Three Reasons to Use A Better Weather Barrier

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Three Reasons to Use A Better Weather Barrier

Whether you’re a home builder or not, we’ve all seen it before: The typical paper or plastic house wrap bedecking unfinished new homes going up all around us. If you’re not familiar with the home building process, you might wonder what purpose this serves, and if you are a home builder you might already know that this house wrap is used to keep air penetration to a minimum, which means a less drafty finished home. Air penetration isn’t the only thing you need a house wrap for though, you also need it for weather proofing against driving rain and protecting your building’s structure. Low-cost wraps can often fall short in these areas. Read on to learn about why these three high performance weather resistive barriers are a better choice for your next build.

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Three Types of Filters that Help Your Zehnder Keep Indoor Air Clean

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Three Types of Filters that Help Your Zehnder Keep Indoor Air Clean

From the moment outside air enters the system, a Zehnder system (and its filters) are designed to keep air contaminants from entering your home, while efficiently recovering heat (or cooling) from the air exiting your home.

Do you know every level of filtration available to you for your Zehnder recovery ventilator? If you’ve recently installed one of these units, or purchased a house that included one already, you hopefully know of (and are changing) at least the in-unit filters. These two filters, one for supply and one for return air, do the brunt of the filtration work to keep your unit running efficiently and delivering the cleanest air, but there are a few other filters that complement the system.

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Spread the News: Prosoco Cat 5 Has Your Airtight Project Covered

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Spread the News: Prosoco Cat 5 Has Your Airtight Project Covered

Have you ever wanted to air and weather seal a building in one continuous barrier with no seams or fear of tearing the wrap membrane? It would certainly save a lot of time and energy. And saving time on a job means saving money on labor costs. A continuous air barrier also does a better job at keeping the building airtight which translates to better energy use and savings for heating and cooling, as well better longevity for the structure by protecting what is inside behind it and the walls.

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Five Building Trends We're Seeing as the World Opens Up

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Five Building Trends We're Seeing as the World Opens Up

The last month has seen an acceleration in the easing of Covid restrictions around the United States, and Canada is poised to start opening up soon. While we were all in our own Covid hibernation bubble, some pretty monumental shifts have occurred that will affect how we live and build both short and long term. Here are some of the things we’ve being seeing that may impact how you build.

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Five Reasons to Use KlimaGuard Building Tapes

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Five Reasons to Use KlimaGuard Building Tapes

Small Planet Supply has provided KlimaGuard building tapes for the budget conscious builder since 2019. Since then, KlimaGuard has been popular with homeowners and builders interested in eco- conscious and net-zero buildings.

Our newest products expand this line of building tapes allowing it to be used in even more applications. If you haven’t joined the bandwagon yet, here are five reasons to try KlimaGuard on your next project.

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Prosoco: Build Whether the Weather is With You or Not

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Prosoco: Build Whether the Weather is With You or Not

We don’t talk too much about Prosoco in our blog. In fact, this is the first time we’ve featured Prosoco air and water barrier products in one of our blog posts. It’s high time we corrected this oversight, since building airtightness increases into your project is as important as choosing the right mechanical system for your build.

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SANCO2 Heat Pumps: A New Generation for The Electrification Era

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SANCO2 Heat Pumps: A New Generation for The Electrification Era

If you’re familiar with SANCO2 heat pump water heaters already, you know about the many great benefits they bring to the field of domestic water heating. Highly efficient with COPs approaching 5, hot water provided at ambient temperatures down to -14F, and of course the namesake CO2 refrigerant which is the lowest polluting and safest refrigerant on the market. SANCO2, previously made under the name of Sanden is now under the new flag of ECO2 Systems, and the new 4th generation of heat pumps is coming to market under that name. Worried about the changes? You shouldn’t be!

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SkyCool: Small Planet & SkyCool Starting Residential Trials Soon

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SkyCool: Small Planet & SkyCool Starting Residential Trials Soon

Last December, one of our blog posts featured our assembly of Sky Cool panels at our Tumwater, Washington warehouse. SkyCool is a passive cooling panel that improves the efficiency of any air conditioning or refrigeration system. In some circumstances, these panels can even replace an air conditioning unit. SkyCool estimates an 80% to 90% reduction in energy use for cooling if it is used to replace an air conditioning system. Understandably, the blog drew a lot of interest from a number of high-efficiency residential builders interested in using in using the panels for cooling. However, at the time of the blog was posted, SkyCool was limiting use of the panels to commercial applications.

Full Panel Production Opens Door for Single-Family Residential Projects

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New Installer Training Module for SANCO2 DHWP Installers.

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New Installer Training Module for SANCO2 DHWP Installers.

Small Planet University has just released its latest course, “Certification Course for SANCO2 Water Heating Plant Installers”. This course is largely focused on providing information for plumbing contractors to install a SANCO2 DHWP system as well as giving a high-level overview of system configuration concepts which can be useful to architects, engineers, utility teams and more.

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Painting and Staining ThermaCork - A “Near Year” Update

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Painting and Staining ThermaCork - A “Near Year” Update

Do you have a project that you think would be perfect for ThermaCork, but the only thing holding you back is the color of finished product? If you have ever wondered about the viability of painting, staining, or sealing our ThermaCork Façade panels, hopefully the results of this ongoing backyard test can answer your questions.

If you’re just tuning in to this test, you can find the original article here, and there is a quick recap on the methodology below. If you’re returning to see the results after the last check-in, feel free to skip ahead!

