To watch a video version of this podcast, click here:
https://youtu.be/U0ALmS9vUC0
In this episode, Reuben Saltzman and Tessa Murry talk with Sophie Ashley of Energy Vanguard about her journey from hands‑on carpentry and post‑Katrina rebuilding work to becoming an HVAC designer for high‑performance homes. Sophie shares how her field experience shaped her understanding of building science and why proper load calculations, ventilation strategies, and dehumidification planning are essential for modern airtight homes.
The conversation also explores the challenges of open‑cell spray foam, moisture buildup in encapsulated attics, and what builders and inspectors often overlook in new construction. Sophie breaks down heat‑pump retrofits, electrification trends, and the importance of balancing comfort, durability, and system design—offering practical, science‑based insights for anyone working with or living in high‑performance homes.
Here’s the link to Inspector Empire Builder: https://www.iebcoaching.com/events
You can check out Energy Vanguard website here:
https://www.energyvanguard.com/
Takeaways
Tight, high‑performance homes often require dedicated dehumidification, even in northern climates.
Open‑cell spray foam allows moisture movement, which can raise attic humidity and impact roof decks.
Proper HVAC design requires accurate load calculations, not rule‑of‑thumb sizing.
Balanced ventilation (HRVs/ERVs) is essential in tight homes; Minnesota enforces some of the strictest standards.
Retrofitting heat pumps into existing homes requires duct evaluation—it’s not a simple swap.
Many builder issues stem from overlooked details: attic access leaks, duct issues, missing covers, and ceiling‑plane air leaks.
Electrification is growing, but homeowners must understand system impacts and design considerations.
Chapters
00:00 — Introduction
02:00 — Sophie’s Background & Career Path
05:00 — High‑Performance Building & HVAC Design
11:00 — Ventilation, ERVs & Climate Differences
15:00 — Dehumidification in Airtight Homes
17:00 — Moisture Problems with Open‑Cell Foam
22:00 — Solutions: Conditioning Attics & Diffusion Ports
26:00 — Heat Pumps, Dual‑Fuel & Proper Sizing
31:00 — Electrification Trends
38:00 — Common New‑Construction Issues
47:00 — Field Lessons & Moisture Failures
52:00 — How to Reach Sophie
53:00 — Closing Remarks
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 (00:01.44)
Welcome back to the podcast Tessa. Great to see you. How you doing today?
Tessa Murry (00:06.76)
Good to see you Ruben. I’m doing well. How are you?
Reuben Saltzman (00:10.03)
No complaints, no complaints. We had a little taste of spring here in Minnesota, teased us, you know, was out disc golfing in my t-shirt, felt great. And then we got more snow. So, you know, it’s just how it goes. It’s March. I should expect snow. It’s fine.
Tessa Murry (00:25.614)
Yeah, expect another like foot probably.
Reuben Saltzman (00:28.728)
Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s fine. We’ve got a special guest on the show before I bring our guest on though, want to give a shout out to our show sponsors, IEB, Inspector Empire Builder. And what we’re talking about right now is systems. This is a this is spring market. Now, this is when things are starting to get busy for all of us. And inspectors who are relying purely on hustle can quickly hit a ceiling where it’s like there’s no more that they can do. But the company is that
row are the ones that have systems ready before it starts getting busy. And that includes things like having a CRM customer relations management system that tracks relationships with agents and how to follow up with them. It includes automated marketing and communication, consistent scheduling workflows and operational systems that let home inspectors scale when the demand increases.
And that’s where IEB comes in. These are the types of conversations we’re having. It’s peer to peer information we share with each other. We talk about what we’re doing and it’s a way for home inspectors to up their business game. And if you want to learn more about IEB, I’ve been a member for a long time. You can check out our link in the show notes. Again, it’s Inspector Empire Builder. So now I’d like to bring on our guest. We’ve got Sophie Ashley with Energy Vanguard.
And if the, the, the name sounds familiar, energy Vanguard, we had Dr. Alice, Alison Bales on the podcast. don’t know how long ago I didn’t even look it up. It was a few years ago. Okay. All right. Yeah. He was a great guest, had a bunch of stuff to share. We said, yeah, let’s do it again real soon. And then, you know, as always, here we are many years later, we followed up with them, but, Tessa.
Tessa Murry (02:05.66)
How did it year? It’s been years. Yeah. Years ago. Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (02:21.11)
was at this HVAC symposium recently. You met a bunch of fantastic people and you invited Sophie on the show. So Sophie, welcome, glad to have you.
Sophie Ashley (02:32.492)
Thank you, pleasure to be here.
Tessa Murry (02:32.676)
Welcome, Sophie. Yeah, yeah, I was listening to a class that Sophie was giving at the HVAC symposium and hopefully we can get into this later. are you an HVAC designer? that your position at Energy Vanguard? Okay, HVAC designer. And I just think you’ve got such a fascinating background. So can we start there? Can you tell our listeners kind of a little bit about you and your story and where you started and how you got to where you are today?
Reuben Saltzman (02:35.073)
So.
Sophie Ashley (02:47.778)
Sure is, yeah.
Sophie Ashley (03:01.398)
Yeah, sure. So my father is a carpenter or is now retired, but was a carpenter. And my first job was with him in high school, you know, being his helper, learning how to use the tools. I particularly remember the table saw because it’s such a dangerous one. But yeah, I always looked up to him. I did go to college. I got a degree in Spanish and politics. But after that, I joined AmeriCorps and
Tessa Murry (03:18.76)
So scary.
Reuben Saltzman (03:19.02)
Yes. Yes.
