Chris Stratton

Kitchen Ventilation

Author: Chris Stratton

February 28, 2015

There is an unvented combustion appliance that people use every day that is often ignored [continue reading]

How We Turned Our House Into a Giant Foam Box

Author: Chris Stratton and Wen Lee

June 13, 2018

My wife Wen Lee and I are in the midst of renovating our rather generic three-bed, two-bath, 1,400 ft2 suburban Pasadena area home to be net zero energy. At the outset I decided it would be ... [continue reading]

We're Not Paying Enough Attention to Kitchen Ventilation

Chris Stratton

Exposure to kitchen pollutants is a significant and overlooked health hazard in homes. The home performance industry pays great attention to protecting against exposures to combustion pollutants from water heaters and furnaces, but very little attention to an unvented combustion device that is used nearly every day: the kitchen range. A recent LBNL study looked at the chronic health impacts of exposure to pollutants from cooking burners and determined that the risks are not trivial, ... [continue reading]

Notes from the 2014 DOE Challenge Home Student Design Competition

Chris Stratton

I recently had the privilege of attending the inaugural U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Challenge Home Student Design Competition, held at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, CO April 26-29. Twenty-eight teams from universities across the US and Canada competed for awards in categories such as Best Design Solution, Best Technical Integration, and Best Presentation, as well as for the Grand Award for best overall project. [continue reading]

Our First Year with Solar Panels

Chris Stratton

DISCLAIMER: This blog post was updated on November 4, 2018 with corrected energy data. I recently discovered I had been reading my electricity bill incorrectly* and had to revise my calculations — the following reflects updated numbers and charts. [continue reading]