THE SUPER ENERGY-EFFICIENT & HEALTHY HOME FIELD GUIDE
See How a Super Energy-Efficient, Healthy Building Actually Gets Built.
FULL GUIDE NOW LIVE!
Digital $259 · Hardcover $299
This isn't a book about theory.
It's the story of a real, 1,200-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bath home in Georgia, built using a Habitat for Humanity-style house design. The home is called the Beaver Den. That's the name of this demonstration home, not a type of construction.
The home maintains approximately 45% indoor relative humidity, with reported electricity costs of approximately $60 per month.
Through more than 150 field photographs and construction-stage images, Brian Iverson shows how the home was built, from the foundation and six-sided thermal break to the roof, windows, mechanical systems, and humidity control.
See the decisions, details, and construction methods before they're hidden behind the walls.
1,200 square feet | 3 bedrooms | 2 bathrooms | Georgia
Approximately 45% indoor humidity | Approximately $60/month reported electricity cost | 150+ construction photographs
The $60 a month is the reported electricity cost, shown as an illustration of operating cost. It is not an independently measured or separately metered utility bill. The house uses a Habitat for Humanity-style design; Habitat for Humanity did not build or endorse it.
Follow the pictures. Follow the building. Learn what worked, what didn't—and what I would do differently today.
Rave Reviews About The Super Energy-Efficient & Healthy Home Field Guide
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Jon D. from Port Clinton, Ohio says:
“So I as I contemplate how I am going to honor my family's legacy, honor my God given task to leave this world a better place, coupled by a sense of responsibility to leave a legacy that helps instead of creating an unsustainable future for my children, I read Brian Iversions' book. The first five pages grabs your attention, the rest is just a wealth of information from a guy who truly gives you 50 years of experience with an outcome that shows us how do you right. If your building, thinking about building read this book, Be a good custodian, be a better builder and provide something that truly makes an immediate improvement in the lives that your labor is going to directly affect. My homestead, mylegacy for the future five generations all because a man named Brian Iverson showed me better and gave it to us at a cost that we could not associate. Thank you Brian, you are a GOD send for me and mine.”
What's Inside the Field Guide
303 pages. More than 150 field photographs. One real house, built in the order the work happened, with the mistakes left in so you don't repeat them.
The Two Houses That Started It
A house in New York and a house in Florida. Both were legal. Both passed inspection. Both had to be taken apart. You see what was inside the walls and why it happened. Then the failures, one at a time:
Air doesn't need a big hole
A roof with no way out
A wall that could not dry
The ice is not the problem: ice dams and what really causes them
A camera that sees through drywall
What somebody buried
Show Me the Money First
Before you build, you see the numbers. The 1,200-square-foot code-built Cody House next to the Beaver Den. The 2,560-square-foot Billy House next to the Beaver House. Same size, same street, same climate.
The Beaver House costs about $17,000 more to build. Financed, that's $107.46 a month. It saves $107.01 a month on energy. Forty-four cents apart. Doing it right cost that family nothing.
A contractor quoted $18,000 for two to three tons of air conditioning. The load calculation said less than one ton. Three mini-splits went in for $5,300.
The Recipe and the Ingredients
How the pieces fit together, why it works at almost any size, and how you know the cake came out right.
Building It, Step by Step
The floor assembly and the six-sided thermal break
Factory-built wall panels: every panel numbered, 2,500 pounds apiece, set with a skid steer
Gluing and sealing every joint while it's still open, and why sill seal is not an air barrier
Interior walls first, every one glued down. Eleven hours, and the house was sealed.
Corners, windows, rainscreen and DrainStrip, with cladding hung six inches off the wall
The R-20 test wall and the mockups
The roof: hot roofs, cold roofs and the Carbonless Lung, with infrared readings of what the sun does to a roof deck
Mechanical systems: why mini-splits short-cycle in a tight house, the 12 days of rain that pushed indoor humidity to 74 percent, and what fixed it
Testing and verification: the blower door and the proof
Living in the house: it now runs at 43 to 45 percent humidity
The Workbooks Are Built In
At the end of the guide are the Show Me the Money workbooks for the 1,200- and 2,560-square-foot houses: Manual J load calculation, annual energy cost, equipment sizing, and the 100-year cost of owning the house. Every formula is live. Put in your own wall and roof numbers and your own utility rate, and see what your house will cost to run before the walls go up.