Sophie Ashley (03:29.95)
in New Orleans, Louisiana and did worked on the framing crew for a nonprofit that was rebuilding homes post Katrina and use some of the skills that I had learned from working with my dad. And I just loved it. I loved how tangible it was. I loved framing and building. And then I’ve just been in construction ever since then. I, after AmeriCorps, I went out on my own as a carpenter builder in Louisiana for a few years.
and then decided to go back to school because I was like, we are building these houses back how they were before the flood and we’re not thinking that much about it. And I just feel like there had to be a better way. So I went back and got a professional master’s in sustainable building systems at UMass Amherst in Massachusetts. It was an awesome like one year, very content based program where I learned about building science basically and high performance.
building and then I left that after that I went and worked for a high-performance builder for a while and once you start building better you learn a lot more about mechanical systems because I’m you like think they should get simpler right our enclosure is great now we don’t need so much equipment and that’s not generally the case and it’s complex and so I kind of took a deep dive into mechanicals and then found my current employer energy Vanguard
Tessa Murry (04:46.984)
Thank
Sophie Ashley (04:55.863)
And I’ve been with them now, I think almost three years. I hope I don’t have that wrong. Two or three years. And I’ve been working with them ever since. So now I’m doing just new construction, HVAC design, but I bring that background of like being a carpenter in the field, rebuilding homes too.
Tessa Murry (05:01.276)
You
Tessa Murry (05:06.31)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (05:16.146)
So valuable. So valuable. You know what, Sophie? I did not, I knew that you were working in Louisiana. I knew you had a carpentry background. I didn’t realize you were working for Habitat and it was, was, or, okay. St. Bernard Project. Okay. Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (05:25.561)
So it wasn’t Habitat, I worked for St. Bernard Project, which I don’t know if you’ve, it’s similar to Habitat. I do remember hearing on a podcast that you did that you worked for Habitat, I think, and did AmeriCorps. mm-hmm, yep.
Tessa Murry (05:36.072)
Yeah, yes. Yeah, we’re, we’re both in AmeriCorps down Louisiana. That’s very interesting. And I fell in love with framing and like building the house. And that’s what sent me back to school too, is I was like, there’s got to be a better way of doing this. Like, we could build these houses better. And that’s what sent me to the U of with the building science program. So it’s kind of funny where our kind of some parallel past there from the past, but I think that’s so cool. now
Sophie Ashley (05:58.01)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (06:02.116)
On a day-to-day basis, what does your work look like at Energy Vanguard? What do you do?
Sophie Ashley (06:06.957)
Yeah, day to day, I work with clients which range from really super educated homeowners building their forever home to architects to contractors. Again, it’s new construction, so I get plans from them early on and we do coordination. It’s all residential. We do coordination on, I run a load calc, so basically sizing a system for the home and then doing duct design and.
Tessa Murry (06:15.272)
Hmm.
Sophie Ashley (06:33.197)
dehumidification often and ventilation design too. So it’s a lot of residential projects don’t get that level of planning I’m sure everyone’s familiar with. Like someone just gets called in last minute to throw something in and so we have the advantage of getting hired earlier on to make sure there’s enough room for equipment and duct work. I do this coordination virtually. So most of it is on Zoom meetings and design work on the computer.
Tessa Murry (06:42.748)
Right. Right.
Tessa Murry (06:57.768)
Hmm.
Sophie Ashley (07:00.493)
You get to visit some sites occasionally, but we design all over the country and all climate zones. So it’s primarily upfront.
Tessa Murry (07:07.292)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (07:10.632)
Quick question. So when you’re doing these homes, are these like you’re doing a whole bunch of kind of cookie cutter where they give you one model and they’re building a million of them or is it more custom home builders where everyone looks different? Like what kind of houses are you designing?
Sophie Ashley (07:27.353)
It’s more custom. We have a niche of really high performing homes. So lots of insulation, really airtight, do a lot of passive house designs. If you’re familiar with passive house or FIAS, it’s a really advanced certification program. So that’s kind of our niche, which tends to be very custom. We’ve done some designs for a home that’s going to be replicated, but I’d say the majority is custom.
Tessa Murry (07:38.706)
Yep.
Tessa Murry (07:57.756)
When I heard you mention, so you’re doing these designs for houses all over the country. I heard you mentioned that you do like the HVAC load calcs and design and you do ventilation and you also do dehumidification. Is the dehumidification a pretty standard process for you for all the houses and all the climate locations now these days because these houses are so airtight and so super insulated? Or do you just do that in certain climates? Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (08:22.381)
Yeah, we do. It’s a great question. It does depend on the climate. mean, there’s places out West where it’s so dry that we’re not going to consider a dehumidifier, but I would say a lot of homes East of the middle of the country, even in Northern climates, we do recommend dehumidifiers. And a lot of that is because so we do these high performing homes where the envelopes are really great and they’ve reduced the loads. So they reduce the sensible loads, I should say. So the
Tessa Murry (08:31.08)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (08:49.753)
the equipment and the heating equipment tend to be smaller because the envelope is better. But what you often don’t reduce a lot of is the latent load, which is the moisture in the air. So we generate moisture inside by living, which doesn’t get any smaller in a high performance home. We still ventilate. our buildings might be tighter, but we’re ventilating. We’re bringing in outdoor air still. And so we can often have a latent load.
Tessa Murry (09:04.998)
Yeah. Yep.
Sophie Ashley (09:16.185)
that is higher than the super efficient mini splits we’re putting in, you know, for heating and cooling. So we will often recommend supplemental dehumidifiers. Helps a lot in swing seasons too, like fall and spring when the, you know, the AC isn’t running because the sensible temperature isn’t quite high enough. Then a dehumidifier can respond directly to the humidity level in the home as opposed to the temperature.
Tessa Murry (09:20.966)
Hmm… Huh.
Tessa Murry (09:35.599)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (09:43.355)
I’m curious, do you ever specify air exchangers like HRVs or ERVs? Do you guys get into those too?
Sophie Ashley (09:51.799)
Yeah, we do a lot of balanced ventilation with ERVs.
Reuben Saltzman (09:54.146)
Okay. Okay. All right. I, I, a, as a home inspector, you know, in Minnesota, we see a ton of those. They’ve been required in Minnesota since 2015 and kind of on and off before then. But whenever I talk about these things at a national level with other home inspectors, I usually get that thousand yard stare and they’re like, what are you talking about? And I’ve just started to believe that they don’t exist out of Minnesota, but that can’t be true. Okay.
