Thanks for joining us again on the HVAC School podcast Dr Bales Well, you're welcome I'm glad to be here again. Nice to have you again. It's been a it's been a while um you have been very busy between Energy Vanguard and also uh, writing this book which is what I wanted to talk about today and then just talk about some of the some of the topics that are contained therein At first, just give us a give us a little update on on what you do, what you're up to. For those who uh, may need that may need that little reminder.

What do I do? Um, Well so Energy Vanguard is not just me. There are four of us in the company now and um, our main thing that we do uh in the last couple of years that things have changed with the pandemic, but uh, probably two-thirds of our Revenue now is residential HVAC design. We do third party design all over mostly the Us, but all over North America We've done some in Mexico, some in Canada and we we focus. You know, our specialty is heat pumps, especially inverter driven mini split heat pumps.

We do a lot of jobs with that, but we also do other conventional, more conventional systems furnace and air conditioner and things like that. So, but it's all on the forced air side. Um, don't do hydronic stuff. Um, besides that, I do speaking and training events and um, and as you mentioned, I just have finished writing this book.

I also have a Blog I try to do one article a week and I do a newsletter that comes out every week. the next Edition is coming out tomorrow. so usually on Tuesdays sometimes it's on Wednesdays depends on how things go, that's pretty much it. and well.

And since the book came out in October I've been spending a lot of time shipping books, but we're pretty much caught up on that. So so that that part the process has become a lot easier. now that we've caught up on that. there's a lot of work doing shipping and uh, all that kind of stuff.

It's surprising. yeah. I didn't realize until I started just like selling T-shirts Then you realize huh. that's this.

Takes a lot of work, there's a lot to do so beyond that energy. Vanguard Amazing blog. Uh, it's something that I recommend. People just read religiously the newsletter.

all that it's It's great content for the HVAC trade. I Want to kind of talk about the book specifically because I think some people when they look at the title you know the house needs to breathe or does it. and they read about building science and introduction to building science. They may think well, this isn't for the HVAC professional and so I want to address that right off the top before people because you know I tend to sometimes.

I've been known to go off on tangents at times and I've been given the feedback that sometimes those tangents aren't uh, necessarily appropriate for all the HVAC audience. But I would argue that this book really is written for anybody who's in the residential HVAC space I think I think they'll benefit from it and so talk about that a little bit. Um, with this with our audience being mostly HVAC technicians and contractors, what are they going to get out of this book that would be kind of unique to them? Number one, the book covers everything and um, the the three main sections are start at the end, which is let's take a look at what do we want out of a house? You know what is it that the people who live in that house need to be healthy to be happy to be comfortable to not spend too much money on the house. And so I talk about thermal comfort and and the healthy homes.

and Energy Efficiency Um, and then I go into the building enclosure and that's the part I think that you know you're the the title alludes to. mostly because the house needs to breathe or does it? that's from uh, I've something I've heard too many times from Builders who are trying to justify leaving the house leaky. Well, we need we need that hair to come in, that fresh air to come in from the garage on the crawl space in the Attic So that's the second part talking about the insulation, air sealing Moisture Control in both liquid and Vapor forms and basic building science. But then a good probably more than a third of the book is the the third section, which is the part for your HVAC tax and that's mechanical systems and I I Talk about you know the basics of heating and cooling I Talk about different kinds of heating and cooling equipment: How to move conditioned air through a house, filtering air ventilating the house dehumidification.

A whole chapter on that, and a whole chapter on hot water. Yeah, I would argue that there's actually nothing in here that doesn't apply to the residential. HVAC Contractor: Like you mentioned, there's going to be certain parts of the country that maybe benefit slightly more than others, with mine being very high on that list because we require the dehumidification and we have. We just have a lot of these needs.

but I would say these are the things that we need to be talking more about. Anyway, there's so much discussion around kind of how how can we improve our margins as residential contractors while being ethical? We don't want to sell people you know, widgets and doodads that they don't need or that aren't going to benefit them. but we do need to often increase uh, the types of work we can do so that we can actually get more when we're at a job. And this, while not directly addressing any sort of Revenue model, speaks to the underlying ideas behind a home and a structure that are going to result in those sorts of things.

and again, I always tend to think about the retrofit. Market Obviously when we talk about designing a structure, that's that's from the beginning, but it really does apply to both. I Mean you actually speak in your uh, in your blog, even about different things that you've done in your own home and things like that that apply to this and the book has a lot that uh, that speaks to that. But I want to just start with this question that the book asks and just just with that, let's let's let's touch on some of that because it's always worth covering.

