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Resilience and Window Attachments at BuildingEnergy 2012

Paula Melton — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:38:00 GMT

Going to BuildingEnergy this year? There are a lot of exciting sessions to choose from. Alex Wilson, a naturalist as well as a green building expert, knows a thing or two about being prepared. Interdisciplinary, cutting-edge, and co...

What's new at BE12

A lot is new at BuildingEnergy this year. The always-exciting keynote address will feature a new TED-talk format, with three speakers sharing their "breakthrough thinking and practice," according to the conference organizers. The new campus sustainability and healthcare tracks also caught our eye.

No armchair green building advice here! Peter Yost has more than 25 years of hands-on construction and building science experience under his coveralls.

Personally, I'm hoping to catch Mark Price and John Straube's building science session on water management for walls as well as the smart grid update with Joel Gordes and Roddy Diotalevi.

Free bus plus early bird registration

Even the transportation options are getting more sustainable, with free charter buses offered from Western Massachusetts both days. You have to be registered to sign up, and seats are going to be limited, so we'd recommend early registration.

Speaking of which, early registration rates end this Friday, February 10.

Redefining What Makes a Building Product Green

Jennifer Atlee — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:24:00 GMT

It's easy to get lost in a sea of greenwash. Our updated GreenSpec criteria provide clear direction on what makes a product green. BuildingGreen has been defining what makes a product green since the start of the GreenSpec directory in 1998--and...

Biobased materials aren't green just because they're biobased.

It's time to raise the level of scrutiny on all of them--not just wood. We've provided extensive coverage over the years on the debate over wood certifications, and we've also helped guide designers to the latest in rapidly renewable materials--but that's not enough. While biobased materials hold the promise of true sustainability and regeneration of ecosystems instead of damage to them, biobased materials today can be at least as problematic as any other material.

In the past, we've provided provisional approval to polymers with biobased content and other innovations that we see as stepping stones toward a sustainable materials system based on renewables, but we can't let the industry stop with these half-steps. Alone, biobased matierals can make things worse instead of better.

Green is about the behavior of whole industries.

Green isn't just about the product or even the life cycle of the product. It's about the behavior of whole industries. Preferentially purchasing from responsible companies increases the impact of green procurement. By focusing on Information Transparency and applauding companies who provide deeper data, we'll see increasingly marked improvements in the information available as companies get the hint that obfuscation and partial truth is no longer an option. By focusing on Responsible Corporate Practices, we make it clear that it's no longer possible for a manufacturer simply to create one product for a niche "green" market while continuing business as usual with other product lines.

It's time to consider resiliency and adaptation, not just emissions reductions.

I still think "Global Weirding" is the best description yet for what climate change will bring--and already is bringing through increased and increasingly dramatic storms and weather anomalies. Alex Wilson's blog series on Resilient Design highlights how to address these issues in buildings, but GreenSpec is also stepping up to the task of identifying products that uniquely contribute to resiliency. (Also watch for Alex's special feature article on resilience in March.)

Those familiar with our Green Attributes will find many other changes. We hope the changes will make it easier to understand and use these guidelines in the process of defining for yourself what makes a product green in the context of your projects. It won't stop here. With "What Makes a Product Green" we're signaling direction. The next step is to work with you on heading down that path. As 2012 progresses, you'll see us diving deeper into the key issues outlined above.

Image: Bensonwood

Not Green Enough: Six Products GreenSpec Rejected and Why

Tristan Roberts — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:40:00 GMT

There are plenty of products that simply aren't efficient, low-emitting, or sustainable. but here are some products that have a lot going for them, but also have some serious flaws. At GreenSpec, we most often like to talk about our 2,200-pl...

Cast aluminum hardware by Eleek

What it is: 100% recycled aluminum drawer pulls, knobs, and switch plates sound like a good idea, and Eleek's are very attractively designed.

Why we rejected it: There's not enough aluminum scrap to go around, so sinking that scrap into a product that usually uses less energy-intensive materials like wood, ceramic, or even steel is not a green application. The hardware doesn't need aluminum's unique properties, and these pulls are less likely to be recovered from the waste stream than, say, aluminum cans.

Solyndra Solar Panels

What it is: Solyndra's roof-mounted solar PV technology is based on a glass tube lined with thin-film copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS). The theory is light can hit the tubes at any angle and that the tubes capture light bouncing back off the roof to improve performance.

Why we rejected it: We hate to kick Solyndra while it's down--and its high-profile bankruptcy has earned Solyndra a lot of derision--but we had technical concerns about Solyndra a while back when we researched the product for GreenSpec. Solyndra wouldn't provide data backing up the captured light bouncing off the roof. Perhaps more damning to the company's fortunes, Solyndra took an inexpensive thin-film PV product and wrapped it in an expensive manufacturing process, with fragile tubes that were a challenge to transport. The company claimed low installation costs would make them more than competitive, but we saw it as a gimmick that didn't deserve to be included in GreenSpec.

Green Polyurethane from Nanotech Industries International, Inc.

What it is: Green Polyurethane from Nanotech Industries International, Inc. is a hybrid polyurethane that uses a proprietary combination of epoxy and polyurethane technologies that, according to the company, creates a surface that has better adhesion, three to four times the corrosion resistance, and 50% more chemical resistance than conventional polyurethanes. And it does so without solvents, VOCs, or the use of isocyanates.

Why we rejected it: After digging into the MSDS, we found that the product uses bisphenol-A (BPA), a main ingredient in epoxies. While GreenSpec encourages the development of isocyanate-free polyurethanes (we list isocyanate-free whey-protein polyurethanes for wood applications, for example), but we are not convinced that using epoxy is the best substitute. Few epoxy-based materials make it into GreenSpec due to the BPA concerns.

CRE-8 by IdeaPaint

What it is: CRE-8 is a water-based paint that transforms any surface into a dry erase board. Says the manufacturer: "Transform a child's bedroom or playroom into a place to explore and express their creativity and imagination. Paint a toy box and make it more entertaining than everything inside of it. IdeaPaint creates the perfect spot for the family to interact and keep up with each other's busy lives."

Why We Rejected It: The product's MSDS shows that CRE-8 is high-VOC, which is basis enough for concern. Beyond that, however, almost all dry erase markers are high-VOC, and a product that encourages kids to use them like toys just doesn't qualify as green. We'd feel great about it if it were reformulated and packaged with zero-VOC markers.

Retrofoam by Polymaster

What it is: RetroFoam is a three-part foam-in-place insulation that can be injected into the wall cavity for insulation retrofits.

Why we rejected it: With no MSDS displayed on Retrofoam's website, we needed to do some digging to find out more about RetroFoam's ingredients. Eventually, an April 1, 2011 entry on the company's blog revealed that RetroFoam is urea-formaldehyde foam insulation (remember UFFI from back in the 1970s?), a substance toxic enough to warrant rejection considering there are similar, formaldehyde-free insulation products available. We'd like to see Retrofoam upgrade to a formaldehyde-free product--and be far more transparent about their ingredients.

Footopia Foot Spa by Ashiyu

What it is: This 40" polyethylene bowl comes lined with river rocks, with a programmable heater and dual-speed pump for your foot-soaking experience. It comes with a respectable 10-year warranty, and everyone enjoys a good foot massage.

Why we rejected it: Foot spa: rhymes with "chutzpah." The product's GreenSpec submission suggested that compared to a standard 500- to 800-gallon hot tub, the Footopia is a "greener" option--but what isn't? It still uses plenty of water, electricity, treatment chemicals, and PVC plumbing, which do not make this a product we can recommend to our GreenSpec readers.

The VU R30-101D ESL Mercury-Free Light Bulb

What it is: The company describes the light bulb as a direct replacement for a 65-watt incandescent light bulb that relies on "electron stimulated luminescence" (ESL). What attracted us to the product is that it's totally mercury-free and works in dimming circuits. It's supposed to consume 19.5 watts, have a power factor of 0.99, and produce 600 lumens.

Why we rejected it: We obtained a sample light bulb, and have been testing it in one of our editors' homes. In fact, he's typing this under its light right now. While the lack of mercury is great, the light bulb seems only slightly brighter than a few candles, and--worse--it flickers, at least in the dimming circuit it's on. I measured the electrical consumption at only 12 watts (lower than the specs), but the light output seemed far less than a 15-watt CFL I tested at the same time. And the power factor fluctuated, averaging only about 0.82. Hopefully, this is just an early-production-model problem and the performance will improve. But for now, it doesn't make the grade.

Most of the products we reject have potential: tweaked ingredients, lowered VOCs, or improved performance would make the difference between GreenSpec rejection and making the cut. As in the case of EcoDomo's leather tiles, these are decisions in sourcing and manufacturing that can make a product stand out in the market.

Resilient Communities

Alex Wilson — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:55:00 GMT

A pedestrian-friendly, walkable community was created in Annapolis, Maryland, making getting around without cars much more feasible. Photo: Dan Burden. Click on image to enlarge. In this ninth installment of my ten-part series on resilient design I'... Resilient communities, in these situations, will be communities that can function without the automobile. Indeed, in certain respects, improving the resilience of our homes is the easy part--not cheap, certainly, but relatively straightforward. Making our communities more resilient is a very difficult, long-term challenge. Here are some strategies:

Create pedestrian-friendly communities

Places where it's more convenient to walk around--and less convenient to drive--will inherently be less dependent on cars. "Traffic calming" measures that slow down vehicles and make walking safer are key. Some of these measures, such as bump-outs on traveled streets and closely spaced cross-walks, are a bane to drivers, but they make a difference in safety and walkability.

Wide sidewalks are key to pedestrian access. And in cold climates, it's important for municipalities to keep those sidewalks clear in the winter months.

A typical street in Lund, Sweden. Lots of bikes and pedestrians; almost no cars. Photo: Alex Wilson. Click on image to enlarge.

Provide bicycle lanes and pathways

I spent a couple weeks in Lund, Sweden a few years ago. I arrived in the late afternoon on a rainy December day and was astounded by the number of people getting around by bicycle. The city has an entire network of bicycle paths, divided with directional lanes. On a busy Saturday in Lund, with the streets bustling with people and commerce, the bicycle parking lots were packed, and about the only open pavement I saw in the city was a large parking lot for cars in the center of town. The few lonely Volvos and Saabs provided stark contrast to our packed parking lots here in America.