Sophie Ashley (10:21.913)
Yeah, they do. But I have actually just done two designs in Minnesota. It was kind of new for me and I was impressed. I had to get to know the state code because you guys have some requirements that other folks don’t, partly because your climate is so extreme. And so I was, yeah, that was awesome to learn about.
Tessa Murry (10:37.042)
Yeah.
What were some of the differences that you saw in Minnesota compared to lot of the states you work in?
Sophie Ashley (10:42.401)
Yeah, well, the temperatures for one, of course, like you’re it’s just your climate so extreme, my goodness. yeah, so balanced. Yeah, gets hot too, right? Balanced ventilation being a requirement is very unique, just like you said. So having the ERV in there. Also, you have really strict sizing limits for the heating and cooling equipment.
Tessa Murry (10:49.124)
It does get hot. It gets hot, yeah.
Sophie Ashley (11:04.889)
So that apparently, least in St. Paul, are strongly enforced. So for example, on cooling equipment, you can’t be larger than 115 % of the load. The capacity of the equipment can’t be larger than 115 % of the load because oversized air conditioning equipment doesn’t dehumidify well. So you don’t want to do that. We know that in general, but very few people actually enforce that, especially in a heating climate. Because what you may want to do is size a heat pump.
Tessa Murry (11:26.12)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (11:33.413)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (11:33.475)
for the heating load and then you might be oversized for cooling. So that was interesting. Like we love sticking below 115%, but it’s rare that a jurisdiction really looks at the paperwork and requires that to happen.
Tessa Murry (11:37.564)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (11:48.416)
Interesting, okay Yeah, glad to hear it
Tessa Murry (11:49.288)
That is interesting. Wow. Huh. Well, go Minnesota, I guess. I don’t know.
Sophie Ashley (11:55.162)
Yeah, for real. Yeah, and your air tightness. So you have to be at 3 ACH50, I think, which a lot of the colder states are, but still where I’m at down South, South Carolina’s code is 7 ACH50 for new construction. Yeah, for real. So like the builder on the call was like, oh yeah, we’re hitting, you know, 1.5, no problem without even trying now. And I’m like, wow, that’s so cool.
Reuben Saltzman (12:08.704)
that’s pretty generous.
Tessa Murry (12:11.405)
living in the dark ages.
Reuben Saltzman (12:22.008)
Yeah. And when you’re doing passive houses, what are the ACH is looking like?
Tessa Murry (12:22.278)
Well, it’s… yeah.
Sophie Ashley (12:25.581)
Yeah, they have to hit point six, ACH 50 or they use like square footage of enclosure more, but it’s super tight. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (12:28.349)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (12:31.462)
Yeah, I’m not.
Well, can I ask you a question then about the super airtight houses that you’re designing for? Because I, you know, there was a research project I was a part of when I was working at the University of Minnesota and they were building these panel houses with these 20 by 8 foot, like inch and a half thick, two inch thick panels. And they were putting these houses together, wrapping them in a self adhesive, like self healing rubber membrane, and then doing rigid foam on top of that.
And they were so airtight. They were like 0.5, 0.6 HCH50 because there was very limited holes in the envelope. It was, you know, a very unique design, not stick frame, but like a standard home would be up here. And I just remember like when I would turn on the kitchen exhaust fan, the front door would slam shut. And I was like, I’ve never anything like that in my life. But then the problem was, OK, now what do we do?
About about about ventilation and this was I you know when we had there was combustion makeup air ducts that were bringing fresh air into the basement for the mechanical systems and they were putting in high efficiency systems, of course But because the house was so airtight as soon as you turn on an exhaust fan It was like just tons of cold air is dumping into that combustion makeup air because that’s the only opening for it And then the whole basement would get freezing cold and we’re trying to figure out like how do you make this?
comfortable and still work and how do you like how do you install how does it how does a dryer work conventional dryer it’s like pulling out 200 CFM of air as well and so how do we balance these systems so I’m just curious is there a solution to that what do you guys do in your airtight houses what are the systems look
Sophie Ashley (14:19.799)
Yeah, it can be a challenge in the smaller the house, the bigger the challenge, maybe, if that you were, sounds like a cooler, you know, that you were describing and they might be somewhat small. yeah, it can be a challenge. mean, one of the first strategies we recommend is to reduce the amount of unbalanced exhaust. So meaning for ventilation, you’re probably doing balanced with an ERV or an HRV where you’re bringing out the same amount you’re bringing in.
Tessa Murry (14:26.74)
Yeah, it was. Yep. Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (14:46.465)
And then for a range exhaust, we’re going to recommend that that one be dedicated outside, but that you don’t go above 400 CFM. And probably you can get away with lower than that as long as it’s designed, the range hood is designed well. And then a lot of our clients are using heat pump dryers that are not vented out for that reason.
Tessa Murry (15:01.608)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (15:06.202)
Okay. Yeah. Interesting.
Reuben Saltzman (15:06.936)
Well.
Sophie Ashley (15:10.241)
Interestingly though, like when you do go, a lot of our clients are all electric. So I totally hear you, especially, you know, it’s important to have sealed combustion or make up air for combustion appliances, but a lot of the really small airtight houses we see are all electric. And so if they do depressurize a little bit, it’s not that risky because you’re not going to be back drafting something. Right. And if we need to, we’ll design makeup air for the range hood, for example, like FIAS.
Reuben Saltzman (15:22.414)
you
Tessa Murry (15:24.328)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (15:30.737)
Okay, yep.
Sophie Ashley (15:37.273)
requires makeup air, even when you’re under 400 CFM, is code. So I’ll design makeup air for 250 CFM sometimes, you know, but it does get complicated pretty quickly, right? The amount of machines and fans you have in your house can be.
Tessa Murry (15:38.952)
make a phone.
Tessa Murry (15:46.278)
Wow. Wow.
Tessa Murry (15:52.196)
Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (15:53.718)
Okay, so I gotta ask you, you mentioned the heat pump clothes dryer. If you could just kind of a two part question. Number one, let our listeners know exactly what that is and how it works for anybody who doesn’t know. And number two, I’ve only heard horrible things about those. Have they gotten any better?
