Carbonless is a nonprofit educational platform. We teach. We don't build.
Home of the Super Energy-Efficient & Healthy Home (and Building)
Build it right or fix it right, once, for the next 100 to 250 years. Where you live and where you work. If you are building for the generations to come, you are in the right place. Pick the path that fits what you're working on.
Build a New Home / Building
The decisions you make on paper set your heating bill, your comfort and your repairs for the next hundred years. Most of the costly mistakes happen before the first shovel. I've designed more than 750 buildings and made those mistakes so you don't have to. Learn what to ask before you sign anything.
Start building better →
Fix or Remodel a Home / Building
Your house is drafty, damp, or the bills are too high. Most people rip out the wrong thing and pay for it twice. I've walked through thousands of houses like yours. Find the cause first, then fix it once, the right way.
Fix it the right way →
Learn & Teach
Field guides, courses and Carbonless 2126, forty lessons that follow a building from the dirt to the person living in it a hundred years from now. Plain English. No products to sell. For homeowners, builders and the people who teach them.
Start learning →
Join Carbonless
Take a seat at the Carbonless Roundtable: 26 gatherings a year with builders, owners and building professionals learning from each other. Bring your questions and hear what's working on real jobs across North America.
Meet the community →
Our mission
Affordable Housing matters.
Affordable Living matters more.
Carbonless is a nonprofit. We teach. We are not a general contractor, a homebuilder or a remodeling company, and we don't do construction work. You and your builder do the building. I help you understand it.
I want the same thing for your family that I want for my own children and grandchildren. A home you can pass down. One that is comfortable, healthy, affordable to live in and built to last. And if you sell it someday, I want the next family to get a house built with care, not a pile of hidden problems.
I never want you calling me years from now saying, "We've got mold in our house. What went wrong?"
That's why I teach the building envelope, moisture, insulation, fresh air, airtightness and the construction details that get skipped. I've spent 52 years in the field and made the mistakes so you don't have to. I'll tell you what I've learned and help you make your own decisions.
Brian Iverson, Founder
Talk your building through with Brian
Bring your plans, your problem or your questions. I have nothing to sell you but what I know, and one conversation can save you thousands.
New here? Try your first Stick free. A Stick is one lesson in Carbonless 2126.
Start Here
Not ready for a field guide? Start small and buy what you can afford.
THE BOX
The Playbook + Checklist. The big picture before you build, remodel, retrofit, or start fixing a problem.
Retrofit & Remodeling Guide, Second Edition
For people working on real houses. Not perfect ones. Not new ones. Not houses on paper.
How to Make a Thermal Break on the Inside of Your Home
Go deeper into the actual method for an existing home.
From a real job
A mountain home in North Georgia
It looked like a beautiful house.
Built in 1988. The roof is SIP panels made with beadboard foam, not the rigid insulation we use today. From the floor, that wood ceiling looks perfect.
Then you look up close.
The roof leaked. And there is tar paper on the inside and tar paper on the outside, so the foam is in a sandwich with no escape hatch for moisture. Add the moisture people make just living in a house, cooking and showers, and from what I saw, the beadboard soaked it up.
Houses don't fail fast. They fail slow.
It's a second home and the owners aren't there often. Nobody looks up. My best read is that sometime while they were gone, the foam reached its saturation point and started to fail. We still need moisture readings to confirm it. Now there's mold, mildew and a little rot.
The repair I would recommend: open the roof at the peak and repair it, then put the Carbonless Lung System over the top and finish with a metal roof. That's how I would fix this one, once the testing confirms what we're looking at.
The vent tells another story.
The air conditioning blows air out at about 55 degrees, and it was 70% humidity inside the house. When that cold metal meets damp air, you hit the dew point, and water forms right on the vent boot. That's most likely what feeds the mold around it.
What I would recommend: two dehumidifiers, one on the second floor and one in the basement, plus a two-stage furnace to keep the air moving.
Not sure what's going on in your house? Find the cause before you spend the money.
Talk it through with Brian →What does your house really cost you every month?
Get THE DIFFERENCE Calculator, free. Punch in your own numbers and see what a code-built house costs you next to one built right.
Real houses. Real photographs.
What You Can't See Matters Most
Most of what decides how a house performs disappears behind the walls. These photos come straight from the Sticks in Carbonless 2126, so you can see it before it gets covered up.
What You Don't Know About a Building Can Cost You for the Rest of Your Life.
