Better Buildings: Better Business Conference

I'm headed to Schaumburg tomorrow for a conference focusing on energy efficiency improvements for home in the Midwest. http://www.betterbuildingsil.org/index.php is the conference home page.

I'll be doing breakout sessions like:

Deep energy retrofits

With the collapse of the financial markets and the U.S. debt bubble, it seems likely that new construction activity will continue to contract. At the same time, peak oil prices and climate change will drive interest in dramatically reducing energy consumption in existing buildings. In response, more attention is going to deep energy retrofits of homes and other building types-the topic of this full-day workshop. We'll look at the nature of the challenge, where energy goes in homes, and the underlying building science. Air barriers and insulation detailing will be illustrated, primarily through numerous case study examples. We will also examine mechanical systems for low-load retrofits.

I'll also be sharpening my chops on other technical issues over the course of the next 3 days. http://www.betterbuildingsil.org/sessionschedule.pdf is a link to the rest of the conference schedule. Hopefully I'll get to post something from the conference.