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Building Performance Architecture

Name: Building Performance Architecture
Address: 7800 Susquehanna Street, Suite 306, Pittsburgh, PA, 15208, US
Telephone: +14124411075
Price range: Not applicable

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Building Performance Architecture is a professional services firm that integrates the practices of building energy efficiency, green building, and architecture. For clients with residential, commercial and institutional buildings, we provide energy diagnostics, financial-grade energy assessments, green building consulting, and comprehensive architectural services.

10/08/2026

Hello friends! Happy !

Yesterday was Energy Efficiency Day, so today were looking at what energy efficiency looks like in building envelopes!

The building in the first thermogram is approaching Thermal Chic, with almost-uniform temperatures across surfaces, with just a few exceptions. Particularly, the projecting roof canopy at the corner of the building (an exciting design feature) is really well-done thermally, with very little thermal drama, and a lot of panache. Which is to say, that part of the building envelope is very energy efficient!

The projecting roof canopy in the second photo has a lot of thermal drama. The apparent air leakage through the joints between walls and canopy is not thermally chic or energy efficient. It even looks like this building may have some air leakage behind the metal panels, at a horizontal line just above the first floor.

What other energy efficiency related patterns do you see in these photos?

Any other thoughts on these?

What did you do for Energy Efficiency Day or the day after?

Building Performance Association TruTech Tools, LTD Zero/Six Consulting Air Barrier Association of America Envinity

10/01/2026

Hey Everybody! Happy !

The first time BPA saw this thermal phenomenon was 17 or 18 years ago, when we were doing a lot of single-family home energy audits. But this time, it was in a 10,000 square foot, brick and stone mercantile/social hall building built during the gaslight era - with the original gas fittings still visible!

Turn two blower doors on and one of the floor joist cavities lights up in the infrared, with hot air from outdoors flowing through it like a duct. You could see it from below (first photo), and you could see it from above (2nd & 3rd photos).

Check out how hot it was on the upper floors! (See the temperature scales on the right edges of the thermograms.) Those levels were very lightly occupied, with no air conditioning, and inspected in the middle of summer. And yet the outdoor air pulled in through the joist cavity was still hotter than indoors, even when some of the air leakage at the baseboard (2nd image) was cooler than indoors.

If the IR scan was done in the evening (which it was), which side of the building do you think had the hole leading to the joist cavity? Why?

Let's hear your answers, and any other thoughts you have about these thermograms!

Air Barrier Association of America Building Performance Association Teledyne FLIR Phius

09/24/2026

Hi Friends! Happy !

Today's thermograms show some interesting building science phenomena. The coolest areas - purple and black false colors - on the overhead bulkhead are caused by moisture in the wood fibers, with black organic growth seen in the visible spectrum.

The 2 thermograms are taken from different sides of the bulkhead. The first one just shows the moisture, and the initial suspected causes would be a roof leak, or perhaps a pipe leak above the bulkhead.

The second thermogram shows something additional: Excessive heat in the space above the bulkhead, where there is no closed wall between the occupied space below and the attic above. This introduces another potential source of the moisture accumulating on the bulkhead: Condensation!

When the outdoor temperature is below the dewpoint temperature of the indoor air, moisture from the indoor air that flows freely into the attic can condense on the colder roof sheathing, and if there's enough of it, the moisture could drip down onto the bulkhead and soak through the wood. Maybe the condensation could even occur on the bulkhead itself.

With condensation, no roof leak or pipe leak is needed to get the bulkhead wet.

This building is being used as a utilitarian production space, without much attention paid to finishes or looks. But this situation demonstrates the hard truth that a basic level of attention is needed to prevent a building from falling apart on its own. This post is not to criticize the building owner, who most likely has good intentions for the building, but like a lot of us, needs more resources to do things really well.

The recommendation for this condition, in addition to further investigation to determine whether there is a leak, will be to add a solid, insulated and air sealed wall surface between occupied space and the attic above the bulkhead.

What are your thoughts on this, and what other interesting things do you see in these images?

Air Barrier Association of America Building Performance Association TruTech Tools, LTD The American Institute of Architects

09/17/2026

Hi, friends! Happy !

In the past week or so, some of the biggest news in the Pittsburgh, PA building industry is that the $1.7 billion new landside terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport has achieved LEED Gold certification!

BPA had the great privilege of serving as the building enclosure commissioning provider for the whole PIT-TMP project. BPA did its part to help the terminal's exterior enclosure achieve a high degree of water tightness, air tightness, and thermal efficiency.

BPA has worked on this project since early 2020, reviewing all building envelope construction detail drawings, and has remained active in the project through the whole construction process and into the warranty period.

There were some significant wins, such as prompting the decision to use rainscreen mounting brackets with thermal break pads rather than no thermal breaks. There are thousands of these around the building. See photo 5 of 7 here.

