 | A Guide to Making Energy-Smart Purchases
Being more energy efficient can be as simple and inexpensive as buying and installing caulk and weatherstripping or as complicated and expensive as building a state-of-the-art,energy-efficient house. However, whatever you do to reduce energy costs will usually require the purchase of goods or services.
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 | Art Glass for Beauty and Privacy
Glass can transform space with color, light, and pattern. Used in doors as insets or panels, art glass allows light to penetrate interior spaces while capturing the eye with colors, patterns, and laminates that make an architectural statement.
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 | Basement Access Doors
If you're looking to bring basement access to your home, there are many options to choose from. Even with an existing home with no basement door, it's still possible to bring access to the basement from the exterior. Here's a look at a few options.
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 | Build your own Window Boxes
Whether you live in an apartment in the city or in a cottage by the beach, a window box.
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 | Caulk and Weather Strip
Warmed or air-conditioned air mixes with outside air through gaps in your home's thermal envelope—exterior walls, windows, doors, the roof, and floors. Such air leaks can waste large amounts of energy.
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 | Cooling Your Home Naturally
There are several methods to reduce or even replace the use of an air conditioning system by using nonmechanical ways to keep your home cool when it's hot outside.
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 | EnergyWise House: Building a Smarter, More Efficient Window
Technology already exists to let windows darken, lighten, or almost completely block the sun and its heat from entering your home. Once manufacturers succeed in making them affordable, controlling solar heat gain will be as simple as a flip of the switch.
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 | EnergyWise House: Elements of an Energy-Efficient House
Designing and building an energy-efficient home that conforms to the many considerations faced by home builders can be a challenge. However, any house style can be made to require relatively minimal amounts of energy to heat and cool and be comfortable and healthy.
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 | EnergyWise House: Using Windows to Beat the Heat
Here comes the sun! Properly planning a home's window layout can frame scenic vistas while preventing solar rays from pushing energy bills to the boiling point.
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 | Exterior Doors and Storm Doors
Exterior doors are necessary for physical access into and out of a building, and may provide ventilation and illumination too. They may, however, contribute to high amounts of undesirable air leakage and related energy losses.
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 | Fire Escape Planning
More than 4,000 Americans die each year in fires, and approximately 25,000 are injured. Deaths resulting from failed emergency escapes are particularly avoidable.
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 | Garage Doors: A Range of Options
There is a range of options and prices for garage doors, starting with basic stock offerings and moving up to architecturally designed custom doors. With a little homework you can select the best door for your home?and stay within your budget.
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 | Home Energy Audits
A home energy audit is the first step to assess how much energy your home consumes, and to evaluate what measures you can take to make your home more energy-efficient.
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 | Home Maintenance Checklist
Here's a simple bi-annual "Top to Bottom" checklist to keep your home in shape year round.
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 | Indoor Air Quality - Attic Remodels
Before starting your attic remodel or conversion project you should understand and address the various air quality factors that can arise during construction.
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 | Indoor Air Quality - Basement Remodels
Before starting your basement remodel or conversion project you should understand and address the various air quality factors that can arise during construction.
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 | Indoor Air Quality - Bathroom Remodels
Before starting your bathroom remodel or conversion project you should understand and address the various air quality factors that can arise during construction.
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 | Installing New Doors
Installing new doors strikes fear in the hearts of most homeowners, but if you take your time and follow basic guidelines, installing a new core or a pre-hung door is a skill worth mastering.
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 | Interior Door Basics
Interior doors are both form and function in a home—not the place where a ballooning budget is balanced during construction. Take the time to evaluate doors choices now to avoid disappointment later.
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 | Locks, Keys, and Keeping Your Home Safe
Locks and keys are changing with the times, but the function remains the same. Authorized people need access to your home, but intruders must stay out. Not surprisingly, technology is taking locks and keys in directions that were unimaginable just a few years ago.
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 | Material and Construction Options for Windows
The window material you select will not only mirror your tastes, but determine how energy efficient your windows will be and how hard they will be to maintain.
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 | Natural Ventilation
Natural ventilation relies on the wind and the "chimney effect" to keep a building cool.
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 | Pocket Door Solutions
Pocket doors are easy to install for a quick, neat solution to space savings and accessibility.
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 | Residential Solar Heating Retrofits
Adding (retrofitting) a solar space heating system to your home is one way to combat increasing energy costs and to raise your home's market value. The two major types of solar retrofits are active systems (requiring mechanical energy and hardware such as pumps and fans to distribute heat) and passive systems (which depend on the natural circulation of a fluid for heat movement).
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 | Sealing Air and Moisture Leaks
Air leaks between your home's interior and the outdoors can be a constant drain of energy and money. The air leakage in a typical U.S. home is equal to leaving a window wide open. To stop these air leaks, all doors and windows should be weatherstripped; all seams, cracks, and openings to the outside should be caulked or sealed.