Bicycling is certainly easier in relatively flat places that don't have a lot of snow--like Lund, Sweden; Copenhagen, Denmark; and most of Holland. But significant progress is being made here at home in some surprising places. Minneapolis, for example, recently pulled ahead of Portland, Oregon as the most bicycle-friendly city in the nation, according to Bicycling Magazine. Despite the cold weather, more than 120 miles of bicycle paths, indoor bicycle parking, and other features helped Minneapolis gain that recognition.

Encourage mixed-use development

Standard zoning in the U.S. separates commercial and residential development. When this zoning was created, industry was pretty dirty, noisy, and smelly, so separating uses usually made sense. But today, that same zoning often makes things worse by increasing our dependence on cars. In most recently built communities, you can't walk to a corner café, bookstore, or food market, let alone workplaces.

That can change. More progressive communities today are modifying zoning to encourage mixed-use development. The New Urbanist movement is leading that charge. The starting point in these newer, more pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use developments is often to look back at older cities like Charleston, South Carolina, and towns built up around railroad stops outside such cities as Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

Encourage density and public transit

Density is key to creating less car-dependent communities. Without adequate density it's very hard to make public transit work, because there isn't a critical mass. And without effective public transit, people have to drive. This is the primary reason public transit works so much better in most of Europe than it does in the U.S.--significantly higher density in the cities and towns.

One solution is to make in-town, infill development easier by providing incentives for denser development while raising hurdles for sprawling, car-dependent, "greenfield" development. Whether we push it or not, there is already a shift toward higher-density, transit-accessible development, because that's where people want to live. Over the past ten years, even as real estate values have declined generally, they have continued increasing in places like the neighborhoods within a half-mile of Metro stops in the Washington, DC area.

Light-rail and bicycling help to make Toronto a great city. Photo: Alex Wilson. Click on image to enlarge.

Support locally owned businesses

Resilience at the community scale is also a function of strong local economies. With locally owned businesses, more of the profits are recycled within the community and region. Those businesses are more likely to reach out during a natural disaster, helping neighbors and donating to recovery efforts than are large national companies owned by distant stockholders whose motivation is simply maximizing profits. Local businesses are also more likely to source materials locally--something I'll address next week.

Build strong communities

Whether or not there are bike pathways or enough density to allow public transit, a high degree of resilience can be achieved in communities through community-building. Potluck suppers, local cultural events, farmers' markets, apple pie festivals, strawberry suppers, Sunday concerts, town meetings, and community walks can all help to create communities where people get to know each other and will work together when needed. That's the most important aspect of community resilience.

About this series

Throughout this resilient design series, I'm covering how our homes and communities can continue to function in the event of extended power outages, interruptions in heating fuel, or shortages of water. Resilient design is a life-safety issue that is critical for the security and wellbeing of families in a future of climate uncertainty.

Alex is founder of BuildingGreen, Inc. and executive editor of Environmental Building News. To keep up with his latest articles and musings, you can sign up for his Twitter feed.

Free Webcast: LEED Energy Reporting Made Easy

Tristan Roberts — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:23:00 GMT

LEED Minimum Program Requirement #6, requiring energy and water use reporting, is the most controversial and the most difficult to comply with. Our free webcast explains it step by step. Free Webcast: LEED Energy Reporting Made Easy: Ful...

USGBC's MPR #6 expert answers your questions

LEEDuser is pleased to offer this presentation by Lauren Riggs, manager of LEED performance at USGBC. This live, half-hour webcast will cover the following topics:

The three options for BD&C projects to comply with MPR #6, including through use of Energy Star or LEED-EBOM
The two options for LEED-CI projects to comply
Tools under development to support performance tracking in LEED project certification
The role of the MPRs in achieving LEED certification--or not
Connections to EAc5: Measurement & Verification
The Building Performance Partnership (BPP) and its role in MPR #6 compliance

MPR #6 Frequently Asked Questions

The webcast will cover some of the common problems that project teams face in earning MPR #6, among them:

Can I get an exemption?
How will USGBC use our data?
Will my project be decertified if it performs poorly?
My project is outside the U.S. Can I use Portfolio Manager?
How often should I record energy and water data?
When do I have to start reporting data?

Lauren shares specific to-do's, case studies, and tips you can use to make this entire process easier for your project team.

Also, bring your MPR #6 questions to the webcast for a Q&A session with Lauren!

Continuing education

LEEDuser will offer 0.5 CE hours for AIA and LEED AP credential maintenance, to anyone attending the entire webcast. (Please stay to the end for instructions on logging those hours!)

About the presenters

Lauren Riggs – USGBC
Lauren Riggs, Manager of LEED Performance at USGBC is responsible for the management of the building performance programs central to LEED. These programs include Building Performance Partnership, Portfolio Partners Program and LEED Recertification. Additionally, Lauren developed and maintains the LEED Online Minimum Program Requirement #6 documentation requirements. Her work emphasizes the imperative linkages between the existing buildings certification process and requirements and ongoing tracking of building performance.

Tristan Roberts – LEEDuser
The webinar will be moderated by Tristan Roberts, editor of LEEDuser.com, a website that provides how-to resources for LEED certification teams. Tristan is also Editorial Director for BuildingGreen, publishers of LEEDuser as well as Environmental Building News and GreenSpec.

Army to Congress: LEED Doesn't Cost More

Paula Melton — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:02:00 GMT

The Army is still going for Gold and Platinum despite recent legislation calling a halt to LEED spending. Fort Carson is piloting net-zero energy, water, and waste--and expects to meet that target by 2020. The federal government has...

On the warpath for LEED

Will the Army then be submitting cost-benefit analyses for each project, as the legislation seems to require? Hammack said no.

"The challenge right now is one of education," she explained. "If a building got a Gold-level certification and we were striving for Silver, that does not mean there was an incremental cost. We're working to help prepare a report for Congress so they understand the benefit of high-performance buildings."

Hammack clearly views these benefits as, at least in part, financial.

Can they do this?

The legislation in question does have a loophole for LEED Gold and Platinum projects as long as they don't cost more. As we reported at the time, "Exceptions may also be made without a special waiver if achieving Gold or Platinum 'imposes no additional cost'."

That loophole is big enough to blithely drive a tank through without bothering to show ID at the checkpoint. You apparently don't have to prove that it didn't cost more--or the Army is interpreting it that way, at any rate, while working closely with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on "educating" Congress.

Build to the standard but don't certify?

Another reporter asked if you could bypass the requirements by building to LEED standards but not bothering with certification. Hammack wasn't warm to that idea.

"We like the LEED program because it gives another set of eyes on the construction details and helps guide the direction of architects and engineers," Hammack replied. "The cost of LEED certification is very minimal in comparison to the benefits of LEED certification and the recognition that the building has achieved certain goals."

Zero energy wasted on dithering

"With a limited amount of water, a limited amount of resources, and an increasing world population," Hammack said, "we need to improve our stewardship over the resources we have."

Most of the call with Hammack was devoted to the progress on net-zero pilot projects. She and the rest of the Army clearly are not wasting time on questions of whether to LEED or not to LEED.

Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC): Will the U.S. Ever Lighten Up?

Paula Melton — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:28:00 GMT

ol, ul { list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: disc; margin-left: 12px; padding-left: 24px; } li { margin-top: 5px; } Lighter, more fire-resistant, and a better insulator, autoclaved aerated concrete caught o...

How AAC is made

AAC is similar to other concrete types, except that it contains no aggregate; sand or fly ash is included, with aluminum powder added to react with one of these ingredients and "leaven" the concrete, creating tiny bubbles just like baking soda does when it reacts with the buttermilk in your muffin batter. (Your muffins are full of carbon dioxide bubbles, but AAC is full of hydrogen bubbles.)

[Note: Robert Riversong points out in comments that sand is aggregate, which I also thought when I started researching it, but after some more digging, my understanding is that the sand is used as a reactant and is therefore not considered aggregate in AAC. For more, see here.]

The concrete is poured into molds, left to rise, and then "baked" in an autoclave, which uses steam and pressure to complete the chemical reactions and speed up the curing process significantly--completing in hours rather than weeks. The resulting blocks are so full of bubbles that a block of the same size has about one-fifth the material required by regular concrete.

Like conventional concrete masonry units, AAC is sold in a variety of block shapes and sizes, but unlike conventional units, most don't have cores. They are porous and light, like muffins, but not hollow.

Benefits of AAC

The main advantage of AAC when it was first developed in Sweden in the early 20th century was simple: it wasn't wood. It's still not wood, but in North America (unlike in Sweden at the time and in most of Europe now), wood is still plentiful and cheap.

Compared with conventional concrete, AAC still has advantages, though:

It uses less material--important for concrete, since portland cement is one of the most energy- and carbon-intensive building materials.
Despite the energy-intensive autoclaving process, manufacturers say it takes about 50% less energy to make, because of the lower portland cement content by volume (we're haven't found anyone to challenge those claims, but are still looking for data).
It's lighter, which cuts down on transportation costs and fuel use.
It's a better insulator, with a steady-state R-value just a hair above R-1 as opposed to something more like R-0.2 (neither of these factors in thermal mass, which we'll get to later).
Air leakage is minimal.
AAC also has excellent soundproofing properties.
It can also be used as a firebreak.

Drawbacks of AAC

In a report written for UC–Davis (PDF), Stefan Schnitzler finds few disadvantages to AAC. Here are the two demerits on his list:

There are few manufacturers in the U.S. (that was in 2006, and now there are almost none, since Xella has moved its Hebel operation to Mexico); this means higher costs, which is a huge barrier for adoption.
AAC requires a learning curve for builders, because the mortar application is more precise.