Sophie Ashley (16:15.373)
Yeah, so I’m not a heat pump dryer expert, but basically it’s a dryer that doesn’t vent to the outside. So I think you either have a condensate drain in it or like a drawer that fills with water that you remove. So it’s ventless and I have heard both good and bad things about them, but they have gotten better. I have a colleague that has one in his house that works really well. He has a child, does tons of laundry and
and it works well, but I would certainly read up on reviews. And they do have to have a certain amount of volume in the room they’re in because they they exchange moisture and heat with the room they’re in. I don’t know. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (16:47.085)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (16:57.944)
Yeah, yeah.
Tessa Murry (16:59.304)
So just gonna ask, yeah, I guess if they’re drying the clothes, are they pulling in air from the room? So are they like dehumidifying the room too? Kind of like a heat pump water heater?
Sophie Ashley (17:03.777)
Yes. Yeah, but then.
I don’t think it’s to that degree because I also have an aunt with a ventless dryer and I measured humidity in her room with a little data logger once and the humidity in the room went up when she was drying. So to be honest, I can’t describe the cycle to you. I should be able to, because I work on heat pumps all the time, but it does exchange with the air that you’re in. It does remove moisture obviously, but that either is drained out or dumped out.
Tessa Murry (17:18.855)
Yeah.
Hmm. Okay. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (17:31.73)
Yep.
Tessa Murry (17:36.112)
Yeah, interesting. Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (17:36.643)
That’s all I got, but they can work well and it can be really helpful because dryer vents are a struggle, right? I mean, as home inspectors, you probably see them clogged all the time or so kinked or, you know, so.
Reuben Saltzman (17:37.142)
Okay. Okay.
Tessa Murry (17:42.649)
Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (17:43.004)
yeah.
Tessa Murry (17:46.147)
yeah. Yep.
Reuben Saltzman (17:48.334)
and they terminate at the roof half the time, a new construction, second story, steep roof that nobody is ever gonna get at. And you’re supposed to clean that terminal every year. Who’s getting on the roof every year to do this? I mean, if I were in charge, you wouldn’t be allowed to put them on roofs. Like, yeah.
Sophie Ashley (17:53.591)
Right, going up, like how? Yeah.
Tessa Murry (17:56.679)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (18:05.465)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (18:05.538)
Especially all these these, you high-rise three-story town homes or four-story town homes with the garage and then three levels above that It’s like they’re all on the roof, you know, who’s getting up there to clean that? Yeah Not a good idea not a good idea. Well, that’s that’s fascinating So and then you mentioned you do some other stuff too You do hers ratings, right and you do like blower door testing and other things for new construction as well
Reuben Saltzman (18:14.904)
And they’re all clogged. Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (18:16.355)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (18:31.597)
Yeah, I work for a HRS rater. So I’m not a HRS rater. I’m a rating field inspector. I’m like a sub-HRS person. So I’m the person, I’m a person that goes out in the field and does blower door testing. So that’s to test the air tightness of a home. And then we do duct tightness testing also. It’s new construction that I do here in South Carolina. And then it’s not under the HRS bucket, but I also do like quality control inspections for that.
Tessa Murry (18:37.563)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (18:49.948)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (18:54.503)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (19:01.461)
employer for the production home. So we do like a walkthrough at the end to checklist them on certain things and scope the sewer and make sure it’s clear.
Tessa Murry (19:04.477)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (19:12.43)
So you’re scoping the sewers on new construction to make sure it’s clear.
Tessa Murry (19:15.43)
You do it all. You do it all, Sophie.
Sophie Ashley (19:16.449)
Yeah, because they so it’s I know we do it all but it’s a production builder. So they are moving so quickly in terms of their schedule and they have a lot of heavy equipment out in the yard and they had an issue for a while where equipment was crushing the main line and they were having damaged like main mains before on a new house before someone moved in. So they just implemented to have someone come.
Tessa Murry (19:23.816)
Bye.
Sophie Ashley (19:41.774)
scope the sewer and make sure that it wasn’t damaged under the driveway before they sold the house. And luckily it’s new construction because I don’t have to like scope around poop or anything generally. It’s pretty, it’s pretty much most of the time. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (19:47.16)
I-
Reuben Saltzman (19:52.302)
Yeah, you’ve got this pristine white PVC pipe that has only seen water. Yeah. Well, I so love that you’ve got a builder who’s doing this because I mean, we do sewer scopes for our home inspections and you know, it’s an upcharge and there’s a lot of people who are under the impression that, you know, if a house is only 20 or 30 years old,
Tessa Murry (19:55.688)
Queen line. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (20:17.688)
There can’t be anything wrong with it. You don’t need to spend your money on it. We’ve been telling people for a while now, I don’t care if it’s brand new. I wouldn’t consider buying a new construction house without getting a sewer scope for exactly what you just said. You got that heavy equipment, you got broken lines, we’ve seen it. And now who’s gonna take care of it and how big of an issue is it gonna be down the road? And just, this is the first time I’ve ever heard of a production builder routinely doing this on every one of their houses. I love this.
Tessa Murry (20:20.36)
Mm-hmm.
Sophie Ashley (20:30.211)
Yeah, it’s not expensive to do up front.
Sophie Ashley (20:41.923)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (20:46.856)
Way to go, South Carolina. I was going to ask you, I don’t know if you work with a variety of builders or just kind of one production builder. And I’m sure just over the course of time of you doing these blower door tests with them, showing them where the air leaks are, doing these, you know, all these other things with them, they’ve probably gotten better over the years and they’ve learned. But are you seeing like what are some of the biggest problems you’re seeing in the new construction houses that you’re testing? Is it the HVAC? Is it the building envelope?
Is it something else?
Sophie Ashley (21:18.169)
Yeah, it’s both. I’d say on the HVAC side, it’s usually something silly like a grill is covered with the sheet like sheetrock, right? Or the filter up in the attic where the unit is. There’s a filter slot that you usually remove the filter, but that cover is sometimes left off. So feel like on HVAC, it’s usually we’re catching something, which is great to catch, right? But something that’s, you know, is an oversight. The envelope is an issue.
