an attic in the area where you’re living? like, types… Do you have HVAC located in the attic? What type of insulation do you see? Do you see a lot of hot roofs or not? Describe your typical attics and maybe some common issues you come across.
CHARLES BUELL (30:02.356)
We don’t see a lot of age back in attics, fortunately. Generally, that’s elsewhere. I would rather see it in a crawl space than in an attic. On my planet, we don’t really allow them at all in attics. I just think it’s, there’s too much that can go wrong. You’ve got duct work that’s problematic, not the unit itself that’s problematic. So.
Tessa Murry (30:06.412)
Good.
CHARLES BUELL (30:30.65)
keep them out of the… And if it’s a heating machine, aren’t you improving the condition of heating a house if that unit is within the envelope that you’re heating? It’s not…
Reuben Saltzman (30:45.644)
Yeah, you’re just talking about the incidental heat loss around the machine. Why not contribute that heat to the inside of the house? Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (30:50.21)
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. Yeah, so that’s just kind of good sense. And located in the garage is not too much different. I’d rather see it inside the condition space. All ductwork should be inside the condition space, in my humble opinion. But you you go down south, like Gary Smith, my buddy down there, he’s
Tessa Murry (30:54.132)
Right. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (31:02.476)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (31:16.694)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
CHARLES BUELL (31:23.158)
Everything is in the attic. It’s always in the attic. The water heater’s in the attic. But you have areas that it happens more out of habit than anything else. Furnaces are tiny now. It’s not like a behemoth octopus in the basement anymore. You’re literally, they’re…
Tessa Murry (31:25.536)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Tessa Murry (31:37.642)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
CHARLES BUELL (31:49.697)
a few cubic feet that you can stick in a closet somewhere now. They’re not, but it’s interesting. I wanted, you reminded me of something that I was gonna talk about. I’ve lost it now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tessa Murry (31:57.119)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (32:09.004)
Hopefully comes back to you here. So what type of heating and cooling systems do you typically see up where you are?
CHARLES BUELL (32:16.784)
I’d say the mostly high efficiency gas furnaces, then mid efficiency if in anything that is like a duplex, condo, that’s all going to be mini splits now. I see a lot of people replacing their, instead of putting gas furnaces in, they’re putting in mini splits in their houses.
Tessa Murry (32:18.314)
I just want to
Tessa Murry (32:22.718)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (32:45.269)
Okay.
CHARLES BUELL (32:47.436)
We are in a climate here where they can be the only source anymore. don’t need any, there used to be a time like you probably are still required to put in some kind of backup with a mini-splay, yes?
Tessa Murry (32:54.066)
Really? Okay.
Tessa Murry (33:02.154)
like a secondary heating source.
CHARLES BUELL (33:04.462)
Yeah, the overheat strip, electric strip in the ductwork, some means of boosting the heat when it’s the mini split gets too inefficient. Yeah, like minus 20. They still will work at that temperature and honestly in a super insulated house, they’re going to be more than adequate period. But trying to use a mini split in a two by four house built in 1940,
Tessa Murry (33:14.014)
minus 20. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (33:26.048)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (33:32.784)
That’s where the challenge is. Yeah, they’re going to work hard and you’re not going to be happy. You’re not going to be comfortable. But in a house that’s built to R40 sidewalls and R80 in the attic, mini-split, light bulbs work, never mind mini-splits. It’s relative and we don’t really grasp that in the industry. get arguing with people. say, well, I can heat my house.
Tessa Murry (33:35.687)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (33:40.374)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (33:47.637)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (33:52.198)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (34:03.408)
with a candle. it well literally or are you just talking about you can just use your wood stove and you don’t need to back up heat at all. We’re not talking about the same critters then.
Tessa Murry (34:21.524)
Yeah. Well, I want to take a little sidetrack, if that’s okay, because, you know, one of the things that you did before you became a home inspector, as I mentioned, you were like a general contractor for a while. And I find it very interesting because you kind of had this evolution. This is my perspective on listening to you talk on finding ways to build very energy efficient homes at, you know, an affordable in a very affordable way using just
CHARLES BUELL (34:26.37)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (34:50.462)
you know, common materials. And so, can you tell our listeners a little bit about what you were doing back in the, I think it was the 70s, and how you built a house back then, and kind of what the price point was, and how you built it, and how that compares to where we’ve come full circle like 50 years later on our quote energy efficient homes.