Also, the IR-based win of sealing holes on the ends of wall-penetrating steel tubes, to keep the outside temperatures out. See photo 2 of 7.

Along with dozens of non-IR field observation and test witnessing visits to provide quality control during construction, BPA surveyed the whole building envelope with IR thermography, at key times during construction, to identify thermal and moisture problems that the Contractor could correct. Any problems you might see in these thermograms were resolved!

With Steel City Drones, BPA's Level III Master Thermographer conducted an aerial IR scan of the roof, in accordance with ASTM Standard C1153.

Here's a quiz: Can you explain what we are seeing in photo 4 of 7? Hint: It is related to photo 5, but seen from the indoors on a hot summer day, before most of the drywall was installed, when the sun was high overhead.

This project offered an abundance of opportunities to use building science principles to improve the building's quality; definitely a career highlight. Congrats to the project team BPA worked with, some of whom are:

H.F. Lenz Company Gensler PJ Dick, Trumbull and Lindy Group Mascaro Construction Company, LP D-M Products, Inc. EvolveEA Intertek

U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) Air Barrier Association of America Teledyne FLIR TruTech Tools, LTD

What interesting things do you see in these images?

09/10/2026

Hey friends! Happy !

And happy every other day as well, which you can see on the 2027 BPA Infrared calendar! Its cover shows a tall building, a sculptural building, and a sculptural sculpture - lots of thermal effects happening here, even in a fairly gratuitous beauty shot.

There's plenty of science and a solid business case for using IR thermography for buildings and much more. The focus of the calendar and these posts is IR thermography as a communication and educational tool, and hopefully an enjoyable one.

We've already had a few orders for this - you can check out all the photos and decide whether it's worth getting for yourself or others, at https://www.etsy.com/shop/BPAInfrared .
If you decide to get one, make sure to order the version that ships to your part of the planet.

Happy browsing, and let us know what you think!

Teledyne FLIR Kentucky Thermal Institute Building Performance Association Air Barrier Association of America Zero/Six Consulting

09/03/2026

Hello, Friends! Happy Scary !

"Have you ever seen a ghost with that thing?" people sometimes ask.

Well, no ... but I have seen things worse than ghosts.

Sometimes an IR scan can get eerie, walking around before dawn. Thermal bridging shadows showing through wall siding. Unexplained patches of warmth floating along a wall. The imprint of a window opening that is no longer with us...

Then we hear a scurrying sound at our feet - what was that?!?

Oh, it's just the resident outdoor cat crossing our path ... whew ...

And then BAAAM!!!!! JUMPSCARE!!! High above us, a vivid plume of heat is exploding from the joint between the original house and an addition! A poorly-sealed detail rears its hideous head and cries, pleading with us to please, please help it finally find some peace!

And it's all real - no intricate ruses here, just the stark truth of the world, that our senses sometimes need a little help to detect.

Halloween is coming - let's have a little fun and learn more about the world around us at the same time. Have you ever seen a ghost with that thing?

What other interesting things do you see in these thermograms?

Building Performance Institute, Inc. (BPI) Air Barrier Association of America TruTech Tools, LTD PHRC - The Pennsylvania Housing Research Center Building Performance Association

08/26/2026

Hey Friends! Happy , celebrating a day early for International Flashing Awareness Day!

How's this for a PHlashing PHail?
(PH in honor of Passive House, which does not recommend flashing fails)

Sure, this flashing probably keeps most rain out of the wall assembly. But does it keep heat inside the thermal barrier on cold winter nights? Apparently not.

Looking from street level, it's a little hard to tell, but the flashing with heat escaping below it may be a coping, as the wall plane steps back from the first floor to the second floor.

Flashings are important components in a building envelope's water barrier system. Since the problem we see here looks like air leakage or incomplete insulation behind the flashing, the cause of this thermal anomaly is more likely to be an incomplete air barrier or thermal barrier, not a problem with the flashing itself.

Here's the lesson, though: Covering up an incomplete air barrier or thermal barrier with flashing or other exterior finish material does not solve the problem - it only makes it hard to see the problem, and also hard to fix the problem!

What do you think about this issue? And what other interesting thermal things do you see in the photo?

The identity of this building is not disclosed, to protect the people associated with it. If you know what it is, please keep it to yourself or get in touch away from public posts. 😇

Air Barrier Association of America Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors' National Association (SMACNA) TruTech Tools, LTD Zero/Six Consulting

08/20/2026

Hey friends! Happy !

Maybe there's not so much science in this week's post - because instead we'll delve into the mysteries of thought, memory, and perception...

One could say that design is about envisioning things that aren't there yet. And thermography is about extending our vision a little farther down the electromagnetic spectrum so we can see things that ARE there, but we couldn't normally see. Okay, that was a little science-y.