We've covered it before, but it's always worth touching on. A house needs to breathe, does it? Maybe we don't want to give away the lead here I guess but like does it? I'm giving away the lead in fact I think uh Lloyd alter in his uh review of the book. um said that I answered the question on page 23. So yeah, the answer is really early and I'm I'm happy to tell people the my answer to that question is no, a house does not need to breathe for a couple of different reasons.

Um, number one, that term is used in different ways. Some people say that the house needs to breathe. meaning that like I Talked about a minute ago, a house needs to be leaky so that outdoor air comes in through those those random leaks in the building enclosure and that's gives you your fresh air which is not really fresh because if it's being sucked through, that dead squirrel lying on top of the top plate in the Attic Yeah, that's not getting you fresh air. Um, so that's that's one use of it.

Another use is that when some people say a house needs to breathe meaning that it needs to be able to dry out and this is, um, you know if if a wall gets wet for some reason, you don't want to have that water trapped in there, it needs to be able to dry out. And so people say, well, a house needs to breathe. Meaning it needs to dry out. and that's a completely different use of the term.

Um, so why not just say a house needs to be able to dry out. You know, assemblies need to be able to dry out. That's that's a more clear statement of that. So yeah, no, a house does not need to breathe.

Um, we want the house to be as airtight as possible and we want to have all the other things that we need to do to get good into air quality. Ventilation is one. We have the same build tight ventilate right? which is part of the solution we want to build tight, but we want to ventilate right? We also want to, um, control moisture As you know in Florida Moisture control is really important to indoor air quality. Mold is is bad stuff to have floating around in the air in great quantities.

Um, and we want to have good filtration and we want to do Source control that one of the the big the biggest ways. One of the most important things to do for indoor air quality is control what you bring into the house and use good materials when you're building the house use Goods You know, bring in furniture that doesn't off gas and all the other things. Um, so that's that's my answer. A house does not need to breathe.

that's the whole point of the ore does. And again, to the interest of the HVAC contractor. Um, it's really helpful for us when structures are designed in such a way that the ventilation is controlled because that's what we do, right? and so it can not only benefit the occupants, but it also benefits us as a profession when we take the the V and HVAC more seriously because that's something else for us to do that's a value to the structure. And so yes, it is true that building tighter structures I've come to understand is actually really valuable.

but then that means that the ventilation part is all the more important. Uh, to that and as well as the as well as the way that the envelope is constructed which is early in the book it has I Really like how thoughtfully you've laid it out and I'm not just I'm not just buttering your buns here I I Really do like it. Um, where you talk about the different things that you have to control. So you need to control air, You need to control liquid water, You need to control water vapor.

and you need to control heat. and even heat has its three different ways in which it comes into a structure which are very different and have very different characteristics. Um, and so talk about that a little bit. How you kind of thought about laying that out? because I Because it is.

It's such a source of confusion when people confuse for example, liquid water with water vapor or air with water vapor. That's another really common one. Yeah, so um, you know. I started in building science 20 years ago when I took on the project of building a house and never having built anything bigger than a bookcase before that and never having done a manual J load calculation or or seen or or done a blower door test.

Um, and I built a pretty tight house 1.6 ACH 50 and it was the most comfortable, comfortable house I ever lived in. It's not my current house because there was a divorce since then, but it's a whole other story. Um, so the yeah I mean understanding the you know the separate flows. You know the heat, air, and moisture.