CHARLES BUELL (35:09.668)
Yeah, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (35:12.376)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (35:12.844)
Well, you know, you did, we did that into that thing together where it’s two, two hour videos and those are, those were, those were great fun. I mean, I, it really challenged me because it got me a chance to actually look back and see the beginnings and take it through to as far as I went with it. And some new ideas I have is how to even make them better now.
It all started back in 1975 when I had a developer ask me, he hey, I want to build a house for me in my development. And I said, maybe. he showed me the plans and it was just a regular, right in the middle, two by four house. And I said, no, thanks. I’m not going to build another dinosaur.
Tessa Murry (36:07.478)
Hmm.
CHARLES BUELL (36:07.758)
And that was kind of my mindset at the time. I was thinking, well, we should at least be building with two by sixes. And of course that quickly, I only built one house with two by sixes. And after that, there were several that were two by eights and then they went to two by 10 size. But the two by 10s were actually trusses, not solid.
would. that my thinking was always how to eliminate the thermal bridging that was so problematic. eventually the two by sixes really accomplished that. You could do the same thing almost at the same cost for two by 12. So if I was going to do it again, I probably would. But it depends where it is. And the thing that I
Tessa Murry (36:57.792)
Hmm.
CHARLES BUELL (37:06.114)
intrigue me is I always wanted to build in a way that a regular any builder could do it. Whereas so many of the approaches today, you’ve got to be specialized. ICF requires a lot of specialized knowledge and techniques and tools to do or SIPs panels, all of these. And the cost is so much higher.
Tessa Murry (37:14.7)
So ready to see process today.
Tessa Murry (37:26.422)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (37:35.376)
I mean, I was building two by 10 walls for the same cost as a two by four house. I know it’s nuts and people say you’re full of crap. And I said, well, I can show you the numbers. And when you look at the materials list and you realize that, well, instead of a two by four wall, I’ve got a two by 10 wall that’s
Reuben Saltzman (37:43.618)
That’s crazy.
CHARLES BUELL (38:04.08)
24 inches on center instead of 16 on center and each stud is made out of one two by four. So the materials are less, you’ve got more insulation but you got no heating system, no cooling system. So all of these things start to offset each other.
Tessa Murry (38:26.39)
Hmm.
So you would build, you actually, this is kind of interesting, you designed a truss and you would use just what, you’d cut up a two by four and build a truss out of it. And that would be the structure for your wall. And you wouldn’t have the thermal bridging you’d have with a standard, you know, two by four, two by six, two by eight. Cause you could get insulation through that truss. Is that correct? Yeah. Fascinating. And would you…
CHARLES BUELL (38:46.458)
Right.
CHARLES BUELL (38:50.734)
That’s right, that’s right. I mean…
Tessa Murry (38:55.212)
What would be the R value of your typical wall and then what would be the R value you’d put in the attic and what type of insulation would you use?
CHARLES BUELL (39:03.344)
Yeah, I only ever used cellulose fiber. I never used any fiberglass, but it was R42 with the walls and then the roof was R60 generally or more, depends. So these were, I mean, that’s what code is now, right? R60.
Reuben Saltzman (39:22.894)
You’re way ahead of your time.
Tessa Murry (39:23.148)
You were 50 years… Yeah, was going to say you were 50 years ahead of your time, Charles.
That’s amazing.
Reuben Saltzman (39:31.062)
And did you ever do permanent wood foundations?
CHARLES BUELL (39:34.606)
Yeah, you know I did.
Reuben Saltzman (39:38.111)
I thought you did. I had forgotten it. I mean, this is one of those things you surely told me a deck over a decade ago and it jogged my memory, but I was.
CHARLES BUELL (39:42.872)
Yeah. All but that one first house I did, which was concrete blocks. Every house after that was a wood foundation.
Reuben Saltzman (39:54.72)
Yeah, okay.
Tessa Murry (39:56.246)
Charles, I think you’re the only person I’ve ever listened to that might have changed my mind about permanent wood foundations.