Tessa Murry (21:42.792)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (21:47.83)
The I’m testing have vented attics. I feel like people have gotten better at ceiling, behind electrical outlets on exterior walls or the bottom plate, but the ceiling plane still feels like a challenge. I don’t know if it’s because it’s out of your site range or what, but they’ll have attic accesses in the ceiling to a vented attic, which I’ve heard.
Tessa Murry (21:52.232)
Thank
Tessa Murry (22:01.768)
to have.
Tessa Murry (22:05.64)
Okay.
Right.
Sophie Ashley (22:14.271)
know, vented attic temperatures can get up to like 90, over 90 degrees, like super, over 120 degrees, like super, super hot. And I heard someone be like, yeah, you’re in Minnesota too, you should have an exterior door there, right? Like your outside temperature doesn’t get to 120 degrees and you have a weather stripped insulated door, right? So the attic access to a vented attic should be built like an exterior door. they just, it’s often…
Tessa Murry (22:23.368)
Minnesota too. yeah.
Tessa Murry (22:41.766)
Yes.
Sophie Ashley (22:42.957)
a sheetrock scuttle, just a piece of sheetrock supposed to have insulation on the top. Often the insulation is not adhered and so it falls off, you know, and it’s not weather stripped and that’s somewhere that I think could be much better done, much better executed.
Reuben Saltzman (22:50.158)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Tessa Murry (22:50.578)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (22:59.624)
was going to say, Ruben has a little, this was a passion project of yours years ago, Ruben, investigating this weather stripping issue on anti-catches in Minnesota. You went around and asked a bunch of building officials from different cities if this was enforced because it was actually in the code and it was a requirement in Minnesota. That correct?
Reuben Saltzman (22:59.886)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (23:09.941)
Mmm.
Reuben Saltzman (23:10.498)
Yeah, yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (23:19.914)
It’s in the energy code, not just Minnesota. It’s in the national energy code. And it says that the scuttle hole needs to be weather stripped, but then they don’t do it. They caulk it. And it’s like that’s not weather stripping. Why are you allowing this? And I never got a satisfactory answer. It just made me more frustrated than anything.
Tessa Murry (23:31.388)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (23:36.604)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (23:41.938)
they’re still not weather stripped. Every once in while you’ll see an attic access that’s well insulated and weather stripped and you’re like, I would think because it’s South Carolina, the builders are like, it doesn’t really matter that much. Like they haven’t been thinking about that kind of stuff yet.
Reuben Saltzman (23:43.618)
They’re still not.
Sophie Ashley (23:45.175)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. Totally.
Reuben Saltzman (23:49.302)
Angel singing in here.
Sophie Ashley (23:57.656)
Yeah, I mean, it’s not that hard to hit 7 ACH50. I mean, Georgia, do test some houses in Georgia because I’m near Georgia and they’re at 5 ACH50 and even just that difference is quite big. Like if a builder has to go from 7 to 5, you really have to start thinking and you guys do three, no problem. But when yeah, when you’re not forced to do it, you’re not forced to do it.
Tessa Murry (24:01.39)
It’s not.
Tessa Murry (24:10.557)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (24:14.427)
Yep.
Tessa Murry (24:20.36)
And do you see a lot of duct work in the attics then in South Carolina homes? Is that where it’s located? Do you guys have basements too or is it mainly just slab on grade? Okay.
Sophie Ashley (24:23.799)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes. Nope, nope. It’s slab on grade. All the duct works up there. Yeah, with Energy Vanguard, I get to design all homes with, you know, ducts and condition space, which is awesome. But then the homes I’m testing in reality in South Carolina, it’s all vented attics with equipment up in the vented attic.
Tessa Murry (24:32.721)
Tessa Murry (24:37.596)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (24:44.584)
So what’s your recommendation for when you’ve got dog work in the attic? Would you say that having a vented attic is not a good idea?
Sophie Ashley (24:54.829)
Yeah, it’s best to bring ductwork into conditioned space, but also it’s not a perfect solution. I mean, if you’re going to condition the attic, you’re probably going to put spray foam on the roof deck, at least where I’m at, because we’re not required to do a lot of outboard insulation like colder climates are. So most of them are just doing open cell on the roof deck, which also is not a perfect solution. There’s problems with spray foam, off-gassing, it’s not necessarily an airtight.
Tessa Murry (25:07.229)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (25:15.025)
Okay.
Sophie Ashley (25:21.933)
solution and then you do have to condition the attic to some degree. So it’s not like, let’s just flip a switch, right? And make the attic condition. There are some trade-offs and I think a vented attic can work well, but yeah, your question was if there’s duct work in the attic, is a vented attic bad? And I would say yes. A vented attic is much better if you don’t have to have equipment up there in general. Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (25:28.871)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (25:42.181)
In general. In general. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Now, kind of, I want to dive a little bit deeper into what you just said about kind of this whole, you know, moving that thermal boundary up to the roof deck and doing spray foam is not always just the perfect solution. And I’ve seen kind of firsthand doing a diagnostic testing for home performance company for a while and even working with StructureTech.
There are so many homes that think, oh, I’m gonna spray from my attic and it’s gonna solve all my problems. And then it actually creates new problems. New problems they didn’t even think were a possibility. And like you said it, a lot of times I think it has to do with maybe improper installation of it, missing areas, still having air leaks, inconsistencies in the foam or improperly mixed foam where it off gases. And so that’s an issue.
But I’m curious to hear you talk more a little bit about humidity and how humidity can move through foam, at least open cell foam, because you’re seeing a lot of that in South Carolina and other, you know, southern climate regions. It sounds like we have a lot of close cell up in Minnesota, but you got open cell. And some of the research you were talking about at this HVAC symposium was fascinating to me because you were monitoring that humidity through the open cell and
My question is, that creating issues? Is that creating moisture issues? Is it potentially going to be trapping moisture in the roof deck and rotting out the roof deck faster? What is your research and experience shown with open cell on a hot roof?