And that moisture as you just mentioned is two different things. I Mean because water is a really, really interesting substance and it's It's one of the only substances that changes phase between solid liquid and vapor and the normal temperatures and pressures that we live at. And we see this all the time. So um, understanding how to, uh, think about that and you know that we need to control these things and which ones are more important to control? Number one: The thing that we have to control is liquid water.

We we have to make sure that you know our drainage system are working. We're not getting roof leaks, We're not getting water leaking into the walls. um, through. You know, bad flashing around windows and things like that.

and that's uh, that's what can cause the house to fail the fastest. I mean outside of fire and um, things like that. But with the the normal aging of a house, it's the liquid water problems that that cause the most damage. Um, air is second on the list in terms of priorities.

You know we want to control liquid water first. Then we want to control air because air moving in and out I mean that that number one. It will bring contaminants into the house. And um, and you've got.

You know, if you have uncontrolled airflow, you're bringing in air from from the garage from the crawl space. That's not good. It also brings in unconditioned air and it loses conditioned air from the house. So we want to make sure that we don't do that we want.

We want to have that that airflow controlled through ventilation and it also brings moisture in. You know, human climate? You've got humid air outside in the summertime. That humid air can come into the house through random leaks and and we don't want that. So controlling airs is really really important.

Um, and then water vapor and heat are are not as important as those first two. Heat is is important. Water vapor is important and depends on where you live. We need control layers to control these things.

And when I discuss all that in the in the book as well. the um, you know we may or may not need a control layer for vapor. Um, and then going back to that other use of the word breathe. You know people say a house needs to breathe.

meaning it needs to dry out. Me and and where that comes from is we had some some uh, some uh, going down the wrong path and building science back in the middle of the 20th century and and led to Decades of putting vapor barriers into buildings where we didn't really need them. If you're putting uh, you know, a sheet of plastic on the inside of your wall and and North Carolina or Georgia or Florida you are going to rot that wall. There's there's no question about it and that has happened.

So you have to be careful about vapor rechargers and you don't always need them. You need to understand the vapor flows and you need to make sure that things can dry out. It's it's usually not a case of needing to stop the water vapor from moving directly through materials. What? What? If you control the airflow, then you control most of the water vapor flow because most of the water vapor that goes through a wall, for example, is going in through the air leakage.

With the air leakage, it's not diffusing directly through the material. So it's so key that we understand the differences between these things though. and I haven't found a book that really is tailored to the the HVAC technician HVAC contractor that is as clear about these things as this book is because you can just go to the chapter that addresses these very specific questions that we face and find the information that you need. and and these are all separate chapters.

We've got air, liquid, water, water vapor, heat, and talks about all of those uh and and I immediately turned to those and started coming through it because those are the things that I still find myself sometimes. I I confuse the words I'll say the wrong word even as much as I think about these things. I'll say the wrong thing. Wait, hold on a second.

No. I I it's air that I need to deal with here, not not water vapor. That's not what I need to do. So, those sorts of things are are really key and the book covers it.

Uh, covers it in depth and in a very sensible way. One of the next things that I really like is you talk in order. Uh, three of my favorite topics that relate to IAQ and IAQ is one of those kind of loaded phrases that has come to mean selling bolt-on products that may or may not work. Um, but when we when I say IAQ and when you say IAQ we're talking primarily about filtration, humidity control, and ventilation, those really are the three things that's Source control Source control.

Yes, yes, that's another one as well. Um, so talk about that a little bit. Um, just some of the some of the high points of what you cover. Uh, on that front, because I think for an HVAC technician, these are things that we really have to get trained on before we try to go anywhere else with indoor air quality.

So I've been doing um, speaking on indoor air quality at a series of building science symposiums in Kansas, City and Austin and Chattanooga recently and my my whole approach is let's talk about a layered approach to indoor air quality and I mean you were at summer camp this year Bill Bonfleth talked about that and and that. you know in the 20 years I've been studying building science and learning all this stuff. You learn things. and then, uh, even 20 years later, you still learn things and things click in a different way and somehow you know.

