Acknowledgments

A book about how houses work is inevitably a book about the people who build, maintain, and live in them. This one is no different.

Thanks are owed to the licensed plumbers, electricians, HVAC technicians, structural engineers, building scientists, and home inspectors whose published knowledge, professional standards, and honest explanations of their trades form the backbone of every chapter. The trades are skilled professions that deserve more respect than they typically receive, and part of the goal of this book is to help homeowners understand what good tradespeople actually do — which tends to make people appreciate them more, not less.

The technical content in this book draws on publicly available resources from organizations including:

• The International Code Council (ICC) and its model codes
• The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
• The Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA)
• The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)
• The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
• The Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star program
• The Building Science Corporation
• The National Electrical Code (NEC) / NFPA 70

Specific publications are cited in Appendix G.

The three homeowners in this book — the Rodriguez family, the Chen-Williams household, and Dave Kowalski — are composites inspired by the experiences of real homeowners. Their specific details are fictional, but the problems they encounter are drawn from actual situations that happen in actual houses every day.

A note of gratitude to everyone who has ever asked a "stupid question" about their house, posted a confused photo in a home repair forum, or admitted they didn't know what a P-trap was. Your honesty made this book better.