CHARLES BUELL (39:56.592)
That’s part of it.
CHARLES BUELL (40:02.448)
Well, you gotta do them right, but you have to do any foundation right, isn’t that correct?
Reuben Saltzman (40:09.558)
Yeah, but I’d say concrete block is a lot more forgiving than a permanent wood foundation. mean, concrete tolerates moisture just fine. Wood, not so much.
Tessa Murry (40:09.739)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (40:16.94)
Ooh, what?
CHARLES BUELL (40:21.456)
Yeah, but how about freeze-thaw cycles? Have you seen concrete blocks that go to, they just get trashed with frozen ground against them sometimes?
Tessa Murry (40:32.062)
It’s gross.
Reuben Saltzman (40:35.47)
It can, it can. What would you do with the permanent wood foundation to help make sure it stayed dry?
Tessa Murry (40:42.06)
Mm-hmm.
CHARLES BUELL (40:42.528)
Well, first of all, they should never get wet. If they get wet, you’ve already screwed up. It should never get wet.
Reuben Saltzman (40:48.736)
right there. I mean, that’s worth repeating. They should never get wet. And yes, once it gets wet, you have a failed water management system on your permanent wood foundation.
Tessa Murry (40:49.303)
What?
I’m sorry.
CHARLES BUELL (41:00.076)
That’s right. And honestly, no foundation should be allowed to get wet. wood foundations, think of it as you’re taking this heavily super insulated bubble, R42, R60, and you’re carrying that R40 all the way down below frost to your floor level, really. So then you’ve got this slab that’s a constant ground temperature.
Tessa Murry (41:06.902)
Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (41:21.92)
huh.
CHARLES BUELL (41:29.104)
50, 55 degrees. So you’re never heating from more than ground level 55 to 68, 70, whatever you want. Whereas normally in houses we’re heating from ambient, which in your case can be minus 30, right?
Reuben Saltzman (41:50.976)
It gets very cold. Yeah. I don’t remember the last time I saw a negative 30, but it gets cold. Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (41:52.558)
Yeah, yeah.
Tessa Murry (41:53.036)
Mm.
CHARLES BUELL (41:57.072)
Yeah, even minus 10, zero. Heating zero to 68 takes a lot more energy than heating from 50 to 68. Yeah, but you have to have, you can’t do that with a two by four house because you’re heating, you’ve got ambient, you’ve got ground temperature working for and against you as well as ambient working for or against you. So it’s, it’s.
Reuben Saltzman (41:59.544)
Sure.
Reuben Saltzman (42:09.026)
heck yeah.
Tessa Murry (42:09.516)
Thank you.
CHARLES BUELL (42:27.682)
It’s a system, it’s not something you can just apply to any house. And very difficult to retro these ideas into existing houses. You’re basically feeding the dinosaur forever.
Tessa Murry (42:40.748)
Thank
CHARLES BUELL (42:46.672)
I feed the dinosaur I live in, I can, it’s manageable here where it never goes below 35 or 40 hardly.
Reuben Saltzman (42:56.31)
Yeah, when you were doing these houses, that was in Syracuse, Okay, okay. Yeah, you had some real winters you had to deal with there.
CHARLES BUELL (43:00.36)
Yeah, north of Syracuse, Oswego area mostly. Great Finger Lakes area of New York. yeah, yeah, I mean it’s considered Minneapolis our sister city with Syracuse, right? Just very similar.
Tessa Murry (43:04.266)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (43:08.06)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (43:14.924)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (43:20.15)
So you built houses in the 1970s that had an R60 attics that had truss wall systems and permanent wood foundations and how are they doing today? Have they withstood the test of time, Charles?
CHARLES BUELL (43:20.378)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (43:30.933)
Yeah, here we go back.
CHARLES BUELL (43:31.216)
Well, yeah, I have gone back. I went and stayed in several of them 30 years after I built them. Same owners there. And it was a delight that I had my IR camera. I never had an IR camera when I was a builder. I mean, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing when I was building compared to what I know now. But they functioned and behaved themselves.
Reuben Saltzman (43:39.475)
wow.
Tessa Murry (43:39.904)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (43:48.847)
Ha
Reuben Saltzman (43:55.608)
Sure.
