Conservation-First Retrofits

Conservation-First Retrofits

The Karmaly Coefficient: Quantifying Latent Value in Deep Energy Retrofits

Deep energy retrofits are hard to sell on simple payback alone. The numbers often look marginal: a 10-year simple payback, a 15% IRR, maybe a 20% redu...

Conservation-First Retrofits

The Decarbonization Tax: Unseen Costs of a Half-Measure Envelope Strategy

This article explores the hidden costs of pursuing a half-measure envelope strategy for building decarbonization, a common approach where only partial...

Conservation-First Retrofits

The Thermal Battery: Phase Change Material Scheduling for Deep Retrofit Payback

The Core Challenge: Why PCM Scheduling Determines Retrofit EconomicsFor practitioners working on deep energy retrofits, phase change materials (PCMs) ...

Conservation-First Retrofits

Taming the Exfiltration Cascade: A Systems Dynamics Approach to Airtightness

Air leakage in buildings is rarely a single point of failure. It behaves like a cascade: one leak pressurizes a cavity, forcing air through a second f...

Conservation-First Retrofits

The Retrofit Gambit: Calculating Risk and Resilience in a Non-Linear Climate

Introduction: The Non-Linear Reality and the Strategic BetFor fifteen years, I've advised clients on building performance and resilience, and the para...