We would like to add a few drawbacks that we've found:

The barriers for builders don't stop with the mortar. According to Derek Taylor, owner of AAC distributor SafeCrete, the only manufacturer in North America right now is a German company whose block dimensions don't work for U.S. builders. These often need to be sawed, adding labor and fuss to a building system that's supposed to be simple. (Taylor's looking forward to two new plants coming online in the States in the next couple years.)
Since right now your AAC is most likely coming from Mexico, the advantages offered by lighter weight will diminish significantly as the mileage increases.
Thermal properties are better than those of conventional concrete, but they aren't good enough to make AAC a viable wall material (relative to BuildingGreen-recommended R-values) in most U.S. and Canadian climates without additional insulation. (The European climate, where AAC is popular, is milder.)
Unless rebar is added--which adds to the weight and amount of material in the blocks--AAC can only be used for low- and mid-rise construction. But it seems to be popular for single-family homes as well as schools.
Unlike conventional concrete, AAC can't be used as a finish; it is more porous and needs cladding or stucco on the outside so it won't absorb moisture.

AAC is popular for residential construction but not suitable for high-rise buildings without structural reinforcement. Photo: SafeCrete

Would you use AAC?

That said, AAC does appear to have significant advantages for applications where conventional concrete would normally be the best material--like in the American Southwest and in other climates where thermal mass can increase the "effective" or "mass-enhanced" R-value of the wall. Even then, its performance may still be outmatched by that of insulated concrete forms, depending on the needs of the client.

Unfortunately, much of the information we have on AAC performance in the U.S. comes from manufacturers. We'd like to hear some empirical evidence from the field.

Are you using AAC on any of your projects?

If you've used it, how did it perform? If not, what would it take for you to try it out?

Resilient Design: Water in a Drought-Prone Era

Alex Wilson — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:00:00 GMT

July, 2011 dust storm in Phoenix, Arizona. Photo: Militec, Inc. Click on image to enlarge. Periodic drought is something that a significant portion of the U.S. will have to get used to in the coming decades. Climate scientists tell us that while pre... As we think of adaptation to climate change and resilience, dealing with water has to be a part of our focus. In this blog I'll cover how to improve the efficiency with which we use water and measures to ensuring access to water during shortages.

The Niagara Stealth toilet, which uses just o.8 gallons per flush. Photo: Niagara Conservation. Click on image to enlarge.

Use water efficiently

When water becomes scarce, it is all the more important to use that water efficiently. During drought emergencies, restrictions in certain water uses (such as outdoor irrigation) are commonly instituted. By planning ahead and replacing water-intensive lawns with low-water-use native landscaping (often called "xeriscaping"), your grounds will likely do just fine without water.

If you want to be able to get by with stored water during interruptions in water supply (see below), you need to make that stored water go as far as possible. This means ultra-low-flush toilets, such as the new generation of high-efficiency toilets (HETs) that use no more than 1.28 gallons per flush or that offer two flush volumes, showerheads using as little as 1.5 gallons per minute, bathroom faucets with flow rates as low as 0.5 gallons per minute, water-conserving horizontal-axis (front-loading) clothes washers, and top-efficiency dishwashers.

One can go even further with water-efficiency using composting toilets that don't use any water, waterless urinals, and graywater systems that capture water from a lavatory sink to re-fill the toilet.

Relying on a spring on a hill

Rural homeowners with springs that gravity-feed water to the house are at a distinct advantage when it comes to resilience. Our home in Dummerston used to be served by a spring on the hill above our house that relied on gravity to deliver water to a cistern in our basement. The vertical drop from the spring wasn't enough to deliver a strong shower, so we had a shallow-well pump in the basement to charge a pressure tank, but during power outages I could turn a few valves and switch over to gravity-pressure for our home water system; the 20 psi of pressure provided a weak shower--but a lot better than none. Unfortunately, after several years of the spring running dry in August, we drilled a well and pretty-much abandoned the spring.

On-site water storage

If your water supply is interrupted for whatever reason, the only real option is to have stored water on-site. Rural homeowners who face periodic power interruptions are familiar with this issue. Unless we have back-up generators, when we lose power we lose our water, because our deep-well pumps don't work. This is my situation. We have a pressure tank in the basement, so we may still have a few gallons of available water after a power outage, but not much. It's always a good idea to have stored water on hand for emergency use.

Those five-gallon carboys used with drinking-water dispensers work well for storing potable water. Fill them, seal them to keep insects and dust out, and keep them in a dark location to prevent algae growth. Open containers may be fine for storing non-potable water that can be used to flush toilets. When we lose power, we shut off the fill-valve to one of our toilets, and fill it manually after flushing. You can carry water from a stream, collect water from your roof in buckets positioned under the eaves, or rely on a full-blown rainwater harvesting system (see below).

Rainwater storage tanks at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Annapolis, Maryland. Photo: Alex Wilson. Click on image to enlarge.

Rainwater harvesting

A greater level of resilience can be achieved with a rainwater harvesting system. The simplest of these systems is a rain barrel positioned under a downspout at the corner of your house. With larger systems, multiple downspouts feed rainwater into a large tank, or cistern, that stores the water. Many types of cisterns are available, made from plastic, fiberglass, galvanized steel, wood, or cement.

I've seen rainwater systems with buried cisterns that hold tens of thousands of gallons, but more common are tanks holding a few thousand gallons in an outdoor shed or basement. Being able to gravity-feed water from a cistern is an advantage, but that's often hard to do in cold climates, since the tank has to be kept from freezing.

Simple rainwater harvesting systems are typically used (during non-emergency times) for outdoor irrigation. More sophisticated systems are designed to provide potable water and include first-flush systems (to discard the first water that comes off a room during a rainstorm), filtration, and purification systems to ensure safe water. When used for potable water, a metal roof is usually the best surface, since less detritus is held in the roof surface.

About this series

Throughout this resilient design series, I'm covering how our homes and communities can continue to function in the event of extended power outages, interruptions in heating fuel, or shortages of water. Resilient design is a life-safety issue that is critical for the security and wellbeing of families in a future of climate uncertainty.

Alex is founder of BuildingGreen, Inc. and executive editor of Environmental Building News. To keep up with his latest articles and musings, you can sign up for his Twitter feed.

The End of Greenwashing? Five Myths about Product Transparency

Paula Melton — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:47:00 GMT

ol, ul { list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: disc; margin-left: 12px; padding-left: 24px; } li { margin-top: 5px; } Will environmental product declarations end greenwashing for good? Not so fast. This ...

Five myths about environmental product declarations

Products "earn" an EPD. Far from it. Manufacturers pay tens of thousands of dollars to get one, and the fact that a product has one tells you absolutely nothing about its environmental performance. You have to actually read the report to know whether the product is environmentally preferable or not.
An EPD is like a nutrition label for building products. When's the last time you saw a 20-page nutrition label on your Cheerios? We're guilty of spreading this one ourselves, but it's not really true...at least not yet. Yes, the information in an EPD must follow a standard format, but that's where the similarly ends. For one thing, EPDs are completely voluntary--but also, we're very far from having an at-a-glance on-product label, although there are efforts to develop this. Here's one proposed by forward-thinking designers like Perkins + Will.
EPDs are about science, not marketing. EPDs are backed by life-cycle assessment, and both have to be done by a third party in accordance with ISO standards. But companies can pick and choose which products they want to have EPDs for, and many will choose for marketing reasons; you won't find out how clean the company overall is by looking at one product's EPD. By contrast, InterfaceFLOR is working to develop EPDs for all its products--but Interface is definitely an exception. You may also find marketing language in some parts of the report.
EPDs list all the ingredients in a product. Yes, the EPD has to list the materials the manufacturer uses--but you aren't likely to find out what's actually in those materials (like flame retardants or insecticides, for example) by looking at an EPD. We're working with the Healthy Building Network and a variety of manufacturers and other stakeholders to develop a health product declaration (HPD) that could help fill in the gaps. One of the things we're hoping the trend toward EPDs and HPDs will do is to help manufacturers get more information from their suppliers about potentially harmful ingredients.
EPDs include information on toxicity and ecology. EPDs can sound a lot more comprehensive than they are. Although the life-cycle assessment behind the EPD will look at "human health" or "ecological" effects, those categories sound broader than their names justify. (See our recent coverage of a life-cycle assessment of hand-drying methods, where "ecosystem quality" was narrowly defined as "potentially disappeared fraction of plant species per square meter per year.") As far as human health goes, the HPD could help here too.

Where EPDs come from: the infographic

The success of product transparency depends on the design community knowing what an EPD is--and what it isn't.

In the process of writing the feature article, we put together an at-a-glance chart to explain where EPDs actually come from and to show a few key points you should know about them. Click above to view a larger version. Click here to download a PDF for printing.

Why we need EPDs, even though they're flawed

While you're printing it out, take five minutes to watch our fun video exploring what we think is so great about product transparency--including what you can do to make sure all the building product information you need is at your fingertips.

Green Walls for Greener Cities

Brent Ehrlich — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:22:00 GMT

ol, ul { list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: disc; margin-left: 12px; padding-left: 24px; } li { margin-top: 5px; } Contact with nature is not just an amenity: it's important for well-being. Green walls liv...

What is a green wall?

Exterior green walls, sometimes referred to as living walls, green facades, eco-walls, and a variety of other names, use frames mounted to exterior walls to support vegetation growth. Their greenery helps

break up the urban landscape of concrete, glass, and steel;
improve the thermal performance of a building by creating shade and an air space between the plants and the building;
absorb carbon dioxide;
mitigate stormwater runoff;
and reduce heat and noise.

And since thermal performance and energy-saving design are not visible to the public, green walls are one way for building owners to advertise their green credentials.

GSky exterior Pro Wall System

But green walls have to be well designed and maintained or else you can end up with mold, moisture damage, or dead plants. GSky's exterior Pro Wall System reduces these risks using a stainless steel frame and panels that incorporate a structural growth medium. The plants are pre-grown to design specifications, monitored for temperature and moisture, and watered automatically using a drip irrigation system.
Designing the wall is no easy task. It begins with careful assessment of the site, water and drainage consideration, seismic and wind loads, and power and placement of the irrigation system. Local plants are then selected and pre-grown in a nursery before the panels are installed along with the frame, irrigation, and monitoring system.

GSky's Pro Wall green wall can integrate different plants to create distinctive patterns.

The monitoring system is automated, setting off alerts if there is a problem with the irrigation, and can be paired with GSky's maintenance program. These green walls do not have to be a single shade of green, either. Using different plant species, you can create designs within the greenery.