CHARLES BUELL (43:59.866)
just because of my own stubbornness about refusing to… Just for example, here’s a good example. Because I was using cellulose with 10 inch walls and 24 inch centers, I knew that it was a good idea to glue all the drywall on. Do you know what that does to air sealing? If we would just glue all our drywall on, can you imagine how…
much that would improve our air ceiling. So that and then ceiling all the way around, all the way around sill plates to the subfloor. I used to run construction adhesive all around that connection just to… In those days I used to talk about, I can’t stop the air totally so I’m going to torture the hell out of it.
Tessa Murry (44:39.36)
Hmm.
CHARLES BUELL (44:57.616)
Well, that torturing process is what we do today, isn’t it? We try to seal our houses up so tight and then we want, and people say, well, it’s gonna be too tight, it’s gotta breathe. Well, nah, we wanna control the breathing. We wanna put systems in place that allow it to breathe when we want it to breathe and doesn’t breathe when it doesn’t need to.
Tessa Murry (44:58.742)
Ha
Reuben Saltzman (45:02.903)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (45:03.136)
Yeah, we try.
Tessa Murry (45:22.976)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (45:25.968)
But a lot of people miss that. And I call it the, you go 10 steps towards energy efficiency and then you back a couple steps up for health and safety and indoor air quality. There’s no way around that. We have to do that. We’re living, breathing human beings and we’re going to screw up our indoor environment just by breathing. So we have to deal with that.
Tessa Murry (45:43.07)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (45:51.338)
Jesus.
Tessa Murry (45:57.22)
What kind of ventilation systems would you put in these homes in, Charles? Since they were so air-tightened and super insulated, did you have, you know, air exchangers back then or did you just use point source ventilation or what did you do? Okay.
CHARLES BUELL (46:07.066)
Yeah, no, we had ERVs. We had ERVs and it became critical that we use them. Some didn’t. I have one house that I built, they never did put an ERV in and they really weren’t known much back then. So, some of the, one house I designed were
whenever you ran an exhaust fan, there was this underground ductwork that went into the crawlspace. So it was passively ventilated that way. When they would run exhaust fans, it would pull air into the house. that system, it worked okay. You couldn’t do that here though, because you’d be pulling all that moist air into your crawlspace. So some of these systems are…
Tessa Murry (46:52.598)
Hmm.
CHARLES BUELL (47:04.408)
you have to think about where they’re being installed. Mississippi is gonna be a different animal than Syracuse, and Syracuse is different than Seattle. Moving to Seattle really helped me in my understanding of building energy efficient houses, because I had to think differently. The principles are the same, but they apply differently.
Tessa Murry (47:16.505)
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
CHARLES BUELL (47:31.344)
didn’t have to think about night sky radiational cooling in Syracuse. It just never came up, never presented as an issue.
Tessa Murry (47:34.061)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (47:40.62)
Can you just dive into that briefly? What are some other things that you learned that were different and changed your thinking being in Seattle versus East Coast?
CHARLES BUELL (47:51.492)
Well, it was kind of cool because you can put your water supply lines to your showers in outside walls. Who could have thought that that would be a good idea? You wouldn’t think of doing it there. You bought a tub with a left or right tub. You don’t have to care about that here. If a tub came left-hand and that meant the…
Tessa Murry (48:02.102)
Reuben Saltzman (48:04.558)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (48:12.768)
Hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
CHARLES BUELL (48:17.552)
while the picture was gonna be on the outside wall, you sent it back if you were in Syracuse. Right? You you just, you never thought about, if you cared, I mean, there were people that still did that and they were stupid and they had to deal with the freezing pipes forever afterwards. But you know, you just didn’t put freezing pipes that could freeze in an outside insulated wall.
Tessa Murry (48:44.106)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (48:46.406)
Tessa Murry (48:46.794)
What would you say, are there current, you know, with the current kind of housing stock or stuff that you see that’s being built now or within the last 10 years or so, what are the kind of typical problems that you’re seeing in those houses where you are?
CHARLES BUELL (49:01.92)
in new construction or yeah, new construction problems.
Tessa Murry (49:02.924)
Yeah, newer construction.