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 | Selecting Garage Doors
With attention to the selection of your door, an eye to the way you will use it, and a maintenance approach that works for your family, you can expect a garage door that will provide protection and curb appeal for years to come.
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 | Selecting Storm Shutters
There are growing number of businesses in coastal areas selling and installing storm shutters. As all shutters are not alike, it's critical to get the product best suited to your needs and equally important to be sure that your shutters are properly installed.
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 | Shutters: More Than Just Window Dressing
Shutters bring beauty and functionality to a home. Selecting operable shutters that enhance a home's exterior and protect its interior is a smart investment.
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 | Skylights for Residences
Skylights and roof windows can provide interior building spaces with the warmth and brightness of natural daylight. Their ability to enhance almost any interior has made them increasingly popular. However, installing a trouble-free, energy-efficient skylight can be very difficult. In order to gain the maximum benefit from a skylight, it is important to understand designs, materials, positioning, and proper installation.
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 | Solar Heat Gain Control for Windows
Before innovations in glass, films, and coatings in the past decade, a typical residential window with one or two layers of glazing allowed roughly 75-85% of the solar energy to enter a building, which has a negative impact on summertime comfort and cooling bills, especially in hot climates.
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 | Storm-Ready Home: Benefits and Installation of Impact-Resistant Windows
In a hurricane, a house becomes a pressure cooker if its outer envelope is pierced by high winds and wind-driven debris. When windows fail, high winds enter the house and can blow out an opposing wall or tear the roof off completely, leaving the home exposed to wind and water.
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 | Storm-Ready Home: Emergency Board Up
The following basic recommendations can be used in extreme emergencies to add temporary plywood shutters to doors and windows.
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 | Storm-Ready Home: Interactive Shutter Tool
Homeowners can select from either the easy link or comprehensive tool to get an approximate cost. Please note that all costs are approximate, include installation charges and are based on an average price derived from three vendors. Homeowners should check with local distributors for more information.
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 | Storm-Ready Home: Protecting Your Doors and Windows
Protecting the home's openings from winds and wind blown objects is the single most important step a homeowner can take in protecting the structure from serious damage. If you can keep the wind outside, you and your possessions will be safe inside.
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 | Storm-Ready Home: Protecting Your Doors from Wind
Many houses are equipped with double entry doors. These doors are convenient, but because they span a wider opening than a single door, they are usually not as strong as a single door and are therefore more susceptible to wind damage.
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 | Storm-Ready Home: Protecting Your Garage Doors from Wind
High winds from hurricanes and tornadoes can damage garage doors or even blow them in. If wind enters a garage it can cause dangerous and expensive structural damage.
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 | Storm-Ready Home: Protecting Your Windows from Wind
Protecting windows from high winds not only helps you avoid damage to your house, it also reduces the likelihood that you or members of your family will be hurt by broken glass and debris.
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 | Storm-Ready Home: Storm-Ready Garage Doors
Hurricanes have taught us that garage doors are possibly a home’s greatest danger zone in a high-wind event. Bracing garage doors against failure has become the focus of code officials and manufacturers as buildings are built better to resist damaging winds.
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 | Storm-Ready Home: Understanding Impact-Resistant Windows
As many hurricane veterans will attest, you can protect your home from high winds, rain, and the destructive force of wind-borne debris by installing impact-resistant windows.
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 | Sunspace Basics
Anyone who lives in a home with a sunspace will tell you that the sunspace is the most enjoyable room in the house. Many times the homeowner's only regret is that the sunspace is not larger. Although aesthetics often drive the decision to add a sunspace or include one in a new home design, sunspaces can also provide supplemental space heating and a healthy environment for plants and people. In fact, a well-designed sunspace can provide up to 60% of a home's winter heating requirements.
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 | Sunspace Orientation and Glazing Angles
A properly designed sunspace can provide a bright, invigorating, and useful alternative to the typical space within a house. It also functions as a solar heater, augmenting the home's winter need for space heating. There are two basic considerations for optimizing the solar heating potential of a sunspace: the directional orientation and the angle of the glazing.
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 | Tubular Skylights: Installation Basics
Easy installation and no-cost lighting makes tubular skylights an easy alternative to traditional roof windows.
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 | Understanding Low-e Window Coatings
You can tell a lot about windows just by looking at them. But if you rely on your eyes alone, you'll miss an invisible but important energy-saving feature, the low-e coating.
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 | Window Properties and Design
The doors and windows that are right for you will depend on the climate you live in and the design of your house.
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 | Windows: Understanding the Label
The first step to buying the right window is understanding how to read the label.
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