More basic green walls

GSky also offers its Basic Wall Container System, which contains a trellis and integrated containers to support vine growth. The containers are three feet and five feet high, and the vines can be either pre-grown or allowed to grow naturally, which could take up to two years.
You can't get plant designs with these systems. They are meant for large exterior walls, and can even include a catwalk behind the façade of plants for easier maintenance on high walls. Like the Pro Wall System, they come with an irrigation and monitoring system.

Keeping the "green" in "green wall"

Providing the benefits of biophilia using a green wall only works if the plants are actually green. GSky ensures its systems perform with warranties of ten years on the planters, five years on the irrigation system, and a "100% Plant Health Guarantee" when paired with the maintenance contract.
We've updated our green walls section in GreenSpec and added a couple of new products. Check them out. While green walls might not be ideal for every building or climate, the more greenery we can add to urban environments, the more I'll feel at home while visiting.

Resilient Design: Emergency Renewable Energy Systems

Alex Wilson — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:20:00 GMT

Our pellet stove has DC fans and a kit that allows us to hook it up to a battery to power those fans in the event of a power outage. Photo: Alex Wilson. Click on image to enlarge. House location and design are the starting points in achieving resili... Wood stoves are dirty, though--even EPA-compliant models (as all new wood stoves sold new today must be). In a rural area, such as where I live, reliance on wood heat may be acceptable, but in more densely populated areas extensive use of wood heat would cause significant pollution problems. Even in our area, when there is a power outage and more residents fire up their wood stoves, the air quality deteriorates. Thus, wood heating makes the most sense when the house to be heated is highly energy efficient so that little wood needs to be burned to maintain comfortable, safe conditions. And then, the wood stove should be operated for maximum combustion efficiency (minimum smoke production).

Pellet stoves

Like wood stoves, pellet stoves can do a good job of heating an energy-efficient house. Because of the fan-supplied combustion air, pellet stoves tend to be much cleaner-burning than wood stoves. The need for electricity to operate, though, makes pellet stoves inherently less resilient.

Our pellet stove--the sole heat for the apartment above our garage--works like most pellet stoves when AC electricity is available: electric coils ignite the pellets during start-up, a fan brings combustion air to the burn-pot in the stove, and another fan blows the heated air into the room. In the event of a power outage, however, our pellet stove--unlike most--can still be operated. The fans in our Quadra-Fire Mt. Vernon AE have DC motors, and we have jumper cables that allow us to operate the stove during a power outage by clipping them to an automotive or other deep-cycle 12-volt battery. This back-up power isn't enough to start the pellet stove (we have to do that manually with pellet starter gel or some kindling), but the battery can power the two fans.

This photovoltaic system in southern Vermont provides back-up power during power outages. Photo: Alex Wilson. Click on image to enlarge.

Solar electricity

The ultimate in resilience can be achieved with a solar-electric (photovoltaic) power system that can be used when the grid is down. Photovoltaic (PV) systems directly convert sunlight into electricity. PV modules can be installed on a roof or on ground-mounted racks. Most use silicon wafers that are specially made so that photons of light excite electrons and generate direct current (DC) electricity. An inverter in most PV systems then converts that DC electricity into alternating current (AC) that can be used by standard household appliances and also fed into the utility grid through a net-metering system.

The problem with most grid-connected PV systems is that when the grid goes down (during a power outage), you can't use the electricity. This is a safety feature with grid-connected PV systems to prevent them from feeding electricity into the power grid when linemen may be repairing down wires. To serve as a power source during a power outage (key to resilience), it is generally necessary to install some battery back-up and a "hybrid" PV system. These systems are more complex (and costly), because they include not only a battery bank, but also controls that send power either to the battery bank or power grid, depending on the charge state of the batteries and status of the grid. There are apparently some specialized inverters that allow electricity to be used in the home (during the daytime when the PV system is producing electricity) even when the system is disconnected from the grid during an outage, but these inverters are uncommon.

This solar water heater on a Guilford, Vermont home is augmented by a heat exchanger in the wood stove, which offers back-up water heating in the event of a power outage--relying on passive thermosiphoning. Photo: Alex Wilson. Click on image to enlarge.

Solar water heating

To heat water when the electric grid is down the best option is a solar water heating system that can operate without AC electricity. Some "active" solar water heaters have DC pumps with integral PV modules that operate the pump when the sun is shining--thus the PV module serves both as the controller and the pumping power. There are also two types of passive solar water heaters that require no electricity. Thermosiphoning systems have the solar collector mounted below the storage tank, and solar-heated water rises through natural convection into the storage tank when the sun is shining. With batch or integral-collector-storage (ICS) solar water heaters, the water is stored right where it is heated (with water pressure delivering that water to a collector on the collector on the roof).

A solar water heating system can be augmented with water heating coils in a wood stove to ensure adequate hot water during the winter months when there is less solar energy.

About this series

Throughout this resilient design series, I'm covering how our homes and communities can continue to function in the event of extended power outages, interruptions in heating fuel, or shortages of water. Resilient design is a life-safety issue that is critical for the security and wellbeing of families in a future of climate uncertainty.

Alex is founder of BuildingGreen, Inc. and executive editor of Environmental Building News. To keep up with his latest articles and musings, you can sign up for his Twitter feed.

Choosing the Best Housewrap: A New Standard for Weather Barriers

Peter Yost — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:56:00 GMT

There are more than 20 different standardized tests manufacturers can invoke to "qualify" as a code-accepted weather-resistive barrier (WRB); with our GreenSpec section on WRBs, we've picked just one that we think does the job. It's not easy being...

Source: ASTM International. Click to enlarge.

Here are the key points from the table.

Two types of WRBs: Type I WRBs have what is described as a "base" level of water resistance. Type II WRBs have what is described as an "enhanced" level of water resistance. This difference is reflected only in the water-resistance requirements. GreenSpec requires Type II compliance.
Tensile strength or breaking force: There are three different ASTM test methods from which to choose; all evaluate the strength of the material.
Vapor permeability: All WRBs must be a minimum of 5 perms, considered to be vapor semi-permeable (Joe Lstiburek, Ph.D., P.E., of Building Science Corporation classifies materials in the range of 1 to 10 perms as Class III vapor retarders, based in part on the Canadian General Standards Board approach). This is ideal because WRBs should keep water out but also allow drying.
Pliability: The pliability test ensures WRBs are pliable even when they are cold (32?F).
Aged testing: The tests for tensile strength and water resistance must be conducted for materials "as received" and "aged." Aged testing involves cycles of wetting and drying as well as ultraviolet (UV) light exposure.

Find out if your favorite housewrap qualifies

Most high-quality, well-known spun-bonded polyolefin housewraps (such as Tyvek and Typar) comply with the new ASTM standard Type II requirements; the same is true for quality building papers (Fortifiber, for example).

You might not find explicit compliance to this new standard on a manufacturer's website; if it's not clear, ask them. Or just use a building paper or housewrap listed in GreenSpec.

You still have to install it right!

Although the new proposed ASTM standard for flexible, mechanically fastened WRBs does not cover installation, one can hope that its requirements for tensile strength and pliability will help prevent situations like this.

Does this new standard solve all of our building-assembly problems? Not by a long shot; you still need to marry the WRB to all flashing details at penetrations and transitions. But it sure makes a lot of sense to start with the right materials as you design, spec, and build high-performance building assemblies.

What are your experiences with WRBs, and questions? Please post your comments below.

Resilient Design: Natural Cooling

Alex Wilson — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:30:00 GMT

This exterior window shade in Florida blocks most of the solar gain, yet allows some view out. Photo: Alex Wilson. Click on image to enlarge. Over the past month-and-a-half, I've been focusing on resilient design--which will become all the more impo... At the same time, having fewer windows on the east and west make sense relative to summertime overheating. Significantly more sunlight shines through a square foot of east- or west-facing window during the course of a day in the summer than through a square foot of south- or north-facing window, so limiting east and west windows helps to prevent overheating.

Window selection

The type of glazing in our windows has a major impact on how much sunlight is transmitted through them. This is why it almost always makes sense in well-insulated buildings to "tune" the windows by orientation. By this, I mean using glass (glazing) on the south that transmits a high percentage of the sunlight striking it and glass on the east and west that transmits less sunlight. We refer to this property as the solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC); it is the fraction of total solar energy transmitted through the glass (assuming the sunlight strikes the glass at a normal (perpendicular) angle.

A good rule-of-thumb is to select south-facing windows that have SHGC values of 0.6 or higher (0.5 or higher with triple-glazed windows), and east- and west-facing windows with SHGC values of 0.3 or lower. Windows with SHGC values of 0.6 will transmit twice as much solar energy as windows with SHGC values of 0.3. The beauty of recent advances in glazings it that we can now have fairly large window areas (to provide views and natural lighting) without nearly the energy penalty (both from heat loss and unwanted solar gain) we had two or three decades ago.

Shading windows from direct sun

On the south, we can also use simple overhangs or awnings to block virtually all of the direct sun. On the east and west, different shading strategies are better, because the sun is lower in the sky. For these windows, exterior shade screens or roller blinds can be very effective. So can plantings of tall annuals like hollyhocks or vines like clematis, morning glory, and grape.

Designers and builders in the south learned the principles of shading windows long ago. Traditional architecture in hot climates often included wrap-around porches that kept direct sun out of the house, while providing pleasant outdoor living space. (Part of resilient design is looking at how our grandparents or great grandparents built--and returning to some of this vernacular architecture that is so well-adapted to the local climate.)

Reflective roofs and walls

Light-colored roofs and walls reflect, rather than absorb, most of the sunlight striking them. By not heating up as much, less heat is transmitted through to the interior. With high insulation levels in roofs and walls (see below), the need for reflective exterior surfaces is less important, but this strategy can still make a difference.

High insulation levels and tight construction

Just as an energy-efficient building envelope reduces heat loss in the winter, it also reduces unwanted heat gain during the summer--thus helping to control cooling loads and maintain comfort. If we follow the sort of recommendations for insulation levels for resilient homes that were outlined a couple weeks ago, unwanted heat gain will be very effectively controlled in the summer--as long as windows are closed during the hottest days.

