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Questions we are asked most often.
On the data, the courses, the designation and how the Institute is paid for. If your question is not here, the answer is a phone call away.
About the research
Yes. Every technical report, field note, guidance document, detail drawing and cleaned dataset is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence and can be downloaded by anyone without an account. Members receive drafts for comment before release and can influence what we study next, but they do not get earlier or better access to finished work.
Because laboratory walls do not have occupants who dry laundry indoors, contractors who sequence the air barrier around a rainstorm, or fourteen consecutive winters of real weather. We do use the Winnipeg reference yard for controlled comparisons, but the questions practitioners bring us are almost always about how an assembly behaves once it is built and lived in.
We prioritise assemblies that are common in Canadian practice but poorly documented in cold climates, that sit in a climate zone or exposure we are thin on, and whose owners will commit to at least five years of access. Public and academic members have first priority. Instrumentation and monitoring cost the host nothing; the condition is that the results are published, favourable or not.
No. We do not certify products, issue approvals or provide endorsements, and we will not run a comparison study intended to support a marketing claim. Where a proprietary product forms part of a monitored assembly it is named in the report for the sake of reproducibility, which is not a recommendation.
Three rules, all in the by-laws. No sponsor may fund more than 10 per cent of the research budget. No funding agreement may include a right of review, delay or veto over findings. And manufacturer members hold no seat on the technical committee and no vote on technical matters. The funding-transparency declaration is published with the audited statements each May.
You may cite and reproduce them with attribution. Bear in mind what they are: measurements from specific assemblies under stated conditions, published as a technical reference. They are not construction documents and do not replace design by a qualified professional or the requirements of the authority having jurisdiction. If a submission depends on one of our figures, tell us — we would rather you had the right edition.
Courses, certification and membership
No. The field school assumes no prior testing experience and regularly includes contractors' quality leads, building officials and housing authority staff alongside consultants. The certificate program is different: it assumes two years of practice or completion of the field school, because it moves quickly into modelling and vapour control strategy.
That the holder has completed the field school, passed a two-hour written examination on test standards and correction methods, and been watched running a field test judged against a published rubric. It is not a licence and does not replace professional registration. It is a statement that someone has been examined and observed doing the work, renewed every three years with 24 professional development hours.
The detailing clinic and the owners' briefing run online and in partner cities — a Toronto clinic runs each November. The field school is deliberately held at the Winnipeg reference yard because the instrumented walls and the winter conditions are the teaching material. Any course can be delivered at your own premises for up to 20 staff; ask about instructor travel.
Cancellations more than 21 days before a course are refunded in full. Within 21 days, your place can be transferred to a colleague or to the next intake at no charge. If the Institute cancels a course for any reason, fees are refunded in full and we will cover documented non-refundable travel to a Winnipeg intake.
Probably not on price alone. The practitioner tier costs $185 and saves $290 on the field school, so a single course is roughly break-even. Members join because they want a vote on what gets measured, an early look at drafts, and the survival of the northern stations — the dues fund all of our northern travel.
We collect only what is needed to run a registration or send a subscription, we do not sell or rent contact details to anyone, and we do not use advertising or tracking cookies. Every newsletter carries a one-click unsubscribe. The full details are in our privacy policy.
Still unresolved?
Call (204) 555-0173 between 9:00 and 17:00 Central Time, Monday to Friday, or write to info@ofivoll.club. Technical enquiries from members are answered within two working days; everyone else within five.