Working on an existing house? You want The Retrofit & Remodel Field Guide, The NightMare.
Demonstrated results:
Approximately $60 per month for heating and cooling.
1,200-square-foot home with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.
100% thermally broken on all six sides of the building envelope.Approximately 300 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions avoided over the first 100 years compared with conventional construction.
Interior humidity maintained at approximately 45% relative humidity, even during summers when outdoor humidity commonly reaches the 70–80% range.
Built without increasing overall construction cost, because every efficiency improvement was paid for by savings elsewhere in the project.
Somebody Is Going to Live in What You Build.
A child will learn to walk across that floor.
Someone will bring a newborn home through that door. A family will gather in that kitchen for decades. Someone will grow old in that bedroom.
They may never see the wall assembly. They may never know who chose it or why.
But they will live inside every decision that was made.
They will feel it in the air. In the humidity. In the rooms that stay comfortable—or do not. In every utility bill, repair bill and wall that eventually has to be opened.
A house is never built for only the first family who lives in it.
Code Can Pass. The Building Can Still Fail.
The Field Guide begins with two houses.
One in New York. One in Florida.
Different climates. Different families. The same ending: moisture, decay, contaminated assemblies, excessive energy use and mechanical systems forced to fight buildings that would not stop working against them.
Both houses were legal.
Both passed inspection.
Nobody set out to build them badly. Every trade completed the job it was hired to do.
The lesson was bigger than any one trade. The building had to be understood as one connected system.
The problem was not bad people. It was an incomplete recipe.
This Is More Than a Field Guide.
At first glance, this is the story of how Brian Iverson built the 1,200-square-foot Beaver Den.
It is much more than that.
Brian brought more than 50 years of construction, design, remodeling, energy auditing, real estate, development, inspection, and building-performance experience into one building.
Then he documented what happened.
Not just what went right.
What went wrong. What had to be corrected. What the testing showed. And what he would change today.
That real building became one of the proving grounds behind Carbonless 2126.
The purpose is not to teach you to copy one house.
The purpose is to teach you how to think about the entire building.
THE FIELD GUIDE TEACHES YOU HOW TO THINK.
It explains how site, structure, heat, air, water, vapor, drainage, ventilation, and mechanical systems affect one another—and why the order of those decisions matters.
THE PHOTOGRAPHS SHOW YOU WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
150+ field photographs and construction-stage images document the building while the critical work was still visible—before it disappeared behind concrete, walls, ceilings, and finishes.
You see the mistakes, corrections, testing, and real field conditions too—not just the pretty finished photographs.
THE ASSEMBLY CALCULATIONS GIVE YOU THE HARD INPUTS.
Learn to calculate the real whole-assembly performance of a wall or roof—not just the R-value printed on the insulation package.
Framing, plates, headers, corners, openings, and thermal bridges all count. The building doesn't care what the insulation label says. It performs as a complete assembly.
THE WORKBOOKS SHOW YOU WHAT THOSE DECISIONS COST.
Change the building size, assemblies, climate, airtightness, utility rates, and occupancy assumptions—and watch the numbers change.
See how those decisions affect heating and cooling loads, equipment size, annual energy use, operating costs, and Return on Efficiency™.
The Field Guide teaches the judgment. The workbooks let you test it.
The book teaches the judgment. The spreadsheets let you test it.
PHYSICAL HARDCOVER EDITION
Prefer a book you can put on the table, carry to the jobsite, mark up, and keep? Choose the hardcover edition below. Printed and fulfilled by Lulu.
Digital PDF Version - Buy Below
Digital edition $259. Prefer a printed book? Get the hardcover, $299, published by Beevland Publishing and printed by Lulu.
You Don't Have to Be a Building Scientist to Build This Way.
People have been building better buildings for hundreds of years. But modern high-performance construction has become so technical, so specialized, and taught at so many different levels that many people don't know where to start.
This Field Guide changes that.
Brian Iverson has spent more than 50 years in construction, design, energy auditing, remodeling, real estate, development, and building performance.
His goal with this guide is simple:
Give you the confidence to build a super energy-efficient, healthy home or building.