Sophie Ashley (27:18.615)
Yeah, yeah. So we have a lot of open cell, just like you said, in South Carolina, a lot of R20 at the roof deck with open cell. So they were supposed to have, I think R38, but the spray foam folks got with the code people and basically got this caveat that if you spray foam the roof deck, you can go R20. So I bought a house here when we moved here. It had spray foam at the roof deck. The first time I’ve ever lived in a house with an encapsulated attic. I was so excited.
Tessa Murry (27:46.108)
Hmm.
Sophie Ashley (27:46.894)
But it’s R20 at the roof deck, so it’s between the rafters. I have two by eight rafters. So it’s just applied in between the rafters, which number one isn’t great because it’s hard to make it airtight when you do that because the wood rafters is in between and it expands and contracts. So that’s not great. I put a data logger up there in my attic to measure temperature and relative humidity just to see what was going on.
Reuben Saltzman (28:04.364)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (28:04.656)
Yeah. Yep.
Sophie Ashley (28:14.509)
I got actually pretty high temperatures and really high relative humidity and really high dew point, which is another metric. That’s what the talk was on. It’s like maybe more complicated for this conversation, but moisture in the attic basically is what I found. And yeah, there is a problem where open cell foam is vapor open. So moisture in the air can pass through open cell foam, whereas closed cell, that’s not an issue.
Tessa Murry (28:31.058)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (28:44.343)
There was a cyclical pattern in my attic where moisture would build up during the day from cooking under downstairs, whatever, whatever, warm air rises. Then it would pass at night, it would pass through the open cell foam and sleep in the OSB roof deck because the roof deck gets really cold at night from radiation radiating its heat out. And then the next day the sun would come out and drive that moisture from the roof deck.
into my attic and I saw this as I monitored those conditions and that’s not good because it’s OSB roof deck like you know OSB can’t hold up to moisture very well I’m just picturing my little roofing nails rusting out the heads you know stuff like that so I I opened up a supply my duck work is in the attic and I opened up a supply drop off of my duck work to serve the attic to
Tessa Murry (29:26.154)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (29:29.23)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (29:39.853)
try to condition the attic so when my AC is running it’s now the attic is now getting some of that air conditioned air which has controlled the dew point up there a lot better and reduced the issue but I am worried when I reroof like I don’t know what we’ll find because OSP is so vulnerable you know to
Reuben Saltzman (30:00.856)
Well, I just got to ask, like, how else could this possibly turn out? I mean, we don’t, I couldn’t imagine using open cell phone in an attic in Minnesota, basically for the same reason. There’s gotta be some good arguments that people made as to why it should be allowed in your climate.
Sophie Ashley (30:06.422)
Yeah, no, I mean it is, yeah.
Tessa Murry (30:06.472)
Hehehehe
Sophie Ashley (30:20.182)
Well, it’s so much more affordable. mean, closed cell is dramatically more costly to apply. And in your climate, you have to, there’s no other option. The Delta T across it is just too dramatic. But here, you know, it doesn’t get that cold. So our Delta T is not as big in winter and it’s just a lot more. I mean, no one can afford to put spray foam at the roof deck as it is, right? I mean, you’re going from a vented attic with blown cellulose on a smaller
Tessa Murry (30:25.766)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (30:31.0)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (30:34.648)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (30:46.536)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (30:50.048)
surface area, right? Because it’s the floor of the attic, super affordable. And now you’re telling me you want me to put spray foam at the roof deck, so spray foam, and it’s a bigger surface area to cover. Now you’re telling me you want closed cell. It’s just, gets really expensive.
Reuben Saltzman (31:02.958)
Okay, so what you’re telling me is the argument for allowing this was, it’ll be fine. Okay, all right, good.
Tessa Murry (31:04.38)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (31:09.176)
Yeah, pretty much.
Tessa Murry (31:11.644)
Yeah, that sounds about right. Sounds about right. Now, I just think about like houses that use like ice and water or like a peel and stick membrane or something that’s reducing the permeability of that roof deck. Metal roofs have venting space underneath them, but like, are there certain conditions where
I guess you think that that risk would really increase because of the type of roof covering on an assembly like that.
Sophie Ashley (31:43.545)
Yeah, well, or, yeah, that sounds really dangerous. I have no drying to the outside, right, at all. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of rotted OSB. I mean, we do see a lot of peel and stick around here, because we’re also a hurricane zone. I’m in coastal South Carolina, so we have a lot of issues with hurricanes. But yeah, that would probably be even worse for the open cell myrof, if the moisture inside is not controlled. I mean, if you semi-condition the attic,
Tessa Murry (31:51.01)
Right. Right. Right.
Tessa Murry (32:01.165)
Yeah. Okay.
Tessa Murry (32:10.994)
Correct. Okay. Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (32:12.714)
Or you do the diffusion port thing, is more than we want to get into necessarily, but open cell can work.
Tessa Murry (32:15.996)
Ooh. Well, I was going to say, actually, can you talk about that? Yeah, can you talk about the diffusion port?
Sophie Ashley (32:21.706)
Yeah, hopefully. The diffusion port is a way to ideally let moisture that accumulates in an attic escape. So it’s at the ridge. It’s kind of like a ridge vent, which people hopefully can visualize a ridge vent being like an opening, gap at the sheathing at the very ridge top of the roof. So you can do the same thing, but instead of letting air out that gap, that
Tessa Murry (32:24.488)
you
Sophie Ashley (32:51.704)
opening you’ve created. You cover it with a membrane so that air can’t escape, but that membrane is vapor open. So moisture can diffuse, which is just like migrate through that membrane from inside to outside. And you do it at the ridge because that’s where folks have researched and everything that moisture, the hottest, humidest air accumulates is at the ridge.
Tessa Murry (33:00.006)
Mm.
Tessa Murry (33:06.182)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (33:19.682)
So that’s another way to address the issue that I was seeing in my attic. I don’t, not going to tear off my ridge and do a diffusion port right now, but for new construction that can work or a retrofit where you’re want to do it. Did that make sense? The diffusion port, it’s kind of a tricky one to describe. Okay.
Tessa Murry (33:24.252)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (33:33.564)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (33:34.542)
Well, if you do, totally. Yeah, if you do decide to do it, be sure to use your data loggers and come back to us and let us know how it goes. I’m curious.