CHARLES BUELL (49:11.866)
Just the typical, mostly to do with faulty installation of materials, know. Improper installation of claddings. It doesn’t matter what it is. It seems like most people have a knack for getting them wrong. What’s that? wow, Yeah, the…
Reuben Saltzman (49:30.542)
Yeah, oh, they’re a little better. We kind of got a little quiet for a sec there, Charles.
CHARLES BUELL (49:38.498)
And cladding systems, they can be installed wrong. don’t care whether they’re brick or hardy or LP, you name it. They can all be installed so they function. But remember the early LP, it was a great siding, but if you didn’t paint it every 10 years, you’d have problems. I had a great example of that. I use it in teaching where…
Tessa Murry (50:02.764)
Thanks
CHARLES BUELL (50:08.09)
two houses right next to each other, sided by the same builder at the same time. And one painted it every five years and the other didn’t paint it at all. And one was just falling off the house. And the newer LP is a whole different animal. it’s not, I’ve put them both in buckets of water for months and not been able to herd it. I don’t know. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (50:18.284)
I believe it. Sure.
Tessa Murry (50:18.71)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (50:29.813)
Hmm.
Thank
Reuben Saltzman (50:36.526)
They wanted to make a product that you didn’t have to paint and it would still function fine. Yeah, they didn’t want to repeat what happened before. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (50:38.668)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (50:40.746)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I don’t know, I think most of the failures of claddings like Hardy and LP has to do with vapor drive than it does with water hitting it and evaporating and hitting it and evaporating. It is a reservoir cladding, so it does take on moisture and has to be able to give up moisture, but that’s
Tessa Murry (50:45.217)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (50:58.545)
Thank you.
CHARLES BUELL (51:10.02)
different than like in your climate where you’re actually putting moisture right through the wall and coming right out through the cladding and freezing when it gets into the middle of the cladding. It’s gotta do damage to it.
Reuben Saltzman (51:27.468)
Yeah, I think we do a pretty good job of not letting that moisture get there. I’d say the vast majority of the failures I see with products like James Hardy, fiber cement siding, vast majority of those problems are installation errors where it just soaks up a lot of water, bulk water on the outside of the house. That’s most of the wrong we see. Yep. Yep. Exactly.
CHARLES BUELL (51:41.018)
Sure, sure.
Tessa Murry (51:41.908)
improper installation.
CHARLES BUELL (51:46.48)
Yeah, so in proximity to a flat surface or roof or something like that, right? Yeah, that’s, and that’s not rocket science. It’s like the perpetual obsession with installing concrete stoops over the siding. You know, it’s common in your area, I assume, just as much as in mine. so then it fails and you wonder why.
Tessa Murry (51:47.084)
Thank you.
Tessa Murry (51:52.054)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (51:56.394)
You know.
Tessa Murry (52:05.012)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (52:16.678)
Yeah. Well, it sounds like you have the same issues out in Seattle we have here. It’s just maybe lack of skilled labor, lack of craftsmanship, lack of, you know, well, not following manufacturer’s installation instructions and just quality of work and installation being a big factor in some of these failures.
CHARLES BUELL (52:35.023)
Yeah, yeah.
What I don’t like seeing is home inspectors come down on a particular type of cladding, for example. Well, that’s just bad cladding. Well, it’s not installed properly. If it’s installed properly, it wouldn’t have gotten your criticism. And that’s kind of my take on it.
Tessa Murry (52:57.92)
Mm-hmm.
To your point, Ruben lives in a stucco home built in the 90s.
Reuben Saltzman (53:02.222)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (53:07.192)
True, yes.
CHARLES BUELL (53:07.44)
and is it behaving itself?
Reuben Saltzman (53:10.464)
It is behaving itself. Yeah. I mean, I got it moisture tested before I bought it and there was one spot that was a little questionable where someone should have installed kick out flashing and they didn’t. And I had somebody at it and it left this big ugly scar. And I ended up having the whole front of my house painted with this special product that I ended up getting the manufacturer on to talk about this product. It’s like this breathable paint and the house is functioning just fine.
CHARLES BUELL (53:12.816)
Good, good.
Tessa Murry (53:25.798)
Thank you.
CHARLES BUELL (53:37.274)
Yeah.