Natural ventilation

Finally, we can achieve resilient homes that won't get too hot if power is lost and air conditioning doesn't work through natural ventilation. This strategy is particularly effective at night, when it's cooler outside than in. Simple operable windows with screens offer the primary strategy here, but we can go further. In hot, sunny climates, such as the Southwest, one can build solar chimneys that use the natural buoyancy of warm, rising air to pull in cooler outside air--sometimes through inlet tubes buried in the ground (earth tubes). Operable windows high on a wall or skylights can also serve as solar chimneys.

All of these natural cooling strategies can keep a house safe and reasonably comfortable in the summer during power outages. During normal times, such measures will significantly reduce the amount of time an air conditioner has to operate, while keeping the house more comfortable.

Alex is founder of BuildingGreen, Inc. and executive editor of Environmental Building News. To keep up with his latest articles and musings, you can sign up for his Twitter feed.

Building-Integrated PV: New Opportunities for a Bright Future

Brent Ehrlich — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:30:00 GMT

BIPV has yet to reach its full potential in the U.S., but a couple companies are giving it a shot. Soltecture's Corium thin-film CIGS BIPV is installed on the company's headquarters in Berlin. Building-integrated photovolt...

Code compliance and bureaucracy

According to Steven Strong, president of Solar Design Associates, architects are not likely to design a façade around a BIPV manufacturer's standard PV panel offerings. The panels usually have to be custom-built for the project, and therein lies the problem.

In Europe, a custom PV panel built in the same manner as the manufacturer's standard-size offerings can be preapproved by CE or TÜV, manufactured, and installed with relatively little fanfare...or expense. Not so in the U.S. John Wohlgemuth, principal scientist in PV reliability at NREL, who also works on PV code compliance, said "You need UL 1703 to put any PV on a building, and UL 1703 says if you make any change in the module you have to reassess it."

This means a PV manufacturer has to get UL 1703 approval for each PV panel size. And if it is a custom panel, then the mounting system and components also need UL approval. It is a time-consuming, expensive process that "is a huge barrier to innovation and implementation," said Strong.

Hope for the future

But change is in the works. Wohlgemuth said that UL 1703 is being modified to better accommodate custom BIPV, and ultimately it will be replaced by IEC61730, which will eliminate the retesting requirement. The modifications to UL 1703 should be ready by the end of 2012, but it will be a couple years before IEC61730 is adopted and BIPV implementation is simplified in the U.S.

Focus Materials now offers UL-approved PV mounting systems for BIPV rainscreens and curtainwalls. A mockup of the product is shown here.

Soltecture and Focus Materials enter the BIPV market

While we wait for IEC61730, the German company Soltecture, formerly Sulfurcell, recently received UL approval for its Corium BIPV and is now offering it for sale in the U.S. The system uses the company's Linion L laminated copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) rigid thin-film PV panel adhered to an aluminum "cassette." The cassette attaches to the building's cladding system to give the frameless PV panel the appearance of black architectural glass. CIGS can provide decent performance in indirect light, so it's an appropriate choice for BIPV, which is often not ideally oriented to the sun. Corium is available in one size, 2' x 4', so there will be some design limitations, but it is smaller than most PV panels, so the company claims it should be easier to integrate into a building. And where irregular panels are required, matching black glass is used.

Soltecture's standard, non-Corium panels can also be used along with Focus Materials' UL-approved rainscreen and curtainwall BIPV mounting systems. Focus Material's offers a package that includes materials, gaskets, sealants, PV panels, wiring harnesses, and inverters as well as support.

Rapid industry changes

Over the last year or so, we've been busy trying to stay on top of the ever-changing photovoltaic (PV) industry--Evergreen Solar, BP Solar, and Uni-Solar have all gone out of business--so it is encouraging to see a new player enter the U.S. market, especially the BIPV market.

We've reorganized some of our GreenSpec BIPV sections to reflect the recent changes, and we hope to add more BIPV façade products as U.S. standards catch up with those in the rest of the world.

Resilient Design: Passive Solar Heat

Alex Wilson — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:50:00 GMT

Passive solar design is a key element of creating resilient homes. A passive solar home in Halifax, Vermont. High-SHGC, triple-glazed, south-facing windows were used to improve the direct-gain passive solar performance. Click on image to enlarge.... Direct-gain passive solar

The most common passive solar heating system is known as direct-gain. South-facing windows transmit sunlight that is absorbed by dark surfaces of high-mass materials in the house. In a sense, the house itself becomes the solar collector and heat storage system, with different components serving multiple functions. Those windows also provide views to the outdoors and bring in natural daylighting, while the thermal mass consists of the walls or floors that serve structural functions. We need those elements anyway, but by optimizing their area, placement, and configuration, they can become the primary heating system.

The challenge with direct-gain passive solar heating is to provide the right amount of glass in the proper orientations and incorporate the proper amount of thermal mass to minimize temperature cycling and prevent overheating. (Back in New Mexico in the late-1970s, there were a lot of poorly designed passive solar homes that overheated horribly.)

As window glazings have improved in the three decades since my days in New Mexico and as we have recognized the primary importance of highly insulated buildings (see last week's blog), the opportunities for passive solar heating have improved--but so has the complexity. With better glazings and reduced heat flow out of homes, one has to be more careful to prevent overheating or unacceptable temperature cycling. And we have to choose glazings more carefully, because the most insulating low-e glazings block too much of the solar gain. For passive solar, we want glazings with high solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) ratings--values over 0.6 are great, but 0.5 should be considered a minimum when passive solar heating is important.

Fortunately, as the complexity has increased, the computer software tools for modeling energy performance of homes with significant solar gain have also improved. Such programs as Energy 10, EnergyPlus, and REM Design all do a good job at modeling energy performance and passive solar contributions to heating. With any such software, the designer inputs a location close to where the house is located to load the relevant solar gain and other climate data. Note that even with state-of-the-art software, hiring a designer with experience in passive solar design is key to achieving good performance.

Trombe walls

Direct-gain is the most common passive solar energy system, but it isn't the only one. With indirect-gain passive solar, the collection is only indirectly connected to the living space. The most common such system is a Trombe wall--a south-facing high-mass masonry wall with glass or plastic glazing held away from the wall in a frame. Sunlight shines through the glazing and heats the dark surface of the masonry wall. Heat moves into the wall where it is stored and gradually conducts through to the interior, where it radiates heat to the living space.

Some experts question whether it's better to simply add more insulation to that south wall and skip the indirect solar gain, while others argue that the solar is very important--especially relative to resilience. If other energy inputs to the house become unavailable for some reason, delivering heat with a Trombe wall could be very beneficial.

Sunspaces

Finally, there are isolated-gain passive solar systems in which solar heat is collected in one place and brought into the house only when desired. A south-facing attached sunspace is the most common isolated-gain system. The sunspace heats up during the day and windows or vents connecting the house and sunspace can be opened to deliver heat into the house, or kept closed to keep that heat out. An insulated wall between the house and sunspace ensures that as the sunspace cools off at night (due to heat loss through the large amount of glass), it won't cool the house down. The sunspace serves as a heating system for the house, even as it also serves as a supplemental daytime living area and a place to grow plants (especially plants that can accept significant temperature cycling).

Passive solar and resilience

No matter which type of passive solar heating system is employed, it plays a key role in making a house resilient to power interruptions and loss of heating fuel. If there is no solar gain, even a highly insulated house will gradually cool off. The more insulation, the slower the temperature in the house will drop, but drop it will. With a reasonable amount of passive solar gain and a really well-insulated building envelope, enough heat will enter the house to compensate for most of that heat loss in all but the cloudiest weather.

In this resilient design series, I'm covering how to achieve resilient homes and communities, including strategies that help our homes survive natural disasters and function well in the aftermath of any event that results in an extended power outage, interruption in heating fuel, or shortage of water. We'll see that resilient design is a life-safety issue that is critical for the security and wellbeing of families in a future of climate uncertainty and the ever-present risk of terrorism.

Alex is founder of BuildingGreen, Inc. and executive editor of Environmental Building News. To keep up with his latest articles and musings, you can sign up for his Twitter feed.

Why We Care About Product Transparency

Jennifer Atlee — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:09:00 GMT

What's in it? Where was it made? Is the manufacturer socially responsible? These questions about green building products are getting easier to answer. This is Part 1 in our series on transparency. Part 2: Why We Need "Nutrition Labels" for Buildi...

This means you'll be able to go directly from the "Green Attributes" menu to a list of products---products that have an Environmental Product Declaration, provide full disclosure on product ingredients, or where the company is providing info about their total operations through systems such as the Global Reporting Initiative.

When you're searching for a specific product, you can also filter for just those in the set of products you're considering that have this greater level of transparency.

We'll be adding products over time, so don't expect to see a complete list just yet, but check it out, and let us know what you think. Are you already seeking out this level of information and just waiting for it to become standard practice? Are you skeptical of its value, and find information overload just getting worse? Somewhere in between?

From better data to better products

Of course, better information alone doesn't make a product green, but it does make it a lot easier to see just how green that product actually is. We can make more informed purchasing decisions when we know what's in a product--not just manufacturers' claims about what it's "free of"--and when we know the actual environmental impacts of manufacturing the product relative to alternatives, not just a trade association's claim that it's "green."

A product isn't going to get into GreenSpec just because the manufacturer gives us more information. But information transparency helps us decide if it's green enough for GreenSpec. It certainly saves us a lot of digging, and the whole point is that it should save you time too.

P.S. As far as GreenSpec is concerned, this is a bit of a sneak preview, as we'll be rolling out other new attributes this year. Next up in EBN: a complete revisiting of our popular "What Makes a Product Green?" article, last updated in 2006. GreenSpec's green attributes will be changed to reflect the guidance we outline there.

Why We Need "Nutrition Labels" for Building Products (Video)

Paula Melton — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:44:00 GMT

Nutrition labels allow shoppers to compare two bags of chips. The transparency movement seeks that level of transparency for building materials. This is Part 2 in our series on transparency. Part 1: Why We Care About Product Transparency Part 3:...

