EP275 The Sound of Better Buildings with Kieren McCord (May 2026)
Release Date: 06/19/2026
EP280 What 130 Million Homes Can Teach HVAC with Scott Rosenberg (June 2026)
Building HVAC Science
Quotes from the episode: “You sell an amazing product that represents the future of home heating and cooling. But selling it, promoting it, and capturing consumers’ attention is hard. At 257, we use data to help you do that more efficiently.” “The best way to judge the effectiveness of machine learning and AI is by the outcome: Did I sell more at a lower cost?” “It wasn’t simply having a heat pump or solar system. Talking about it during the sales process had a positive effect on the home’s sale price.” How can HVAC contractors identify the homeowners most likely to...
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EP279 Curiosity, Heat Pumps, and the Details That Matter – A Conversation with Edward Louie (July 2026)
Building HVAC Science
Quotes from the episode: "Comfort isn't just about air temperature—it's also about the temperature of everything around you." "If it's difficult to maintain, eventually it simply won't be maintained." "Stay curious about your built environment. Pay attention, ask questions, and keep learning." Edward Louie of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory joins Bill Spohn for a thoughtful discussion that goes far beyond heat pumps. Known throughout the building science community for his data-driven LinkedIn posts and willingness to challenge conventional wisdom, Edward...
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EP278 From Boiler Timers to Predictive Control: Smarter Heat for Multifamily Buildings with Heather Zoberman from Entech (June 2026)
Building HVAC Science
Quotes from the episode: “Technology does its best work when it turns invisible problems into obvious next steps.” “Most buildings are already telling us what they need. The trick is finally learning how to listen.” “You can’t optimize what you can’t see, and old buildings have been hiding their stories in boiler rooms for decades.” In this episode of Building HVAC Science, Bill speaks with Heather Zoberman of ENTECH about how older multifamily buildings can move from basic, wasteful boiler control toward smarter, data-driven heating and cooling management. Heather explains...
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EP277 Dirty Little Secret: Why Heat Pumps Need Deep Cleaning with Gabriel Erde-Cohen (June 2026)
Building HVAC Science
Quotes from the episode: “Heat pumps can’t meet their promise if they’re not properly maintained.” “Vacuuming the filter matters, but it is not the same thing as deep cleaning the system.” “If it has a coil and a fan, we can clean it.” “Electrification only works as intended when the equipment keeps working as intended.” In this episode of Building HVAC Science, Bill talks with Gabriel Erde-Cohen, founder of We Clean Heat Pumps, about an often-overlooked part of electrification: what happens to heat pumps after installation. Gabriel shares how his Vermont-based business...
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EP276 When “Passed Inspection” Isn’t Good Enough with Cy Porter (May 2026)
Building HVAC Science
Quotes from the episode: “Passed inspection is not the same as built correctly.” “The best inspectors keep learning, because no one person masters every trade, every code, and every overlap.” “Small defects do not stay small when they are hidden behind walls, ceilings, and warranty paperwork.” In this episode of Building HVAC Science, Bill Spohn talks with Cy Porter of CYFY Home Inspections, an Arizona-based home inspector known for his blunt, high-energy social media videos that expose defects in new-construction homes. Cy specializes in one-year and two-year warranty inspections,...
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EP275 The Sound of Better Buildings with Kieren McCord (May 2026)
Building HVAC Science
Quotes from the episode: “The tighter your envelope, the more attention you have to pay to ventilation and indoor air quality.” “The acoustics of the ordinary rarely gets attention.” “There’s so much good work being done, so much data being collected, and oftentimes it doesn’t leave the hard drive.” “Noise annoyance may be one of the things people are most passionate about.” In this episode of the Building HVAC Science Podcast, Bill Spohn welcomes Kieren McCord, a research scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, for a conversation about indoor environmental...