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SANCO2 101: The Fundamentals of Game Changing Hot Water

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SANCO2 101: The Fundamentals of Game Changing Hot Water

Our past blog posts have highlighted using the SANCO₂ heat pump water heater for combi-system (using SANCO₂ to perform both space and hot water heating) and multi-family applications. This blog post focuses on the basics of the technology that makes SANCO₂ a brilliant choice for energy-efficient hot water heating in most homes.

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SkyCool Assembly Reflects Small Planet Supply's Values

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SkyCool Assembly Reflects Small Planet Supply's Values

Beginning in November, Small Planet Supply began assembling SkyCool panels in our Tumwater warehouse. We’re excited to perform one piece of the production process in this innovative product which has great energy saving potential. Air conditioning and refrigeration systems consume close to 25% of electricity generated worldwide and are responsible for 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. With rising global temperatures, the demand for cooling will only increase. SkyCool panels can reduce the energy needed for cooling and air conditioning by 10 to 40%.

This blog post details more about this technology and our piece of the production process. For those excited about using this for their residential build, you’ll have to wait awhile, as SkyCool is currently focusing on commercial and industrial applications.

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Online SANCO2 Central Heat Plant Water Heater Training Coming soon

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Online SANCO2 Central Heat Plant Water Heater Training Coming soon

As we continue forward in the 21st century, one of our biggest undertakings is the electrification of utilities across homes and businesses. “Electrification” is essentially replacing fuel burning appliances with more efficient electric alternatives. One of the most exciting new technologies in this frontier is the Heat Pump Water Heater (HPWH), which can obtain a very high Coefficient of Production and offers savings in the form of efficiency.

Since multifamily housing contributes to a significant portion of overall domestic hot water usage, replacing the standard fuel reliant central water heating plant with a HPWH alternative can make a major impact on fuel reliance, with the added benefit of reducing overall grid load thanks to the higher efficiencies achieved.

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Small Planet Tips for An Environmentally Lighter Holiday Season

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Small Planet Tips for An Environmentally Lighter Holiday Season

December is a time we associate with friends, family and giving. In the pursuit of creating a time of year we’ll always remember, it can be easy to forget about the environmental impact of our celebrations. Did you know that Americans throw away 25% more waste between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day than in the other part of the year? That equates to about one million extra tons of trash per week![1]

In this last month of the year, we thought we’d share some tips to make your holidays easier on the environment and share some photos of the little people and animals who bless our lives. We’re saving our holiday wishes for the very end of the article.

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Clearing the Air: Zehnders, Fresh Air & Wildfire Smoke Strategies

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Clearing the Air: Zehnders, Fresh Air & Wildfire Smoke Strategies

Last month, in part one of a two-part series, we discussed how Zehnder owners in smoke impacted areas managed their Zehnder Comfosystems during the summer’s wildfires. In the second part of this series we’ll talk about things to consider when preparing for a wildfire event. First, let’s talk about some basics.

Zehnder HRV and ERV Function Refresher

Zehnder Comfosystems bring fresh air into buildings to provide healthy ventilation for occupants. The typical ventilation design is based on 0.3 ACH, or one complete air change of the living space every three hours. Having an HRV or ERV is crucial to ventilate today’s modern buildings because they are designed to be built tight and reduce the air leakage from building defects like cracks and voids, while moving the fresh air intake to intentional clean filtered supply intakes.

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Trash Talk: Single Stream Recycling's Hidden Costs

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Trash Talk: Single Stream Recycling's Hidden Costs

“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” Growing up in the late 80’s and 90’s this felt like it was practically a mantra among the environmentally concerned. Chief among these it seemed was Recycle. I was lucky enough to belong to a household that valued doing our part to keep our planet clean. Having moved between different states it was always interesting to me how different communities handled this monumental task of collection, sorting and recycling, and I’ve seen all the tactics from multi stream to uber convenient single stream, or bafflingly no recycling at all.

Single Stream Recycling: Convenience at What Cost?

These days single stream recycling seems more or less normalized across the US. Single stream recycling is when all of the different recyclable goods are put in the same bin at the source (home, business, etc.). This is arguably the most convenient method for people to follow. In fact, surveys have shown that an overwhelming majority expressed they would not recycle if they had to sort items to different bins

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Wildfire Smoke and Zehnder System Performance

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Wildfire Smoke and Zehnder System Performance

This summer the Western USA was heavily impacted by wildfire smoke. In late September we sent out a survey to our customers in smoke affected states to find out how they felt their system performed during the wildfires and what steps they took to ensure their system was prepared for operating in fire system. In a subsequent article we’ll feature recommendations received from Zehnder regarding best practices in wildfire/extreme smoke situations.

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A Retro Retrofit: Improving Efficiency in an Older Home

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A Retro Retrofit: Improving Efficiency in an Older Home

With all of our focus on innovative, energy-saving equipment at Small Planet Supply, it was a total surprise that the house Albert Rooks (Small Planet Supply) and I recently purchased in Olympia was a 1938 home. While we would love to say it was the structure we fell in love with, it was probably the gardens that made us feel like we had found a new place to land in Washington state.

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Strategies for a Healthy Home Office or School Space

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Strategies for a Healthy Home Office or School Space

With COVID-19 still having an impact across the US and Canada, it is likely that working and schooling at home will continue for many people. As a result, you may be considering an upgrade to your current home office or school set-up to improve your productivity -- like a new ergonomic office chair, more storage, or noise cancelling headphones!

But did you know that one of the most important contributors to productivity is actually your indoor air quality? New studies from Harvard’s public health department, SUNY Upstate Medical University and Syracuse University have found that improved indoor environmental quality doubled occupants’ cognitive function test scores. Focusing on the air that you and your children breathe can help transform your home into a great productivity tool!

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