Don Fugler, a senior researcher with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, is this year’s winner of the Ontario Building Envelope Council’s “Beckie” award, which recognizes contributions to the field of building envelope research.
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Victories in building science research are usually incremental, says a senior researcher with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
“I wish I could say we have made huge strides and made the world better in a number of ways,” says Don Fugler, this year’s winner of the Ontario Building Envelope Council’s “Beckie” award, recognizing contributions to the field of building envelope research.
“Over the years, we have made a number of small changes and things got generally better. What you hope is that you had a part in making those things better.”
Fugler’s research since he joined CMHC in 1985 has touched a wide spectrum of low-rise residential construction issues. He has dealt with straw-bale houses, contaminated lands, basement flooding, attic venting, indoor air quality, moisture problems resulting from plastic sheeting in wall assemblies, energy use patterns in off-grid houses and a number of other areas.
“Don’s done exceptional work,” says Tony Woods, president of Canam Building Envelope Specialists Inc. in Mississauga, Ont. Key for him is Fugler’s work on ice damming, a major issue in Canada but one that does not attract much notice in the United States.
“I frequently talk about ice damming at conferences but, once you get south of Ohio, no one has ever heard of it,” Fugler says. “It needs temperatures of between zero and minus 10C for a month, more or less, to get up a good head of steam.”
Ice damming occurs when heat leaks into the attic of improperly insulated homes, causing snow on the roof to melt even in freezing temperatures. Problems occur when the melted snow freezes at the edges of the roof and the resulting ice buildup can create leaks in the roof.
Fugler’s contribution was to find a simple way to predict potential ice-damming problems. Checking the melt patterns on the roof after a heavy frost or light snow can point out where heat is leaking into the attic.
“Don got people like us to go and take photographs of roofs so he could publish leaflets for consumers to show them how they could check,” Woods says.
Fugler does not take a bureaucratic approach to his research projects according to those who have worked with him.
“Don Fugler says he ‘manages projects for CMHC,’” says retired Ottawa building scientist Bob Platts.
“He initiates, designs, leads, prods, steers and even devises instrumentation that makes it possible.”
“I am really happy to have worked for a Canadian research institution because we need our climate-specific and housing-type specific work being done. Were we to accept American research or American guidelines, in some cases they would work and, in other cases, they would be inappropriate,” Fugler says.
A typical example would be the frequently made claim that sealing air ducts would curb energy use in a home by 10-to-20 per cent.
“In Canada, where most of the forced-air heating ducts are within the building envelope, you can seal all you want but you are not going to save anything.
“That research was done on houses where the heating ducts are in the attics. With a few exceptions, no Canadian houses are built that atrociously.”
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