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EP274 The Heat Pump Summit Is Building More Than Better Systems with Brent Davidson (May 2026)
Building HVAC Science
Quotes from the episode: “Stop trying to HVAC your way out of bad buildings, and your results will market themselves.” “The quality work and word of mouth are real when you’re doing building science-backed work with quality staff.” “Come with problems you’re actively trying to work on and meet others who can help you work on them.” In this episode of Building HVAC Science, Bill welcomes back Brent Davidson of the U.S. Heat Pump Summit for his third appearance. Brent shares what emerged from the first full-scale national Heat Pump Summit held in Massachusetts in November 2025,...
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EP273 Think Like an Air Molecule with Dan Stradford (May 2026)
Building HVAC Science
Quotes from the episode: “Ducts matter. Nobody cares much about them until something goes wrong.” “HVAC systems are designed assuming clean, bare sheet metal.” “Even a small layer of dust can become a mountain range to an air molecule.” “Think like an air molecule.” In this episode, Bill speaks with Dan Stradford of Action Duct Cleaning about what really happens inside HVAC duct systems over time and why cleaning can matter more than many people realize. Dan shares how the duct cleaning industry evolved from its “wild west” early days into a more standardized field through...
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EP272 Live from NHPC 2026: Where HVAC, Buildings, and People Intersect With Brynn Cooksey from HVAC-U PART 2 (April 2026)
Building HVAC Science
Quotes from the episode: “High-performance homes are not about the equipment. They are about the outcomes for the people inside.” “The gap is not in technology. It is in execution and understanding.” “The contractors who win are the ones who connect building science to real human experience.” Recorded live at the 2026 National Home Performance Conference in Columbus, this episode of the Building HVAC Science Podcast brings together Bill Spohn, Eric Kaiser, and guest Brynn Cooksey for a conversation at the intersection of buildings, HVAC systems, and the...
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EP271 Live from NHPC 2026: Where HVAC, Buildings, and People Intersect With Brynn Cooksey from HVAC-U PART 1 (April 2026)
Building HVAC Science
Quotes from the episode: “High-performance homes are not about the equipment. They are about the outcomes for the people inside.” “The gap is not in technology. It is in execution and understanding.” “The contractors who win are the ones who connect building science to real human experience.” Recorded live at the 2026 National Home Performance Conference in Columbus, this episode of the Building HVAC Science Podcast brings together Bill Spohn, Eric Kaiser, and guest Brynn Cooksey for a conversation at the intersection of buildings, HVAC systems, and the...
info_outlineQuotes from the episode:
“The tighter your envelope, the more attention you have to pay to ventilation and indoor air quality.”
“The acoustics of the ordinary rarely gets attention.”
“There’s so much good work being done, so much data being collected, and oftentimes it doesn’t leave the hard drive.”
“Noise annoyance may be one of the things people are most passionate about.”
In this episode of the Building HVAC Science Podcast, Bill Spohn welcomes Kieren McCord, a research scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, for a conversation about indoor environmental quality, acoustic comfort, and the often-overlooked benefits of building performance upgrades. Kieren shares her path from music and acoustics to building science, explaining how sound, comfort, air quality, thermal resilience, and human perception intersect in homes.
The conversation explores how energy upgrades such as better windows, tighter envelopes, and improved insulation can create benefits beyond lower utility bills. Kieren explains how acoustic performance is measured, why low-frequency sound is difficult to block, how decibel weightings like dBA and dBZ work, and why human response to noise can be highly personal. She also discusses the promise and limitations of smartphone-based sound measurements, including the potential for making acoustic data collection more accessible to HERS© raters and home performance professionals.
Kieren also shares details from recent field research on a Chicago window retrofit, in which triple-pane acoustic windows and careful installation resulted in a 35% reduction in whole-home air leakage. While the noise data is still being processed, the study aims to link measurable building improvements to homeowners' perceptions of comfort, quiet, smell, temperature, and overall livability. Her closing message is a call for more shared field data, more collaboration, and a stronger connection between academic research and the practical work being done every day by contractors, raters, and building performance professionals.
Kieren’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kieren-m/
US DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information; osti.gov
Physical Phone Experiments: https://phyphox.org/
This episode was recorded in May 2026.