I've been thinking about indoor air quality for a long time. and Bill Bonfest talk at Summer Camp made things click for a new way in me. and it made me think about that phrase Bill Tight Ventilate right? That phrase makes you think that all you need to do is is make the house airtight and put some ventilation in it. You've got good indoor air quality, But no, it's it's more than that, it's it's a layer approach.

We also need filtration. Merv 13 is where you want to be and you can do that with low pressure drop in a residential system. I've got Merv 13 filters in my house with a 0.06 pressure drop. Yeah, inches of water column for units there.

Um, so we we need to do all these things. It's uh, it's thinking about the filtration and the ventilation and the source control and the moisture control and the air tightness. All five of those things are really important for indoor air quality. Yeah, and back to what we had talked about before about controlling air coming into a structure.

Um, addicts. You know, In In Florida in our Market attic air is horrible. Air Usually I mean super high dew point. Unbelievably High dew points in some cases, very high temperature.

and we tend to focus on the temperature. but that's that's the least of your concerns. Um, it often comes with a lot of other contaminants in it. Um, you have sometimes have rodents and heaven knows what else up in those spaces and so now that's leaking into your to your structure.

and so once again Source Control is Huge. Um, you mentioned you know, bringing in Furniture that's going to off gas or paints or things like that, or even destroying chemicals inside the home that are dangerous and potentially leaking. You know there's lots of things that are, uh, fairly obvious, but are actually much higher priority um, than some of the more exotic you know, fancy things we can try to do in a home. and if we're not addressing as professionals, if we're not addressing the obvious things, it's you know the the example has been given many times and I'm sure you've given it, she's going to the doctor and there's something very obviously wrong with you.

Um, that they could find out just by doing is the basic tests and they immediately jump to you know, the most exotic, uh, the most exotic causes and uh, and how how we do that every day in the HVAC industry talk a little bit about it. Obviously there's a lot in the book, but I want to talk about mostly because I'm curious. but I think people enjoy this sort of thing about the process of of uh, creating this book and go with it wherever you like. but I mean the first time I heard about it was I think in 2020 I think it was we had a like a Kickstarter or not a Kickstarter necessarily but a crowdfunding campaign and uh, and that's when you kind of first brought it up and initially when I heard about it I thought it was going to be a much smaller project than it ended up being.

and now it's this really really in-depth very beautiful. uh, full color hardback? uh book that references so many different things. so let's talk through that a little bit if you would. Well, I've been writing The Energy Vanguard blog for almost 13 years now I started in 2010 so um I wanted to write a book for a while and but I always knew if I make that decision.

if I if I say I'm going to do it, it's going to be a lot of work because I can't just take blog articles and Patch them together and I I've seen books like that, you know they can be okay but I didn't want that kind of book. I wanted to have a book that was, you know, cohesive and everything went together and presented the you know, the holistic picture of building science which I from what the feedback I'm getting I think I hit that Mark which is good. Uh so yeah, in 2020, The pandemic was starting. um I had been I Got some emails from this company called publishizer and you know saying hey, you should write a book and they were just reaching out to anybody who had a Blog I think and so I contacted them and and said okay, this is the time to do it You know the pandemic started I'm working from home uh let's do it.

So I did the 30-day campaign in Spring of 2020. and got 1002 pre-orders including the copies that you ordered. um and when that was over in April of 2020 I set to work I sat at my desk in my basement and came down here every day and and my my schedule was you know to work the whole morning on the book and then the afternoon work on the other parts of the business that I needed to do now. sometimes I'd work the whole day on the book and and some days I would have trouble getting started and you know as writing right and it took a long time and it you know I think when I first started I was thinking maybe the book would be out by the end of that year.

I'm always way too optimistically but I I when I built the house 20 years ago I was I was always just two months out. so the power of self-delution uh got me into that house because I was always just two months out. in two months. I'm going to be living in that house two months.

