Peter A. Yost
Professional Experience
 Residential Building
Peter has been involved in residential construction and building
research for 20 years. For seven years, Peter was a builder/remodeling
contractor in seacoast New Hampshire, doing everything from custom
cabinetry to additions and whole-house renovations. After completing his
graduate work in Resource Economics with a thesis on construction waste
management, Peter worked for seven years at the NAHB Research Center,
heading up their Resource & Environmental Analysis division for three of
those years. With a growing family came a strong desire to return to New
England and a career turn towards journalism as Senior Editor at
Environmental Building News. Unable to stay away from building research,
Peter took his writing skills and green building background to Building
Science Corporation, devoting much of his time to the development of
website technical information resources and builder training. It was at
Building Science Corporation that the 3-D trio of Peter Yost, Nathan
Yost and Steve Baczek eventually struck upon the powerful blend of
building investigation, design analysis, and training skills and
experience. Recently, Peter has been devoting time and expertise for 3-D
Building Solutions to the building science-based durability credit in
the USGBC’s LEED for Homes program.
Training
Peter has been teaching and training since graduate school in 1978.
He has taught everything from building science to high school biology to
technical climbing. Peter was one of the primary developers of EEBA’s
Houses That Work builder training curriculum and has conducted training
and presentations for forums as varied as the NAHB’s International
Builders Show to Southface Institute’s Greenprints conference. Peter is
a certified instructor for EEBA’s Houses That Work as well as the
Environments for Living Diamond Class builder training.
Technical Writing
Technical writing has been an important part of Peter’s professional
work and background for the last 12 years, beginning with his Master’s
Thesis (see below). Peter has published papers on topics as varied as
radiant ceiling space heating to gypsum board as a soil amendment. While
at Environmental Building News, Peter published dozens of
articles including 9 feature articles ranging from noise pollution to
deconstructing buildings. At Building Science Corporation, Peter was
responsible for much of the technical content on the industry-renowned
BSC website, developing technical resources on photovoltaics, humidity
control, wood efficiency, HVAC performance, and life cycle analysis of
building materials. Currently, Peter is a contributing editor on
building science for Green Builder magazine and frequently
contributes to other industry publications such as Home Energy magazine.
Education
- BS – Agronomy, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University, 1977.
- NH Secondary Education Teaching Certificate – St. Anselm’s
College, 1978.
- MS – Resource Economics, University of New Hampshire, 1993.
Articles
A Feasibility Study and Cost Analysis: Recycling Construction Site
Gypsum Wallboard Waste – Master’s Thesis, University of New
Hampshire, Resource Economics, 1993.
“A new methodology for quantifying construction waste” – Yost, Peter;
Halstead, John. Sustainable Construction: Proceedings from the First
International Conference of CIB TG 16. pgs 373 – 381. University of
Florida. 1994.
“An Evaluation of Thermal Comfort and Energy Consumption for a
Surface-Mounted Ceiling Radiant Panel Heating System” – Yost, P.A;
Barbour, C.E.; Watson, R.; ASHRAE Trans. 1995, Vol.101, Part 1,
Paper number CH-95-19-3, 1221-1235, 4 figs., 4 tabs., refs.
“Construction and Demolition Waste: Innovative Assessment and
Management” – Reshaping the Built Environment: Ecology, Ethics, and
Economics. Chapter 10. Island Press. 1999.
“Green and Growing,” Professional Builder, September, 1999.
“Beneficial Reuse of Aggregate Mineral Fines and Scrap New
Construction Wallboard” – Korcak, R.F.; Meininger, R.; Yost, Peter A.;
Land Application of Agricultural, Industrial, and Municipal
By-Products; SSSA Book Series No. 6, Chapter 21, 2000.
Environmental Building News feature articles authored by Peter
Yost:
- Deconstruction: Back to the Future for Buildings? May 2000
- Safer Pest Control: Management of Wood-Destroying Insects.
(co-author) September 2000
- Greening Your Business. October 2000
- Interior Finish Systems: Judging a Building by Its Inside Cover.