The buildings in today's photos were the subject of a Master of Architecture degree design thesis, 30 years ago. Back then, the buildings were in worse shape than they are now - there was a black metal fire escape right on the front of the larger building, and painted wood paneling covering the terra cotta and storefront.

The buildings backed up to an urban river, that for 150 years served as utilitarian industrial transport for whatever people put into it. But in the 1990s, the powers that be decided to build a riverwalk, that would suddenly turn the rear of these buildings into another front side - what an opportunity for a revitalizing design intervention!

So that's what the design thesis project did, turning the air gap between the two buildings into an atrium, and transforming them from run-down commercial structures into an upscale mixed-use complex. With all the latest energy-efficient and indoor environmental quality features, of course. Low carbon footprint, due to not tearing down and rebuilding.

30 years after the thesis, the riverwalk is there and the buildings are in somewhat better shape, but didn't get revitalized as much as the degree candidate envisioned. Too bad that student didn't have the means to actually make it happen - kudos to those who do have the means and actually do make things like this happen!

Emerging from that reverie, there are still some thermal things to note - some folks have left their windows open on a cool October night; the river water is warmer than just about everything else; the slot between the two buildings is warmer - a good example of the "cavity effect."

What other interesting things do you see in these images? Any thoughts on the written part of this post? Does anyone want to guess where this is and what building it is?

U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) UWM School of Architecture and Urban Planning (SARUP) Kentucky Thermal Institute Teledyne FLIR

08/13/2026

Hey Friends! Happy - Ductwork Edition!

The first thermogram here just won't let you forget that there is something different about the liquid-applied mastic - used to seal ductwork joints - than the shiny metal surface of the duct itself. What is that something?

While there is cool air flowing through the ductwork, the bands of mastic over the duct joints appear much cooler than the sheet metal surfaces, judging by the color/temperature scale at the right edge. But the mastic bands are not cooler; they're just less reflective than the sheet metal, which is mirroring the temperature of other warmer surfaces in the room.

That "something" is basic physics: the 3 radiative properties of surfaces. Each surface has reflectivity (ρ), emissivity (ε), and transmissivity (τ), and the sum of these three properties is always 1.

ρ + ε + τ = 1 for all surfaces.

For infrared-opaque surfaces (almost all surfaces), transmissivity (τ) = 0.

So the equation is usually simplified to ρ + ε = 1.

This means that if a surface has high reflectivity, it will have low emissivity, and vice versa. Emissivity is the ability of a surface to emit radiation. The amount of radiation that could be emitted is directly related to the thermal energy (or temperature) at the surface.

So for a perfectly-emitting surface (emissivity ε = 1), the amount of radiation picked up by the IR camera is the most true indication of its actual temperature. In the thermogram, both the mastic and the sheet metal are cooled to the same temperature by the air inside the ductwork, but the high-emissivity mastic is showing that temperature more accurately than the high-reflectivity sheet metal.

Yeah, and the second IR photo shows cool air leaking from less-than-perfect seals at duct joints. So much less thrilling for a physicist, but still good to find and correct!

What do you think about this?

What other interesting things do you see in the IR images?

Building Performance Institute, Inc. (BPI) The American Institute of Architects Kentucky Thermal Institute TruTech Tools, LTD

08/06/2026

Hey people! Happy !

Today, we're looking at some envelope air leakage and low-insulation areas on this building that's less than 10 years old. Do you see the white & red partial-oval shape in the first photo, just to the right of the vertical window opening? That pattern looks likely to be caused by air leakage.

And in the second photo, it's a little more obvious; there's a red and yellow streak across the upper area of the brick wall, and the streak appears to originate from joint between the two building masses. Air leakage again!

These photos were taken when the building interior was not being pressurized with air leakage test equipment. The air leaks that the IR camera is showing at natural pressure like this will be more pronounced if air leakage test equipment is pressurizing the building.

Here's the kicker: This apartment building has ENERGY STAR certification! A whole-building blower door test would have revealed more air leakage than the photos in this post. Since passive-targeted buildings (a step up from ENERGY STAR) receive that whole-building test, their contractors can seal more leaks, as needed, to make them exceptionally airtight. Filtered mechanical ventilation is then used as a controlled method of ensuring that the people inside get enough fresh air.

What are your thoughts on this topic, and what other interesting things do you see in the infrared images?

Air Barrier Association of America Phius Teledyne FLIR Zero/Six Consulting

Address

7800 Susquehanna Street, Suite 306
Pittsburgh, PA
15208

Opening Hours

Monday	8am - 4pm
Tuesday	8am - 4pm
Wednesday	8am - 4pm
Thursday	8am - 4pm
Friday	8am - 4pm

Telephone

+14124411075

Website

http://www.buildperformarch.com/

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