GBA Welcomes New Readers

A few navigational tips for the many readers who have recently discovered Green Building Advisor

By GBA Team | July 17, 2014

More Green Building Blog

Now that the Green Building Advisor website is more than five years old, it has over 36,000 web pages. That’s a lot of pages. It’s no surprise that it can take a while to find what you are looking for in GBA’s massive archives.

If you are a relative newcomer to GBA, welcome! Here are a few pointers to help you find your way around GBA.

Where do I start?

If you are looking for some guideposts to better understand green building concepts, start with these two articles:

For information on building a new green home, see Green Building for Beginners.
For information on improving an existing home, see Energy Upgrades for Beginners.

Questions and answers

The best place to ask questions is on GBA’s Q&A page. You have to register at the GBA site before you can post a question, but registering is easy and free. In most cases, an editor or one of GBA’s readers will answer a question in less than 24 hours.

About half of all questions from GBA readers amount to variations of just three questions: How do I install rigid foam insulation on the outside of my walls? How do I insulate my cathedral ceiling? How do I insulate my basement walls?

For answers to these three recurring questions, the best place to start is to read these popular articles:

Where are the podcasts?

A reader recently posted a question: “How can I find GBA podcasts?”

GBA’s premier podcasters are Chris Briley and Phil Kaplan, hosts of the Green Architects’ Lounge. Visit that link to discover 37 of Chris and Phil’s podcasts.

Here are links to podcasts by Joe Lstiburek:

Here are links to podcasts by John Straube:

Where are the videos?

There are links to most of our videos on GBA’s video landing page. Note that this page includes links only to the first video in any multi-part video series.

Links to other videos can be found in the index to the GBA Encyclopedia.

Which blogs attracted the most comments?

Some GBA blogs have attracted an unusual number of comments. If you’re interested in reading these “Comment Champions,” here is the list:

309 comments have been posted on It’s OK to Skimp On Insulation, Icynene Says
151 comments have been posted on Makeup Air for Range Hoods
148 comments have been posted on Radiant Barriers: A Solution in Search of a Problem
136 comments have been posted on How to Build an Insulated Cathedral Ceiling
129 comments have been posted on Solar Thermal is Dead
117 comments have been posted on How to Insulate a Basement Wall
116 comments have been posted on All About Radiant Floors
115 comments have been posted on Are Passivhaus Requirements Logical or Arbitrary?
109 comments have been posted on ‘Walls Need to Breathe’ and 9 Other Green Building Myths

More navigational pointers

Here are a few more tips:

Access to blogs is free. Here is the link to the access page for GBA blogs: Recent blogs. The page displays the 10 most recent blogs; at the bottom of the page are arrows that can be used to open previous pages. Using these arrows, you can access all 1,625 published blogs.
At the right-hand side of the “Recent blogs” page is a box with the heading, “Our Blogs.” Each of the sub-sections under that heading is a link to a page that lists blogs by categories. Click one of those links to access (for example) Musings of an Energy Nerd blogs, or Green Building Curmidgeon blogs, or Building Science blogs.
Most blogs have a box on the left-hand side of the page called “Related Articles.” Selected by editors, the articles in these boxes provide additional in-depth information on the topic covered in the blog.
GBA has a wealth of “members only” content that is reserved for GBA Pro subscribers. If you like what you’ve been reading for free, consider joining GBA Pro.

Hours of reading

By clicking the various tabs and links on the GBA site, you’ll discover dozens of GBA articles. If you’re looking for a specific topic, you can always use the GBA search box.

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View Comments

4 Comments

dickrussell | Jul 17, 2014 07:41pm | #1
Index to blogs?
Martin, after reading this blog and the recent one on how to do most anything (a tabulation of links to all sorts of goodies), it seems to me that there ought to be a sort of index to the blogs, or at least a really, really visible link to these two blogs to give new readers (and us old readers) a quick click to lists of everything that counts. It would be a potentially faster way than using Search to find what is wanted, as well as being a very visible introduction as to just how much ground is covered on this site.
BobConnor | Jul 18, 2014 06:05am | #2
That house looks almost like
That house looks almost like Pinnochio's Village Haus at Walt Disney World.
GBA Editor

Martin Holladay | Jul 18, 2014 06:21am | #3
Response to Dick Russell
Dick,
Your suggestion that GBA create an index is a good one. Of course, creating the index would take editorial resources. I can always pass your suggestion on to my superiors at Taunton.

It's worth pointing out, however, that old-fashioned indexes are dying. In most scholarly contexts, the advantages of electronic searching are making traditional indexes obsolete.

I'll miss indexes when they're gone, however -- just as I miss card catalogs in libraries.
bobhol | Jul 19, 2014 08:05am | #4
Index
I agree that search engines are all the rage but only if you know what you are searching for .An index,much like a library ,would allow you to browse and discover information.That concept would lead to reading multiple related articles and start the ball rolling for a lot of people ...I like the idea of "browsing " through your library...Bob