November 2000
- Building Green ... Quietly: Noise Pollution and What to Do About
It. January 2001
- Building-Integrated Photovoltaics: Putting Power Production Where
It Belongs. (co-author) March 2001
- Getting the “Right Stuff”: A Guide to Green Building Materials
Retailers. April 2001
- Plastics in Construction: Performance and Affordability at What
Cost? (co-author) July/August 2001
- Sustainability and Building Codes. September 2001
"A
Transparent, Interactive Software Environment for Communicating
Life-Cycle Assessment Results: An Application to Residential Windows"
by Gregory A. Norris and Peter Yost, Journal of
Industrial Ecology, Vol. 5,
Issue 4 - Fall 2001. Life-cycle assessments (LCAs) can be used to
support the selection of environmentally preferable building materials.
But the dominance of the usage phase in the life cycle of building
materials represents a special challenge. A prototype software tool, the
Life Cycle Explorer, has been developed that enables decision makers to
assess the relative importance of literally dozens of such influential
parameters in determining the outcomes of LCA evaluations for building
components.
"Green
Building Programs -- An Overview" by Peter Yost, Building Standards
Magazine, March - April 2002, pgs. 12-16. Yost uses an overview of
local green building programs to show what they have meant to some
building officials or jurisdictions, and what they can mean to those
looking for an inter-relationship among the codes, green building, and
building science. This article is offered here with permission from
Building Standards magazine. The article is in just one of three issues
in which Building Standards has featured green building. These issues
have been developed in a partnership with the Development Center for
Appropriate Technology, a partner with BSC in the Building America
program. For more information, go to:
www.icbo.org/Building_Standards_Online/ or
www.azstarnet.com/~dcat/BSM.html.
Using Wood Efficiently: From Optimizing Design to Minimizing the
Dumpster
August 2002, Stephen Baczek, Peter Yost, and Stephanie Finegan.
Americans have been building homes with wood -- shaping logs, joining
timbers, nailing studs -- for almost 400 years. Our current approach --
stick-framing -- grew popular in the mid-1800’s (particularly in the
rapidly growing “West”) because it took less skill, required simpler
tools, and took fewer people than timber framing. We apparently really
like waste haulers, too. The NAHB Research Center reports that the
“typical” home generates about 3,500 pounds of wood waste during its
construction, about half of which is solid sawn lumber.
"Optimizing
Wood Framing," Peter Yost and Ann Edminster, 2003. BSC makes the
case for each and every advanced framing strategy, both in the field and
in the building official's office. This article originally appeared in
the May 2003 issue of Building Safety Journal. It is reprinted with
permission from the International Code Council.
“Sustainability from Dwelling to
Development: Making the Connection Between High Performance Homes and
Communities” – ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings – 2004 Proceedings. August, 2004.
Department of Energy’s Building America Deliverables authored principally by Peter Yost:
- Anderson, R.; Yost, P. (2002).
Setting up Performance and Prescriptive Criteria for Domestic
Water Use and Construction Waste Generation. Building Science
Corporation Web site. , 2002; Building Science Corporation, Westford,
MA.; 2 pp.; Record No. 31667.
-
Introduction to Building Systems Performance: Houses That Work II;
Period of Performance: January 2003--December 2003. (2004). 169 pp.;
NREL/SR-550-34585.
-
BSC Final Report: Lessons Learned from Building America Participation,
February 1995--December 2002. (2004). 36 pp.; NREL/SR-550-35915.
-
Fairburn, Atlanta, Georgia, for Health-E Enterprises. (2002).
Building Science Consortium. 1 pp.; Record No. 31672.
-
Copper Moon, Pulte Homes, Tucson, Arizona. (2002). Building Science
Consortium. 1 pp.; Record No. 31674.
-
Oakbrooke Patio Homes, Pulte Homes, Minneapolis, Minnesota. (2002).
Building Science Consortium. 1 pp.; Record No. 31670.
-
Prairie Crossing, Prairie Holdings Corporation, Grayslake, Illinois.
(2002). Building Science Consortium. 2 pp.; Record No. 31671.
-
EcoVillage Cleveland at 58th St., Cleveland, Ohio. (2002). Building
Science Consortium. 2 pp.; Record No. 31676.
-
Cinco Ranch, Pulte Homes, Houston, Texas. (2002). Building Science
Consortium. 1 pp.; Record No. 31675.
- Building Science Consortium.
Captain Planet Zero Energy SIPS Cottage. 5 pp.; Record No. 35016.
- Building Science Consortium (2002).
The How and Why of Your High Performance HVAC System. 1 pp.;
Record No. 35009.
"Green
and Growing,” Professional Builder, September, 1999. |