So this was a similar project, but uh, took a long time and you know I had my ups and downs with it and sometimes thought oh, um I don't know what I'm doing here managed to stick with it and got it all put together and I took a year and a half to finish the writing and then another year. To you know, get through all the publishing stuff. You know the editing, the layout, the proofreading, the indexing, the printing. But here we are finally in the fall of Um 2022, the book is out and selling well.

We're getting close to 3 000 copies sold now, which is really nice. Um, it's selling well on Amazon it's it's uh, ranked well on Amazon and some of the categories that I think I've had a high of number two in the residential architecture category, which is a pretty big category. Um, I've been number one a lot in the what is it home Heating and air Conditioning category I think excellent. So um, yeah, it's been a fun process and uh, and I'm starting to think about.

You know what I'm going to do next. This is where I in in hopes to make you even feel better about your time frame. This is the first time I'm ever going to publicly announce that I have been working on a book for six years. Uh, and it's a it's a small business book so it's not even it's not even HVAC specific.

It's just about the things that I've learned um, over the years in small business and family business. Specifically, you know some of the things to navigate there and it is a it is a bear to write a book I Mean it really is. it's you go into it. Um, it.

So caveat. I'm sure there are certain types of books that are easier to write, but when you really want to write something, uh, that not only is good in terms of its content, but in terms of its structure and in terms of the illustrations. in terms of uh, the the voice that you write it in so that it represents you well and actually makes it easy to read, that's a really hard undertaking and you know you've nailed it here. You've nailed it in terms of the way that you write.

in terms of the the formatting being really easy to reference, finding what you need when you need to find it. the illustrations are really good, the even just the weight of it and the feel of it is just a really well done well executed book. So congratulations on that again! I Didn't know what to expect when when I first signed on to the Uh to the crowdfunding deal. it was mostly just like hey, you know Dr Bales is writing something I'm sure it's going to be amazing I'm happy to support that.

Um, but yeah, it's just it's exceeded all expectations. and I've heard from other people too I mean you know guys like Jenry Garcia and just others out there who, uh, really care about this stuff. Uh, they've got received the book and they just love it. So um I haven't heard anybody who's who's been disappointed I think all of the expectations have been exceeded and that's uh, that's a that's a tall order with the book, especially nowadays.

Um, you know, um, it's been good to get this kind of feedback because after spending two and a half years with it I have no objectivity about the book I I don't know if I just completely missed the Mark Um, and it's a bunch of crap or you know if it would go over well and it seems to be going over well. Um, the the feedback I'm getting is really good. You know, like like you just said, yeah, it's um, it is hard. It's hard.

uh, even separate from books, but just any sort of creative endeavor when you spend so much time on it. and actually the more time you spend on it, the less you even can understand it anymore like you can't You can't tell whether anybody is going to Value it. It's the way I feel whenever I walk off the stage after giving a talk or any sort of training. It's like when you've thought about something so much you just can't tell you know if and are people just being nice to you? You know it's just it's very, uh, very challenging.

but uh yeah, it's it. really is. It's a it's an opus I mean it's a it's a beautiful thing. Um, that you've made.

So for people who are interested in um, buying the book or reading more of what you have or learning more about what you're up to, what are some of the best ways that they can do that. So the book is available on our website at Energy Vanguardstore.com Well, that's the store part of our website. Uh, Energy Vanguardstore.com It's also available on Amazon Um, and other booksellers you can go to the Energy Vanguard.com and to see the blog. We've talked about that a little bit.

I've been doing that for 13 years almost now and I have over a thousand articles there which some of them I pulled in the book directly with little modification but I I found early on the book writing process. going back to the process question that um, taking taking uh, articles from the blog and putting them in there A lot of times require too much work so I just scrapped that idea and I said okay, I'm just going to start this chapter and just write it fresh and not try to pull in articles from the blog. Same same thing that I've experienced whenever people have said like hey, well why don't you write a book on some air conditioning topic and it's like you've already got all this content and then sometimes I'll start and it's like nah, that doesn't work like it's just it's got to be fresh. It has to be cohesive.