Tessa Murry (33:36.614)
Yes. That was a very good description. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (33:43.73)
Yes.
Sophie Ashley (33:44.768)
Yeah, totally. Yeah, I think what I’ve heard is that it’s not generally enough on its own. You still want to do some supply air or a dehumidifier up there, but it can definitely help. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (33:57.173)
Wow, supply. So and you don’t want to do any returns. You just want the supply.
Sophie Ashley (34:01.942)
Right, you don’t want to do returns. You’re not allowed by code to do returns, is my impression, because of fire. you want to, it’s, know, in an attic with spray foam, unless it has drywall or a certain fire retarder, it’s not fully a livable space. So you still, it’s, yeah, anyway, you don’t want returns up there. Or we don’t do returns.
Tessa Murry (34:06.78)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (34:10.373)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (34:18.087)
Yeah.
Okay, interesting. Yeah. So are you in a lot of your designs then on houses that require the thermal boundary against the roof deck, are you speccing, are you seeing open cell then in a lot of the houses that you’re building? Interesting.
Sophie Ashley (34:33.708)
Yeah. Yep. It’s mostly open cell again, mostly because of cost. mean, if it is open cell, we recommend that you cover the rafters with it, really no matter what your R value is, that you’re going to cover the rafters with a slight spray because that’s going to help for your air tightness. And then we make sure to semi-condition the attic. So either you’re getting a dehumidifier up there, just a dedicated dehumidifier, because we don’t really care what temperature it is, but we don’t want moisture.
Tessa Murry (34:39.56)
us.
Tessa Murry (34:44.648)
you
Tessa Murry (34:54.096)
Okay. Yep. Yep.
Sophie Ashley (35:02.098)
or we’re doing some supply error up there.
Tessa Murry (35:02.459)
Right.
That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, so if you’re going to do open cell, it’s all about the application of it and the design of the house, the HVAC systems and making sure you’ve got proper dehumidification set up so that you’re not having high humidity up in the attic. That makes a lot of sense. So you can do that. You just have to think about other systems and how they’re going to help out with that assembly. That’s very interesting. Yeah. And are you doing a lot of heat pumps then with your houses, your high efficiency houses? That’s primarily like what you see being installed?
Sophie Ashley (35:21.014)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Totally.
Sophie Ashley (35:33.719)
Yeah, we’re doing a lot of heat pumps. We do a lot of inverter driven equipment. Mitsubishi, Dyken, LG, High-end, High Sear. I do do dual fuel. In the Minnesota job that I just did, did dual fuel and the contractor was used to doing AC furnace and I pushed them towards doing a heat pump with a furnace. The heat pump is still sized for cooling.
basically an air conditioner with a reversing valve and it can do some heating in the, you know, in the swing seasons or when it’s not negative 13 or whatever, you know, it can contribute and it can heat at a much higher COP than a furnace, right? Like a furnace, 98 % furnace is still only 98 % efficient, whereas a heat pump can have COPs of like three, which is more than one. So that’s like 98 % compared to 300%.
Tessa Murry (36:08.648)
Thank you.
Sophie Ashley (36:28.086)
right of converting electricity to BTUs per hour of heat. And so I’ve been working, I’m trying to figure out how to do an economic balance point for this client to try to help them prove to them or show them why the heat pump will be helpful in certain seasons and like at what temperature it might make sense financially to turn to the furnace. But I haven’t figured out that yet. So lots of heat pumps and some dual fuel.
Tessa Murry (36:28.444)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (36:32.344)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (36:54.992)
Okay. I’m sure there’ll be some program probably written shortly or AI could figure it out for you in next few months. Wow. Interesting. Okay. And are you seeing a lot of houses move to electrification then? Like just in your high efficiency custom homes that you’re working on?
Sophie Ashley (36:59.882)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (37:13.568)
Yeah, yep, a lot of the homes we see are all electric and then we do get some clients every now and then that want to electrify so they may be an existing, have an existing furnace but they want to electrify and they’ll come to us to run a load calc or do some monitoring on their current equipment to try to size a heat pump properly.
Tessa Murry (37:35.612)
Hmm.
Sophie Ashley (37:36.002)
So it’s not something that we push by any means, but there is a trend and we can help. With electrification, it’s really important to do proper load calcs and sizing, which is one of the services we offer. So we can support that in being like effective and successful.
Tessa Murry (37:49.288)
right.
Tessa Murry (37:53.945)
Yeah, because one of the things that I was hearing a lot about at the HVAC symposium was just the challenge in the HVAC industry of taking maybe like a natural gas system and retrofitting it with a heat pump and how that existing ductwork sizing may not work with the new system and that you’ve got to do some resizing or different calcs to figure out how to make that retrofit system work and be efficient and comfortable.
Sophie Ashley (38:24.364)
Yeah, it’s a challenge. my parents, for example, wanted to electrify and they’re not, you know, super educated in this and they just hear the words and they’re like, they just want to flip a switch and be like, put in a heat pump, right? We got the tax credit, but it is important to know that it’s not that simple. I mean, cause for example, a furnace heats at a much higher air temperature. The air temperature delivered is higher than a heat pump. A heat pump can heat very effectively, but it generally moves more air.
Tessa Murry (38:49.661)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (38:54.306)
to get the same amount of delivered BTUs per hour than a furnace would. So sometimes you need bigger ductwork. Although I will say often the furnace is way oversized and if you actually do a load calc or monitor runtime or something and get a better, like truer size equipment, sometimes the existing ductwork can work because the size, the capacity of the equipment dropped and the ductwork will work, depends.
Tessa Murry (38:58.107)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (39:06.35)
Hmm?
Tessa Murry (39:20.904)
Hmm.
Sophie Ashley (39:23.286)
The point is that it’s not just a flip a switch, right? To heat pump, you need to do loads.
Reuben Saltzman (39:23.83)
Hmm, yeah.
Tessa Murry (39:24.036)
Yeah. Right.