I'm Brian Iverson. I started in construction at 14. In 52 years I've developed about 3,000 acres into more than 3,000 lots, closed more than 3,000 real estate transactions, and represented a bank through about 3,000 foreclosures. I've built 24 miles of road, designed more than 750 buildings that were built, and remodeled or retrofitted more than 300 more. I've been a Minnesota Certified Energy Auditor since 1979. Along the way I made mistakes that cost me millions. I can't get that money back, but I can help you avoid them.
Carbonless 2126 is forty Sticks. A Stick is what everybody else calls a module or a course: one lesson, about two hours, with a test and a certificate of completion at the end. We call them Sticks because a beaver does not build a dam with one stick. He uses lots of them, and it takes lots of sticks to build a house that lasts 100 to 250 years. All forty together are about 80 to 120 hours of education that look at a building from all Sixteen Seats at the table, from the landowner to the person who will live there a hundred years from now. I tell you exactly what is in every Stick. No products to sell. Just better decisions. Stick Zero is free.
Higher Education for the Next 100 Years.
Welcome to Carbonless.
Building to code is the starting point. It doesn't have to be the finish line.
A home or building can be designed to use far less energy, cost less to operate, be healthier and more comfortable, and last for generations.
That starts with getting the building itself right — the walls, roof, foundation, windows, doors, air control, moisture control and thermal control.
Carbonless exists to teach you how.
Use less energy. Lower your utility bills. Live healthier. Build it to last.
Carbonless 2126
Forty sticks that follow a building from the dirt to the person who lives in it a hundred years from now. Land, money, design, the build, testing, and the people at every seat at the table.
One construction mistake can cost more than your entire education. Each stick ends with a test and a record of completion you may be able to self-report for continuing education where your board allows it.
The Field Guides
Real buildings, real photographs, in the order the work happens.
The Super Energy-Efficient & Healthy Home Field Guide
The story of a real 1,200-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bath home in Georgia, built stage by stage, with more than 150 construction photographs. For new construction.
The Retrofit & Remodel Field Guide — The NightMare
Nearly 200 field photographs from more than 25 real projects. Find out what the building is telling you before you open a wall.
Learn It Your Way
Listen in the truck, look it up on the job.
Super Energy Efficient Building Audio Course
14 narrated modules on how a building really works: heat, air, moisture, walls, roofs, windows and HVAC, in plain English. Lifetime access.
Wall and Roof Assembly Library
867 verified whole-wall R and U values for walls, roofs and rim joists. 2x4 and 2x6, 16 and 24 inch on center, metal studs, every common insulation. U.S., Canadian and European values.
Carbonless 2126
What is a Stick?
A Stick is what everybody else calls a module or a course. One lesson, about two hours, with a test and a certificate of completion at the end.
We call them Sticks because a beaver does not build a dam with one stick. He uses lots of them. And it takes lots of sticks to build a house that lasts 100 to 250 years.
Carbonless 2126 is 40 Sticks, about 80 to 120 hours of education. Stick Zero is free. After that, buy them one at a time for $100, or get all of them for $3,900.
Join Carbonless
Why Join Carbonless
People join for one reason. They want the whole education.
Land development. Real estate. Mortgages. Insurance. How mold grows and how to keep it out. How a building gets built right, from the dirt to the family living in it a hundred years from now.
Right now, half of the people joining want to sit across the table from a family and explain how to build a house where mold has no place to grow. That takes more than one class. It takes all of it.
As a member, you get:
- All 40 Sticks of Carbonless 2126, the complete program.
- A direct line to Brian Iverson, and to every other member.
- A seat at the Carbonless Roundtable, 26 gatherings a year.
- A listing in the Carbonless Directory.
- All of it for as long as your membership is active.
Every member agrees to help the others out. If you run into a problem on a house, you are not on your own. You have Brian and the whole membership behind you.
One payment of $6,000. No monthly fee.
Join Carbonless. Read the description.Help us teach the next family.
Carbonless is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Every gift helps put plain-English building education in front of more people.
A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO BUILDING SMARTER, MORE EFFICIENT, AND SUSTAINABLE STRUCTURES.
“The book explores sustainable living through the concept of "thermal living," focusing on energy efficiency and reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Iverson offers practical solutions and encourages a mindset shift towards more environmentally conscious choices. The book is accessible, blending science and real-world examples to show how we can live in better harmony with the planet. Overall, it's a timely and engaging read for anyone interested in sustainability and the future of energy. Highly recommend this book!”
Consulting with Brian
Talk your building through with Brian before you spend the money. Bring your plans, your questions, or your problem.
Hammerdahl™
Thanksgiving, 2126. The whole town is coming to the table. A Brian "Bapa" Iverson original novel. Book One. Hardcover and paperback available now.
Read the description