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Row House Skylights: Replacing Single-Pane Pyramids With Made To Order Triple-Pane LAMILUX FE Historic row houses in New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and many other urban centers used skylights to bring daylight into stairways and bathrooms. The architect and builders knew the importance of daylighting and skylights in t … read more

An Interior Air Barrier Does It Better Ever tempted to wear your underwear over your pants? Neither are we! But when it comes to buildings, we’re seeing a lot of common practices that are equally backwards. It turns out that air barriers, like underwear, perform their job much better on the inside. To be more specific, that means inb … read more

Climate Action and The Spirit of 1776 Let’s Get Inspired As we celebrate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence 243 years ago, on July 4th, 1776, let’s consider the colonial leaders and revolutionary participants - many of whom were educated, healthy, and not just comfortable, but wealthy. At the time, the colonists were gener … read more

A Declaration of Independence from Foam Plastic Insulation When in the course of constructing and renovating buildings, it becomes necessary for architects, consultants and builders to stop using materials and methods which have defined high-performance building in our time, and determine to set a new course separate and free from foa … read more

Reason Foam Fails #5 Excessive Shrinkage Fine Homebuilding, Feb/March 2012 With the growing use of foam plastic insulation in building construction, first in commercial roofing and then too often metastasizing over the entire building enclosure, it is being used increasingly as an air barrier component. This is a problem for … read more

Builder Spotlight: Jason Lear Jason Lear, founder and co-owner of Batt + Lear, kickstarted his company along with wife, Holly Batt back in 1999 in Seattle. Since its origin, the focus of the firm has been sustainable building. We recently sat down in conversation with Jason to discuss his work and mission. What got you interested … read more