Resilient Design: Dramatically Better Building Envelopes

Alex Wilson — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:20:00 GMT

A resilient home is a highly energy-efficient home that will maintain livable conditions even during power outages or interruptions in heating fuel. A superinsulated "Passive House" being built by Dan Whitmore in Seattle. These wall trusses provid... The most important strategy for ensuring that those livable conditions will be maintained is by creating highly insulated building envelopes. I will cover other strategies, such as passive solar heat and solar electricity, in future blogs in this series. Below are the key strategies for achieving exceptionally good energy performance:

Insulate extremely well

We used to think that 2x6 walls insulated with fiberglass or cellulose were perfectly adequate relative to R-value--even defining that house as energy-efficient compared with standard construction (insulated 2x4 walls). It takes far more insulation to achieve the level of resilience needed to ensure that the house will maintain livable conditions without supplemental heat or electricity.
Building Science Corporation, of Westford, MA recommends the 10-20-40-60 rule-of-thumb for insulation levels in homes in cold climates (roughly defined as homes north of the Mason-Dixon Line). This rule of thumb refers to R-10 for basement sub-slab insulation, R-20 for foundation walls, R-40 for above-grade walls, and R-60 for ceilings or roofs. That's a lot of insulation, compared to typical "energy-efficient" practice, which might include no insulation under a floor slab, R-5 to R-10 on foundation walls, R-19 in walls, and R-30 in attics.

Getting to these insulation levels is not easy. R-10 slab insulation requires two inches of extruded polystyrene or 2.5 inches of expanded polystyrene. R-20 foundation walls require four or five inches on the foundation exterior or an insulated 2x6 wall on the interior. Here are two options for achieving R-40 walls: double 2x4 walls held apart enough to achieve a ten-inch cavity and insulating with dense-pack cellulose; or insulating 2x6 studs with cellulose and then adding three inches of polyisocyanurate on the exterior. R-60 in an attic floor requires about 18 inches of cellulose.

For more on insulation materials (a lot more!), you might be interested in my recently published report: Insulation Materials: The BuildingGreen Guide to Products and Practices. It's available as a downloadable PDF file for $129.

Install top-performing windows

This level of energy performance calls for windows that achieve a unit insulating value of R-5--that's not the center-of-glass R-value, but the average R-value for the entire window, including edges and frame. National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) window energy performance labels list U-factor rather than R-value. (U-factor is the inverse of R-value.) Look for an NFRC-rated U-factor of 0.20 or lower.

To achieve such superb energy performance typically requires triple glazing (three layers of glass or two layers of glass and a suspended plastic film) and at least one, but sometimes two, low-emissivity (low-e) coatings and low-conductivity gas in the space between the layers of glass. You can find windows today with unit U-factors as low as 0.15 (R-6.7). Such windows aren't cheap, but they are increasingly available, and they do a great job at keeping energy consumption down and ensuring comfort.

Very tight construction

Really well-insulated buildings should also be airtight. We don't want uncontrolled air leakage bringing outside air in through the walls or basement; we want to be able to control where fresh air is brought in through a properly designed ventilation system. The Passive House certification program, which originated in Germany but is gaining traction worldwide, including in the U.S., requires airtightness of 0.6 air changes per hour at 50 pascals of pressure difference. (We measure air tightness using a "blower door" and often report that air tightness as an elevated pressure of 50 pascals.) I think a reasonable airtightness level for new construction is 1.0 air changes per hour at 50 pascals--not quite as tight as the Passive House standard.

In the event of loss of power so that the ventilation system stops operating, windows can be cracked to provide fresh air, but most of the time ventilation systems should be operated to ensure good air quality in the home.

New vs. existing homes

Achieving highly insulated building envelopes is much easier with new construction than with existing homes. To achieve such performance with an existing home requires what is often referred to as a "deep energy retrofit." More on that in a future blog.

In this resilient design series, I'm covering how to achieve resilient homes and communities, including strategies that help our homes survive natural disasters and function well in the aftermath of any event that results in an extended power outage, interruption in heating fuel, or shortage of water. We'll see that resilient design is a life-safety issue that is critical for the security and wellbeing of families in a future of climate uncertainty and the ever-present risk of terrorism.

Alex is founder of BuildingGreen, Inc. and executive editor of Environmental Building News. To keep up with his latest articles and musings, you can sign up for his Twitter feed.

USGBC Recognizes Ten Leaders in Green Education

Paula Melton — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 14:31:00 GMT

USGBC's Center for Green Schools lauds ten groups for taking the lead on green building education. This student services center, designed by Hill & Wilkinson for the University of Texas–Dallas, is the first building in the UT s...

For a really cool example of integrating green building and education for even the youngest tykes, check out this kindergarten building, where five- and six-year-old kids learn about fluid dynamics by pedaling a tricycle.

Center for Green Schools awards

The Center for Green Schools, a project of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), has started giving out awards for this kind of creativity, and the recipient list contains a few surprises.

Who knew that my home state (Ohio) was at the forefront of building high-performance schools? Did you know that Philadelphia is planning to make every one of its 291 schools green? And have you seen the really cool design of the student center at UT–Dallas?

Who's who in green schools

Read on for the complete list of awards--and check out full stories about each winner on the Center for Green Schools website. Congratulations to all!

Best Moment for the Movement--U.S. Department of Education, for its Green Ribbon Schools Program
Best Region--Sacramento area, for an innovative loan program for green school retrofits
Best State--Ohio (Go Bucks!), for the largest number of green school projects under way
Best City--Philadelphia, for making major strides toward an ambitious green school goal
Best School--Lake Mills Middle School, the first public school in the nation to achieve LEED Platinum
Best Higher Ed Innovator--University of Texas at Dallas, for its LEED Platinum student services building
Best Collaborator--Kentucky General Assembly, for crossing party lines to adopt green school resolutions
Best Convenor--Boston, for bringing together interdisciplinary researchers to study the connection between schools and student health
Best Policy Maker--District of Columbia, for passing the legislation requiring healthy school buildings
Best K–12 Innovator--Illinois General Assembly, for a private/public partnership to renovate three existing school buildings

The 10 Biggest Green Building Stories of 2011

Paula Melton — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:00:00 GMT

ol, ul { list-style-position: outside; margin-left: 12px; padding-left: 24px; } li { margin-top: 5px; } Windows, carpet chemicals, spray-foam, and LEED lawsuits: these are a few of your favorite things. It's been a big ...

(NB: many of our most popular articles are available for BuildingGreen members only. You can check out affordable membership options here.)

Are our readership stats a window into your souls? Be sure to tell us in comments what you most want to read about in 2012.

Better Choices in Low-Slope Roofing. There are big differences in environmental impacts of commercial roofing materials, but the biggest variable may be service life.
Energy-Efficient Multifamily Housing. Now you can get LEED, Energy Star, and other labels for designing or retrofitting high-performance multifamily buildings.
The Chemicals in Our Carpets and Textiles. The array of water-, dirt-, and mold-repellent chemicals added to carpeting and fabrics is dizzying. Which are causes for concern, and how can we minimize exposure?
Measuring Energy Use in Buildings: Do Our Metrics Really Add Up? How much energy our buildings use matters a great deal, but figuring out how to measure that use and compare it from building to building is tricky. Here's a guide to key metrics and how to use them.
EPA Takes Action on Spray-Foam Health Risks. EPA takes another look at spray foam after increasing consumer health complaints. The action plan leaves open questions about how far EPA will go to clamp down on these products, but it's safe to think of this as a shot across the bow from EPA for the SPF industry.
New Plaintiffs Join Amended LEED Lawsuit. Instead of seeking to establish a broad class-action lawsuit representing building owners, taxpayers, and professionals harmed by LEED, the amended lawsuit focuses on the latter. The lawsuit was dismissed later in the year.
Re-Framing Sustainability: Green Structural Engineering. Want to design the greenest building possible? Get a handle on the best structural options available to you, and invite a creative structural engineer to join your team.
Solar Thermal Hot Water, Heating, and Cooling. By creating heat instead of electricity, solar thermal achieves three times the efficiency of photovoltaics at a lower price.
Making Windows Work Better. How to choose curtains, solar screens, awnings, and storm windows? The options are dizzying, but the right choice can cut energy bills.
Choosing Windows: Looking Through the Options. We ask a lot from windows: energy efficiency, aesthetics, durability, affordability, and more. Which window frame materials and low-e glazing options balance these choices best? This article explores all the options and decodes the performance labels we see when buying windows.

Resilience: Designing Smarter Houses

Alex Wilson — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 12:55:00 GMT

On August 28th Tropical Storm Irene flooded downtown Brattleboro, totally submerging Flat Street. Photo: Charlie Boswell. Click on image to enlarge. As we look to create homes and communities that will keep us comfortable and safe in a world of cl...

"In many respects, New Orleans should not be rebuilt in its present location--a lowland bowl situated between a lake and a river channel where this largest of America's rivers forms its delta. ...Serious consideration should be given to the idea of relocating the city to stable land, either somewhat inland from the coast or farther from the delta where it can be better protected. But there's almost no chance of that happening. New Orleans will be rebuilt where it is. Our nation has learned a lot in its 200-plus years, but we're neither that smart nor that bold."

We need to keep this discussion active. Whether it's about low-lying coastal areas prone to hurricanes, river floodplains in the Midwest that seem to flood every few years, or valley towns in Vermont prone to flash floods, we should be asking ourselves why we continue to rebuild in places that will again be damaged by flooding.

And it's not just flooding that should concern us. Each summer, when we read about wildfires in the fire-adapted chaparral country of southern California, we should ask ourselves why we keep building in places that keep burning. The frequency of those wildfires is expected to increase as climate change dries out that part of the country.

While we may not be able to change land-use laws to fully restrict building in places prone to flooding, fires, and other disasters, we can certainly make those decisions on our own--and not build in vulnerable places. While suitability for development is still often gauged by the 100-year flood elevations, we should be even more conservative and avoid places that are in the 500-year flood elevation. While Vermont's valley towns are attractive, we should build our houses and roads well above the valley floors. We should try to shift people from the Midwestern river floodplains to higher-elevation areas, increasing density in those safer areas through infill housing.

Elevating living spaces and equipment

In any area remotely vulnerable to flooding, elevating the living space above the potential flood elevation will dramatically reduce damage in the event of flooding. As is commonly done in coastal construction, ground-level spaces can be designed to be inundated with water and dry out. Break-away panels can also reduce damage in the event of flowing water--as in a flooded steam or river.