You might be a homeowner trying to understand what you're paying for. You might be a builder, remodeler, architect, drafts person, inspector, tradesperson, developer, or someone who simply wants to build better.
This guide was made for you.
Follow the Pictures. Follow the Building.
This isn't a textbook filled with theory and complicated language.
It's a visual how-to field guide built around more than 150 field photographs and construction stages.
You follow an actual building from the ground up.
See the site work.
See the foundation.
See the thermal breaks.
See the walls.
See the roof.
See the windows and doors.
See the air and moisture control.
See the mechanical systems.
See the testing.
See the mistakes.
See the corrections.
And finally, see how the building actually performed after it was occupied.
Each photograph is there for a reason. The descriptions explain what you're looking at, why it matters, and what to think about before the next step gets covered up.
Built From 50+ Years of Experience
The building documented in this guide wasn't perfect.
That's important.
When testing showed something could have been done better, Brian documented it. When thermal imaging exposed a weakness, he didn't hide it. When experience changed the way something should be built, the lesson became part of the guide.
You're not just seeing how a building went together. You're seeing what 50+ years of experience taught us about doing it better.
Who Is This For?
Homeowners. Builders. Remodelers. Architects. Drafts people. Inspectors. Developers. Tradespeople. Building-performance professionals.
Anybody who wants to build a super energy-efficient, healthy home or building — and wants a practical way to understand how all the pieces go together.
You don't need to become a building scientist.
Follow the building. Follow the pictures. Understand the decisions. Build with confidence.
What You Get
More than 150 field photographs and construction stages covering the building from the ground through completed performance.
You'll see real-world examples of foundations, framing, thermal breaks, control layers, windows, roofing, airtightness, ventilation, mechanical systems, humidity control, thermal imaging, testing, commissioning, and occupied-building performance.
This is educational material, not architectural plans, engineered drawings, code approval, or project-specific professional advice. Every building must be evaluated for its own site, climate, adopted codes, and conditions by appropriately qualified professionals.
Super energy-efficient. Healthy. Built to last. And explained so people can actually understand it.
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See the Cost Before the Walls Close.
Change the building size, assemblies, climate, airtightness, utility rates, and occupancy assumptions—and watch the numbers change.
See how those decisions affect heating and cooling loads, equipment size, annual energy use, operating costs, and Return on Efficiency™.
The Field Guide teaches the judgment. The workbooks let you test it.
THE 1,200-SQUARE-FOOT MODELED COMPARISON
CODE-BUILT HOUSE
Approximately $135 per month for heating and cooling
Approximately 1.60 tons of cooling load
Approximately $918,000 in modeled 100-year energy and equipment costs
THE BEAVER DEN
Approximately $60 per month for heating and cooling
Approximately 0.83 tons of cooling load
Approximately $385,000 in modeled 100-year energy and equipment costs
MODELED DIFFERENCE: $533,681
Using the same climate, occupancy, utility-rate, and modeling assumptions, the comparison shows approximately $135 per month for the code-built house and $60 per month for the Beaver Den.
MODELED ENERGY DIFFERENCE: APPROXIMATELY $75 PER MONTH
Over time, the difference compounds through energy use and equipment costs. In this model, the 100-year difference is $533,681.
Change the assumptions and the answer changes. That is exactly why the workbook is included.
THE 2,560-SQUARE-FOOT MODELED COMPARISON
CODE-BUILT HOUSE
Approximately $191 per month for heating and cooling
Approximately 2.07 tons of cooling load
Approximately $1.29 million in modeled 100-year energy and equipment costs
THE BEAVER HOUSE
Approximately $84 per month for heating and cooling
Approximately 1.21 tons of cooling load
Approximately $651,000 in modeled 100-year energy and equipment costs
MODELED DIFFERENCE: $638,927
Using the same climate, occupancy, utility-rate, and modeling assumptions, the comparison shows approximately $191 per month for the code-built house and $84 per month for the Beaver House.
MODELED ENERGY DIFFERENCE: APPROXIMATELY $107 PER MONTH
Over 100 years, the modeled difference in energy and equipment costs is $638,927.
Change the assumptions and the answer changes. That is exactly why the workbook is included.
The exact result will change with every project. That is the point.
See the assumptions while there is still dirt on the ground—and still time to change the building.