Um, in order for it to feel right? Um, I'm with you there for sure. Uh yeah. So for people to who want to support you the maximum way they can, is it best that they go directly to your site? Is that? is that the best way to do it? Uh, just send checks for a million dollars more to? uh yeah, no energy. Vanguard.com is.

uh, is the website? Uh, you can go there. You can subscribe to our newsletter if you go to the blog part and even on the homepage. I think um, but there's there's a box you can put your name and email address in and you'll get the Weekly Newsletter there and keep up with what's going on there. The Weekly Newsletter by the way has it always says at the top the latest article that I've written and I usually do about one article a week.

If I haven't written an article that week which happens occasionally, then I'll run uh one from the past and then below that I'll have my weekly column which is just in the newsletter that's not anywhere else so you'll get some some content there that's not anywhere else. and then I have links to other articles I have uh book update section which may become irrelevant after a little bit more. um and then I've got a quote of the week and a calendar of events that I'm speaking at and things like that. So that's the The Weekly Newsletter and we have you uh booked for the Symposium Uh so we're super excited to to see you there and we hope that hope that uh works out and uh and everything is everything is good to go there and uh, hopefully you'll be able to bring some books down.

Is that the Is that the intent? That'd be awesome? Yeah yeah yeah. I'm gonna drive down because yeah, making you tilt my books for me? Yeah, thank you. no that's that's fine I need to bring books down there and I have learned that shipping books are not cheap so um, you know you're The distance to from Atlanta to Claremont Florida is longer than I usually drive but I've got the sister in Lakeland so you know it'll give me a chance to go visit her afterwards or before. So I have books for sale there.

Um, for those of you who are going to be there in person and for those of you who are viewing online in the virtual um you'll get a chance to get a little uh, more flavor of the types of presentations that Dr Bales gives which are always excellent. Um yeah, so excited about the book. Excited for everything that you've got going on. Anything else you want to share before we wrap up? well, just uh yeah.

I mean subscribe to the newsletter. Then you can find out my my events calendar I am in addition to the Hacr Symposium in Claremont Florida I'm going to Toronto to do uh, two one day workshops so it's going to be a whole day kind of a uh, one day version of of the book. and so anybody in Canada looking to buy a book I'll be bringing some up there as well. not driving there.

um, and that's going to be in February I think it was going to be in January and that's in February which is better it might be a little bit I doubt it. this is Toronto we're talking about here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. so um, yeah, that's it.

I'm just, you know, um, got the blog also I'm very active on LinkedIn so find me there Allison Bales Chief Troublemaker at Energy Vanguard I Need to remember to introduce you that way more often because it is, uh, it is very true and uh, and in a good way. In a good way. Awesome. Uh yeah, and we actually do have a lot of surprising number of listeners in Toronto I Don't know what it is about Toronto but there is a lot of a lot of Canadian HVAC School Folks, they take their uh HVAC very seriously up there.

so I always appreciate them. Uh, so yeah, check that out. Yeah! Dr Bales Thank you so much for taking the time to to come on the podcast. Um, always.

You've always been one of the kindest, uh, supporters of what I've I've done. Uh, and you've always been very helpful in terms of your feedback. It's it's always productive. I Learned a lot from you.

uh and yeah. look forward to to everything that you're doing. Everything that you will do in the future and encourage everybody to go out and buy the book. it's not going to be I mean even if you only buy one per contractor like so even if it's just you know on your on your company bookshelf, it's at least worth buying for that when you run into some of these challenges.

But I would encourage you uh, even folks out in the field I Think it's a really great book for you to have and it's just it's one of those books that looks great. you know, looks great on your bookshelf, you know, and you're in your office I had it leaning up, uh, behind me on my desk and uh, one of our one of our sales people came in and he's like so what is that you know So I let him I let him look at it and and pretty soon I'm gonna have plenty to give away too so that'll be great. But thank you so much for everything and I look forward to seeing you in person very soon. All right? Well thanks Brian thanks for watching our video if you enjoyed it and got something out of it.

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