Basements should be avoided where there is risk of flooding, but even when flooding isn't a concern, it makes sense to elevate all mechanical equipment above a concrete-slab basement floor. A burst water pipe or the failure of a dishwasher or clothes washer can dump thousands of gallons of water that will find its way down to the basement. Elevating boilers, furnaces, water heaters, electrical panels, and any other equipment can dramatically reduce damage. It just makes sense.

Wettable materials

Just as we should elevate equipment so it doesn't get wet in the event of a flood, in locations where flooding could conceivably occur we should use materials that can survive wetting without significant damage. Paper-faced drywall, any kind of wood flooring or subflooring, and wall-to-wall carpeting, for example, should be avoided in finished basements.

Instead, consider polished concrete slabs as finished floors, metal studs for interior frame walls in basements, insulation materials that can get wet and dry out (such as rigid mineral wool and polyisocyanurate), and fiberglass-faced or non-paper-faced drywall.

More compact homes

Building smaller houses makes sense for a lot of reasons: less resources to build them, smaller footprint on the land, and less energy to operate. From a resilience standpoint, if power is lost for an extended period of time or heating fuel becomes scarce or supplies cut off, smaller houses are easier to keep safely warm in the winter months using a wood stove or gas-fired space heater (some don't require electricity to operate, because they have pilot lights and pezioelectric-powered thermostats).

I'll get into more on minimizing heating and cooling loads next week--and why that's such a critical resilient design strategy.

In this resilient design series, I'm covering how to improve the resilience of our homes and communities, including strategies that help our homes survive natural disasters and function well in the aftermath of such events or other circumstances that result in power outages, interruptions in heating fuel, or shortages of water. We'll see that resilient design is a life-safety issue that is critical for the security and wellbeing of families in a future of climate uncertainty and the ever-present risk of terrorism.

Alex is founder of BuildingGreen, Inc. and executive editor of Environmental Building News. To keep up with his latest articles and musings, you can sign up for his Twitter feed.

Guide to Meeting Prescriptive LEED CMP Requirements

Paula Melton — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:40:00 GMT

Double the fun by reading your favorite EBN articles to help you meet your LEED CMP requirements! Looking for ways to meet your "prescriptive" continuing education (CE) requirements with the LEED Credential Maintenance Program (CMP)?...

Project Site Factors

The Cost of LEED Certification (1 LEED-Specific CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

The Problem with Net-Zero Buildings (and the Case for Net-Zero Neighborhoods) (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Reexamining Priorities in Green Building (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Sustainable Sites: Primers from Environmental Building News (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Design for Adaptation: Living in a Climate-Changing World (1.5 CEUs; 1 AIA HSW/SD LU)

LEED 2012 Second Public Comment Period Opens (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Water Management

The Cost of LEED Certification (1 LEED-Specific CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

The Problem with Net-Zero Buildings (and the Case for Net-Zero Neighborhoods) (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Reexamining Priorities in Green Building (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Sustainable Sites: Primers from Environmental Building News (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Design for Adaptation: Living in a Climate-Changing World (1.5 CEUs; 1 AIA HSW/SD LU)

Cost-Effective Green Retrofits: Opportunities for Savings in Existing Buildings (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)
LEED 2012 Second Public Comment Period Opens (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Project Systems & Energy Impacts/ ND: Neighborhood Systems & Impacts

LEDs: The Future Is Here (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Occupant Engagement–Where Design Meets Performance (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Better Choices in Low-Slope Roofing (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Insulation: The BuildingGreen Guide to Insulation Products and Practices (6 CEUs; AIA HSW/SD)

Solar Thermal Hot Water, Heating, and Cooling (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

LEED 2012 Second Public Comment Period Opens (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Ten Strategies for Growth in a Recession (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Energy-Efficient Multifamily Housing (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Making Windows Work Better (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Measuring Energy Use in Buildings: Do Our Metrics Really Add Up? (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Re-Framing Sustainability: Green Structural Engineering (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Choosing Windows: Looking Through the Options (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

The Cost of LEED Certification (1 LEED-Specific CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Video: Eight Steps to Success with LEED-EBOM (1 LEED-Specific CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

The Problem with Net-Zero Buildings (and the Case for Net-Zero Neighborhoods) (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Reexamining Priorities in Green Building (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Retrocommissioning: Big Savings for Big Buildings (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Making Your Own Electricity: Onsite Photovoltaic Systems (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

The Building Envelope: Primers from Environmental Building News (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Rethinking the All-Glass Building (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Counting Carbon: Understanding Carbon Footprints of Buildings (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Design for Adaptation: Living in a Climate-Changing World (1.5 CEUs; 1 AIA HSW/SD LU)

Cost-Effective Green Retrofits: Opportunities for Savings in Existing Buildings (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Acquisition, Installation, and Management of Project Materials

LEDs: The Future Is Here (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Better Choices in Low-Slope Roofing (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Insulation: The BuildingGreen Guide to Insulation Products and Practices (6 CEUs; AIA HSW/SD)

Solar Thermal Hot Water, Heating, and Cooling (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

LEED 2012 Second Public Comment Period Opens (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Making Windows Work Better (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

The Chemicals on Our Carpets and Textiles (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Choosing Windows: Looking Through the Options (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

EBN Editors Help Untangle Green Certifications (6 CEUs; AIA HSW/SD)

The Cost of LEED Certification (1 LEED-Specific CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

What's New in Multi-Attribute Environmental Certifications (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Reexamining Priorities in Green Building (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Making Your Own Electricity: Onsite Photovoltaic Systems (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

The Building Envelope: Primers from Environmental Building News (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Sustainable Sites: Primers from Environmental Building News (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Rethinking the All-Glass Building (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Design for Adaptation: Living in a Climate-Changing World (1.5 CEUs; 1 AIA HSW/SD LU)

Cost-Effective Green Retrofits: Opportunities for Savings in Existing Buildings (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Improvements to the Indoor Environment

LEDs: The Future Is Here (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Insulation: The BuildingGreen Guide to Insulation Products and Practices (6 CEUs; AIA HSW/SD)

LEED 2012 Second Public Comment Period Opens (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Energy-Efficient Multifamily Housing (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Making Windows Work Better (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

The Chemicals on Our Carpets and Textiles (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

The Cost of LEED Certification (1 LEED-Specific CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Reexamining Priorities in Green Building (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

The Building Envelope: Primers from Environmental Building News (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Cost-Effective Green Retrofits: Opportunities for Savings in Existing Buildings (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Stakeholder Involvement in Innovation/ND: Stakeholder Involvement & Public Outreach

Occupant Engagement–Where Design Meets Performance (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

LEED 2012 Second Public Comment Period Opens (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Ten Strategies for Growth in a Recession (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Energy-Efficient Multifamily Housing (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Re-Framing Sustainability: Green Structural Engineering (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

The Cost of LEED Certification (1 LEED-Specific CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Video:Eight Steps to Success with LEED-EBOM (1 LEED-Specific CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

The Problem with Net-Zero Buildings (and the Case for Net-Zero Neighborhoods) (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Reexamining Priorities in Green Building (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Video: Insights to Success on LEED-CI Certification (1 LEED-Specific CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Retrocommissioning: Big Savings for Big Buildings (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Making Your Own Electricity: Onsite Photovoltaic Systems (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Integrated Design Meets the Real World (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Counting Carbon: Understanding Carbon Footprints of Buildings (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Design for Adaptation: Living in a Climate-Changing World (1.5 CEUs; 1 AIA HSW/SD LU)

Cost-Effective Green Retrofits: Opportunities for Savings in Existing Buildings (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Project Surroundings & Public Outreach/ ND: Land Use and Urban Design

Occupant Engagement–Where Design Meets Performance (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

LEED 2012 Second Public Comment Period Opens (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Ten Strategies for Growth in a Recession (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Energy-Efficient Multifamily Housing (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

The Cost of LEED Certification (1 LEED-Specific CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

The Problem with Net-Zero Buildings (and the Case for Net-Zero Neighborhoods) (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Reexamining Priorities in Green Building (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Sustainable Sites: Primers from Environmental Building News (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Rethinking the All-Glass Building (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Design for Adaptation: Living in a Climate-Changing World (1.5 CEUs; 1 AIA HSW/SD LU)

Cost-Effective Green Retrofits: Opportunities for Savings in Existing Buildings (1 CEU; AIA HSW/SD)

Best Wishes for 2012 from BuildingGreen

Nadav Malin — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:41:00 GMT

Dear friends, We know that the economic climate in 2011 has continued to be challenging, so we're all the more grateful and flattered that so many of you continue to rely on our tools and resources for insight, guidance, and community. We'r...

We also continued working on research with Lawrence Berkeley National Lab on the energy and comfort benefits of various window attachments, created more case studies for ReGreen (the residential remodeling program), and provided technical guidance and content to GreenBuildingAdvisor and GreenSource magazine.

In our latest customer surveys we learned that you are looking for the latest on new developments in building science, materials research, energy modeling, BIM, and post-occupancy performance. Among larger firms integrative design is a particularly hot topic. We'll have these priorities in mind as we plan our upcoming articles and special reports.

As we dive into 2012 and beyond, we're more committed than ever to working with you to create the resources you need to keep transforming the building industry into a force for positive change. We've been true to that mission since we launched Environmental Building News 20 years ago, as the first dedicated green building publication. Please share your thoughts on how we can best support you and pursue that mission over the next 20 years!

Happy Holidays, and may your deepest wishes be fulfilled.

Nadav Malin
President
BuildingGreen, Inc.

A Sneak Peek at Nine Products Under GreenSpec Review (And a Chance to Rate Them)

Tristan Roberts — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 03:44:00 GMT

For some fun around the holidays, GreenSpec is holding a virtual "open house"--giving you a sneak peek at some cool new products we're reviewing, and our first impressions. We'd like to hear what you think, so please read our first impressions below ...

Resilience: Designing Homes for More Intense Storms

Alex Wilson — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:30:00 GMT

Route 4 near Killington, Vermont was closed for more than a month due to flooding from Tropical Storm Irene. Photo: Lars Gange and Mansfield Heliflight. Click on image to enlarge. Anyone who was in Vermont in late August of this year and witnessed... Along with more intense rainfall events, we can expect stronger winds. Some of these winds will be from tropical storms whose intensity is magnified as their air masses pass over a warmer South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Others of the winds will be more localized thunderstorms that result from air masses over land warming and rising into intense cumulonimbus clouds.