And these are all tests that can be done, but a lot of the HR contractors out there are not doing that or they’re not aware of it. We just had Steve Rogers, you know, president of TEC on last week. And so we were talking about some of this stuff and just, you know, that there is like testing equipment and apps out there that make it easy to figure out if these systems are going to work or not and how you need to change them. Right?
Sophie Ashley (39:35.224)
yeah, yeah.
Sophie Ashley (39:47.501)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (39:54.553)
Yeah, I would just add, there totally are, but I would add, so you were saying, you know, lot of contractors aren’t doing it, which is true, but I think the problem is a lot of homeowners aren’t asking for it, aren’t willing to pay for it, don’t know about it, right? Like contractors are doing what they’re paid to do. And some are doing a lot more, right? Right. And some are doing a lot better. It’s also, we got to educate, like my parents, who, you you can’t just like throw in a heat pump. we need, you need to do some investigation, maybe do some improvement.
Tessa Murry (40:04.712)
Good point. Good point.
Reuben Saltzman (40:05.71)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (40:08.872)
being asked to do. Yeah. Yeah. Home owners. Yes. Right.
Tessa Murry (40:23.986)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (40:24.45)
to the enclosure and that’s hard to do. I I do what I do, like my parents know what I do and it’s still hard to get them to pay for like air sealing, right? Like, you know, so I see the struggle of no one wants to invest, not no one, but it can be hard to convince people to invest in diagnostics or improvements like that.
Tessa Murry (40:33.778)
for sure.
Yep.
Tessa Murry (40:45.126)
Yep. Yeah. I think that’s the struggle just in general. I’ve seen like just with my short time of kind of being in this industry, it’s like just home performance and high efficiency homes. It’s like, you know, people, the consumer doesn’t understand the difference between close all spray foam in the attic versus a fiberglass. And why would they spend an extra 10 grand on that? They don’t care. You can’t see that. So how does a builder sell that? Well, then they don’t. And so then you’re left with a house that’s not
performing as good as it could be. And so it’s like the constant struggle, like how do we create a demand so that these things are, you know, adopted more widely in our standard building practices? it’s just, it’s a challenge. It’s a very slow moving industry, I feel like. There’s just not a lot of movement.
there. So it’s exciting to like meet people like you and hear about the work that you’re doing and the builders that you’re working with to try and help them improve, you know, the performance of their houses too. That’s really cool. Yeah. Well, we should probably wrap this episode up. But Sophie, is there anything that we that we didn’t talk about that you want to touch on or anything that we missed that we should have covered that you can think of?
Reuben Saltzman (41:46.754)
Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (42:03.744)
I can’t really think of anything. mean, I think, yeah, you guys as home inspectors must see the most crazy, interesting things. don’t, yeah. I’m sure you do. I mean, I’m really glad that I came up working on old buildings, kind of like you guys, I’m sure do. We do a lot of inspections when homes are changing hands or something. And I am so glad that I learned on from existing buildings before I moved into new construction, you know, cause you.
Reuben Saltzman (42:12.62)
we see wild stuff. yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (42:23.757)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (42:30.216)
huh.
Sophie Ashley (42:30.658)
There’s just those things just stick in your head. Those houses like in New Orleans, seeing a house that was rebuilt after Katrina. And then I was there maybe five years after Katrina. We rebuilt it again because the vinyl siding was poorly detailed and there was like a basically water intrusion from the outside. And then termites just destroyed the home and just like little things like that, which I’m sure you guys see all the time inspecting homes. just like.
Tessa Murry (42:35.953)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (42:53.789)
f-
Reuben Saltzman (42:54.805)
gosh.
Sophie Ashley (43:00.382)
imprint in your mind and affect what you do for the rest of your career, Like, respecting water for one, but yeah.
Tessa Murry (43:02.481)
Yeah.
For sure. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. Yeah, water is the home’s worst enemy is what we say. Was that you? Did you come up with that, Ruben? Who came up with that?
Reuben Saltzman (43:05.324)
Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (43:13.256)
Absolutely.
I don’t know who came up with that, but we’ve been saying it for a long time. I had somebody ask me recently, what’s the worst thing you guys see out there? What’s the worst thing for us right now? It’s like, that’s easy. It’s water everywhere. It affects everything. Yeah. Number one enemy of homes. Yeah.
Sophie Ashley (43:28.28)
water. Yeah, from inside outside the air, right? Yeah.
Tessa Murry (43:29.384)
Outside, humidity. Yeah, all of it. All of it. Okay. Well, Sophie, it has been such a pleasure having you on today. Thank you so much for joining us. And for anyone that wants to reach out to you, learn more about what you do, or maybe use your consulting services, how do they get a hold of you?
Reuben Saltzman (43:37.358)
How do you control it?
Sophie Ashley (43:51.618)
Yeah, probably me personally, you could find me on LinkedIn. It’s Sophie Ashley and then Energy Vanguard. We have a website. So I just go there. You can contact us through the website. My boss, Alison Bales, who was on runs or does a wonderful blog that you can sign up for on the website. It’s kind of homeowner facing, but it’s very technical. A lot about building science and HVAC. And he also has a book called, A House Needs to Breathe or Does It, which is also on the website and a really good.
Reuben Saltzman (44:08.675)
Yes.
Sophie Ashley (44:21.538)
Building science intro, more than intro, but yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (44:23.512)
Yes, Yep, strongly recommend his blog. I mean, and he makes it entertaining. It really is written for anybody.
Tessa Murry (44:23.858)
Great book. Yep, great resource. Yeah, yeah.
Sophie Ashley (44:29.43)
Yeah, I would think like realtors and home inspectors would just, that’d be awesome. I would think that information, yeah. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (44:29.958)
He does. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (44:35.212)
Yeah, yeah, gotta subscribe to that. Cool.
Tessa Murry (44:36.228)
Yes, it’s a great resource. for sure. Yeah. Well, thanks, Sophie.
Reuben Saltzman (44:40.59)
All right, well, Sophie, like Tessa said, thank you so much for joining us. And for the listeners, if you got any questions, comments for us, please reach out. We read all your emails. It’s podcast at structuretech.com and we will catch you next time. Thank you.
Sophie Ashley (44:56.621)
Thanks.