Well there’s a good example of people, they have a brick veneer and they put a waterproof paint on it and then it all goes to hell and they wonder why. You’re in climate zone six there, aren’t you?
Reuben Saltzman (53:40.226)
and
Reuben Saltzman (53:51.246)
Mmm.
Tessa Murry (53:51.487)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (53:56.058)
Yes, I believe so.
CHARLES BUELL (53:57.102)
Yeah, I know where so do you install vapor barriers on the interior?
Reuben Saltzman (54:03.203)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (54:03.24)
We have vapor barriers, yes, on the warm side of the wall here because we’re, you know, a heating climate primarily. However, I’m not saying that’s a great idea because, well, we get a lot of days and weeks and even months of the year where it is very hot and humid and we are, we’re running our ACs, our central AC system. So
CHARLES BUELL (54:06.732)
Yeah, Yeah, so.
Tessa Murry (54:24.34)
the vapor drive is coming the opposite direction, the moisture is coming from the outside moving in. So now our vapor barriers on the inside is potentially a source for condensation and mold.
CHARLES BUELL (54:27.417)
Bye.
CHARLES BUELL (54:35.536)
Yeah, you just have to hope that seasonally it builds up and then drives the other way in the other season, correct? I mean that’s the way I, of course you can get to the point where with my houses where there are 42 side walls with cellulose and the attic is R60, you don’t have an air conditioner so that you don’t have that drive the same way.
Tessa Murry (54:46.614)
Hopefully.
Reuben Saltzman (55:00.6)
Mm.
CHARLES BUELL (55:06.234)
One of my clients that have those houses with the two by 10 studs, they don’t have any air conditioning. don’t, just not necessary. Any cooling that you might need, you’d open up during the night, cool the house down and close it up during the day. mean, isn’t that the way you live in a house? And doesn’t that help with the ventilation and the air changes and the getting rid of all the…
Tessa Murry (55:26.732)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (55:33.46)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (55:34.384)
the air that’s in the house.
Tessa Murry (55:36.48)
You know, I’m just gonna say for anybody that really wants to be quote, green, that’s the way to do it. Turn off your AC and open up your windows.
Reuben Saltzman (55:37.792)
Yeah, I love that.
CHARLES BUELL (55:39.674)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (55:44.866)
Yeah. Well, exactly. There is no reason for houses to need air conditioning in the 21st century. They’re just, I mean, we can build, we know how to do it. We know how to build houses to eliminate air conditioning, but you’re not going to see it happen. Too much in…
Reuben Saltzman (56:07.968)
I would love it. I hate air conditioning. I mean, we use it to make ourselves comfortable, but I do not like having it on in the summertime.
CHARLES BUELL (56:16.528)
I know what you mean, like even in the car, right? Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (56:20.206)
Yeah, yeah, it’s like I have to, but.
Tessa Murry (56:22.156)
tell you what. I don’t think I could survive in Florida without AC, so…
CHARLES BUELL (56:28.56)
It would be interesting to put my claim to a test in a climate like there, how many houses do you know in…
West and Mississippi that are being built to the same standards that I’m talking about in Syracuse. They don’t even want a, you know, a two by four house is adequate down there. the problem is that the difference in, you’re going from minus 20, say, to 68. So we think in terms of the amount of insulation we need to help us with that goal.
Reuben Saltzman (56:51.714)
Yes, sir.
Tessa Murry (56:57.174)
Yep.
CHARLES BUELL (57:11.856)
between 68 and say 100 degrees in Texas isn’t anywhere as near as big a differential, right? So they think, well, we don’t need, we only need half as much insulation, but I argue that it’s actually worse to get your house from 100 degrees to 68.
Tessa Murry (57:31.532)
Again, Charles, you’re ahead of your time. Maybe in another 50 years, houses in Texas will have an R40 wall and an R60 attic, but not anytime soon.
CHARLES BUELL (57:37.808)
takes a lot of energy, just like it takes a lot of energy to get from 20 to 68.
Reuben Saltzman (57:43.608)
Sure.
CHARLES BUELL (57:56.378)
Wouldn’t it be fun to try it? God. See, that’s the other thing about my building career. I had the good fortune of having lots of clients that wanted to play with me. And I had the ideas and I had the dreams and I had, I don’t know, I had the ability to talk people into this silliness.
Reuben Saltzman (58:09.581)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (58:21.728)
Hmm. Well, you know, Charles, next time you feel like creating a, or having another class where maybe you, you teach about the types of houses you built and, and the pros and cons of them and the, you know, the affordability and the energy efficiency, let us know, because I think there’d be a lot of people interested in maybe hearing about how you did that. So, let us know, keep us tuned. But for now, we should probably wrap up this podcast because we’ve
CHARLES BUELL (58:28.944)
you
Reuben Saltzman (58:44.963)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (58:50.284)
We’ve had you, I can’t believe it, we’ve been talking for almost an hour already and we try to keep our show to like 30, 45 minutes. here we are. We could continue this for hours. know Charles, we could ask you a lot more questions, but thanks for coming on our show today. And if people want to get ahold of you, Charles, what’s the best way to get ahold of you and what’s your website?
Reuben Saltzman (58:59.406)
Thanks
CHARLES BUELL (59:01.941)
Yeah, we could go for it. We could go.
CHARLES BUELL (59:11.524)
Well, my website is Charles.
Charles Buell Consulting at, well, let’s see, my website, it kind of, well, just Charles Buell Consulting or Charles Buell Inspections, either one will bring up that same website.
Reuben Saltzman (59:30.092)
Yeah, it’s it’s I got to pull up here. It’s Buell. You don’t give it out too often. Obviously, it’s Buell inspections.com. Write that down, Charles. No. Yeah, Buell is my B-U-E-L-L. We’ll put a link to that in the show notes. I know exactly. Well, Charles can’t thank you enough for your time. Good to finally get you on the podcast. And for the listeners, if you have any questions, you can email us. It’s podcast at structure tech dot com.
Tessa Murry (59:30.604)
Perfect.
CHARLES BUELL (59:37.2)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just click on a button, Ruben.
Tessa Murry (59:37.92)
There we go.
Tessa Murry (59:47.094)
Thank you.
Use the good old Google machine.
CHARLES BUELL (59:52.485)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (59:54.336)
on the ground.
Reuben Saltzman (01:00:00.108)
And Charles, think you got one more thing to share.
CHARLES BUELL (01:00:02.83)
Yeah, I wanted to ask Tessa because she knows about the two two-hour videos we did together. I have them on YouTube for people that are really interested in them. I’m not making them public. I could. I probably would.
Tessa Murry (01:00:11.82)
What? Yeah, I’m on here.
Tessa Murry (01:00:23.244)
I could see that.
Reuben Saltzman (01:00:23.576)
Could I, could I link to those in the show notes?
CHARLES BUELL (01:00:28.016)
Well, I’d have to change the permissions on them because right now they’re… I know. But I’m hoping that people that are really serious will contact me and then I can give them the links. But I don’t know if that’s or not, but it’s the way I’ve been doing it. Like I gave them to my kids and they haven’t even looked at them.
Tessa Murry (01:00:32.584)
I you should.
Reuben Saltzman (01:00:34.636)
You would, but you just teased it.
Reuben Saltzman (01:00:45.965)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (01:00:47.082)
Thank you.
Reuben Saltzman (01:00:51.436)
Well, we’ll leave it at that then. guess they can go to your website. All right.
Tessa Murry (01:00:56.396)
Yeah.
CHARLES BUELL (01:00:58.16)
I kind of built them as something for posterity or whatever. I do think that it’s…
Tessa Murry (01:01:04.844)
Well, if you’ve listened to this podcast and you’ve made it to the end and you are curious, now you know the trick. Contact Charles Buell. Send him an email and he will send you a private link to view these videos of how he built houses and what he learned from back in the 70s.
CHARLES BUELL (01:01:19.12)
That’s right. Yeah, there’s four hours of mind numbing fun. You’re welcome. It’s awesome to see you guys.
Tessa Murry (01:01:26.102)
Thank
Reuben Saltzman (01:01:28.002)
Awesome. Sweet. Well, thank you, Charles. Really appreciate your time.
Talk to you soon.
Tessa Murry (01:01:36.288)
Good to see you too. Thanks, Charles.
CHARLES BUELL (01:01:38.074)
Yeah.