In coastal areas, sea level rise will play into this, as coastal storms increasingly cause storm surges--the situation that befell New Orleans in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina. Even a few inches of sea level rise dramatically increases vulnerability to storm surges. How quickly sea levels will rise depends on the ice mass on Greenland, and scientists are far more worried about this than they were just a few short years ago.

Resilient design

The bottom line is that we need to change the way we build our houses and design our communities to protect us from such storms. This is an important part of resilient design--which is the subject of this and the series of blogs that will follow.

There are a lot of strategies that come into play with storm-resistant construction. A few of these are described below:

Building to stringent hurricane standards

In designing homes that will hold up well in strong winds, we should borrow heavily from he Miami-Dade County Building Code, which includes a wide range of provisions, including hurricane tie-down strapping or clips that provide a continuous structural connection from foundation slab to roof, minimum 2x6 framing in exterior walls, minimum 19/32-inch plywood roof sheathing with 6-inch nail spacing at panel edges and 4-inch at gable ends, and hurricane-rated shingles. Other wind-resistant strategies include hip roofs that deflect winds, avoidance of deeply overhung entryways, and outward-opening doors that are held more tightly closed in heavy wind.

Hurricane strapping and components for providing a continuous structural connection between foundation and roof. Photos: Simpson StrongTie. Click on image to enlarge.

Note that some measures for ensuring structural integrity in intense wind events conflict with strategies to improve energy performance or reduce resource use. The Miami-Dade County Hurricane Code, for example, calls for 16-inch on-center 2x6 exterior wall framing, double top plates, and corners comprised of a minimum of three studs--measures in direct opposition to advanced framing.

Control of wind-driven rain

Adequate overhangs are key to keeping rain away from homes. I like at least 24-inch-deep overhangs, in some cases even more. Gutters are advisable to capture rainwater, with downspouts and horizontal lines to carry collected water away from the house.

Basement drainage should include continuous perimeter drains that extend to the bottom of the footings. Foundation walls or the slab edge (with slab-on-grade construction) should be coated with a dampproofing layer, covered with a foundation drainage board, and backfilled with free-draining crushed stone. The perimeter drains should drain to daylight if topography permits. And the ground surface should slope away from the house.

Walls should be designed with rainscreen detailing that allows trapped moisture to escape and provides a pressure break for wind-driven rain, while allowing any moisture that does penetrate the siding to drain to the base of the wall or evaporate and escape. With an adequate overhang, the siding won't even get wet with most storms.

Control of stormwater

More intense rainfall events will mean greater volumes of runoff, or stormwater flow. This means we should be installing larger-diameter storm sewers and culverts. It also means that we need to do everything we can to provide for infiltration of rainwater where it falls--so that we don't need to transport that water at all.

Getting ready to pour a concrete ceiling on a modular safe room in Sioux City, Iowa. Photo: Dave Gatley, FEMA. Click on image to enlarge.

The latter can be accomplished by minimizing impermeable surfaces, providing infiltration trenches (filled with crushed stone) between adjacent impermeable surfaces such as sidewalk and driveway, installing permeable pavement, avoiding curbs along driveways and roads, and providing grassy swales and infiltration basins that allow runoff to spread out and soak into the ground.

Along any waterways, we need to consider erosion risk. As we saw so clearly with Tropical Storm Irene in Vermont, intense rainfall events--particularly if the ground starts out nearly saturated--can result in streams and rivers quickly overflowing their banks. We need to provide for this in our placement of homes and outbuildings. The right plantings can help to stabilize banks and resist erosion.

Safe rooms

In parts of the country where tornadoes and hurricanes are most common, we should consider installing safe rooms to provide a safe haven in an extreme wind event. These are small bunkers in our homes or garages, anchored to concrete slabs and typically built of reinforced masonry block with steel-beam roofs. Such rooms are typically not connected to the walls of the house, and they should be equipped with battery-powered or wind-up radios, flashlights, etc. Excellent information on safe room design and construction is available from FEMA.

* * * * *
In this resilient design series, I'm covering how to improve the resilience of our homes and communities, including strategies that help us function well in the aftermath of a major storm or event that results in lost power, interruptions in heating fuel, or water shortages. We'll see that resilient design is a life-safety issue that is critical for the security and wellbeing of families in a future of climate uncertainty and ever-present risk of terrorism.

Alex is founder of BuildingGreen, Inc. and executive editor of Environmental Building News. To keep up with his latest articles and musings, you can sign up for his Twitter feed.

Holiday Cheer: Ozone-Depleting Products No Longer a Big Issue

Paula Melton — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:45:00 GMT

We're making our GreenSpec list and checking it twice. Crossing ozone depletion off of it feels mighty nice! By Jennifer Atlee With the holiday season upon us (yet no snow on the ground here in Vermont since the freak October storm that knocked...

Next up: global warming

The ozone hole problem is by no means a done deal. For one, it'll take a while for the ozone hole to start to repair because many ozone-depleting substances stay in the atmosphere for a very long time. Also, a lot of the standard replacements, including R-134a and R-410a refrigerants and many common blowing agents, don't deplete the ozone but are potent contributors to global climate change. The good news is that we're starting to act on that problem too: there are efforts to phase down use of HFCs and replace them with substances that don't create an ozone problem or a climate problem.

The kind of substantive but phased approach we've taken with this problem makes it clear to manufacturers what's required and enforces an even playing field, helping us transition smoothly to preferable alternatives.

A season of hope

Yes, complications abound, and there are always more caveats, but it gives me good cheer to revisit proof that we actually can cooperate internationally to address a major environmental issue at it's source– with ozone we're quietly proving it right now.

Smarter Batteries for a Smart Grid

Brent Ehrlich — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 18:28:00 GMT

Grid-tied solar could have a siginificant role in the smart grid--if we can get the lithium ion battery technology right. People living off the grid using photovoltaics (PV) or other renewable energy to generate power typically depend on maintaini...

Lithium ion batteries use lithium salts and organic solvents rather than lead and acid to generate the electric charge. We have all used the consumer version of lithium ion batteries in laptop computers, cell phones, and even electric cars like the Tesla. These are the batteries we use when we need a long service life and better performance than alkaline or nickel cadmium can provide.

Deep-cycle versions are sealed and do not generate explosive gases; they're also lighter than lead (what isn't?), almost maintenance free, and companies estimate a 20-year lifespan (though the technology for PV applications is still new). On the down side, they require rare earth minerals, you have to have additional electronics to run them safely, and they are at least three times the cost of lead-acid.

GreenSpec shows the best of both battery worlds

But the advanced design and performance might just be worth it when it comes to grid-tied applications such as those run by SMUD, and the cost of these batteries should drop as demand increases and technology advances. GreenSpec lists a number of the best lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries.

One of the manufacturers we list has been making lithium iron magnesium phosphate batteries since 2002 and offering them for renewable energy systems since 2006. Another company's lithium-ion batteries are RoHS-compliant and can be equipped with energy management controls and designed for specific energy demands and uses, including 12-, 24-, and 48-volt options.

Though lithium ion battery technology is not new, its use in renewable energy storage is. If you are trying to avoid toxic lead, need a sealed system because of ventilation concerns, and are willing to pay the price, these are worth a look. Yes, it will take years for the performance and cost to balance out for most consumers, but if these prove successful in smart-grid applications, utilities might find subsidizing use of these batteries is less expensive than building additional power plants.

Making the Case for Resilient Design

Alex Wilson — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 23:00:00 GMT

Most of the area I biked through last spring was parched, including this ranch in New Mexico. During my six-week bike ride last spring, I covered nearly 2,000 miles, most of it over land that hadn't seen a drop of rain since the previous fall; som... Climate scientists tell us that we can expect more of these sorts of problems in the years and decades ahead. Precipitation patterns will become more variable, and more of our total precipitation will be bunched into intense deluges that run off as stormwater causing floods, rather than soaking into the ground to recharge aquifers.

While precipitation levels will increase overall due to climate change (because more water will be evaporated from the oceans and other bodies of water), some regions will become more drought-prone--including much of the western U.S.

We usually think of drought affecting agriculture or inconveniencing us by prohibiting lawn watering or washing our cars, but severe droughts will also impact our electricity grid. Roughly 89% of our electricity in the U.S. is produced with thermo-electric power plants that rely on huge quantities of cooling water. In 2007, severe drought in the southeastern U.S. resulted in one Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear plant being shut down and the output of two others reduced due to shortages of cooling water. And during the severe 2003 drought in Europe, 17 power plants in France and three in Germany were either shut down or their output reduced.

If the current drought facing Texas and surrounding states continues into next year, we could well face a situation where power plants have to be shut down, reducing the margin of excess capacity--and resulting in brownouts, rolling blackouts, and increased vulnerability to unplanned outages.

There's also terrorism to worry about

While we are now experiencing the first effects of a changing climate, we also face other threats and vulnerabilities. Terrorism is now an ever-present reality, and terrorists of the future may well target our energy production and distribution systems. The U.S. has 160,000 miles of high-voltage electricity distribution lines, 3,400 power plants, tens of thousands of miles of natural gas and oil pipelines, and 150 oil refineries (nearly half located on the Gulf Coast). These installations could be targeted by terrorists wanting to harm the U.S. economy or our wellbeing.

While these systems are vulnerable to direct terrorist attack, even more scary is the threat of "cyberterrorism," in which terrorists hack into the controls of energy production or distribution systems. In 2007, researchers at Idaho National Laboratory testing the vulnerability of power generation systems to computer attack, were able to hack into the controls of a generator and get it to self-destruct. In a video declassified by the Department of Homeland Security you can see on YouTube the generator shake violently and begin smoking as it self-destructs.

And don't forget solar flares

Yet another vulnerability is magnetic interference caused by coronal discharges from the sun (solar flares). These are the events that cause Aurora borealis or Northern Lights. According to an alarming 2008 report by the National Academy of Sciences, if we were to experience today a coronal discharge event as intense as one that occurred in 1859, tremendous damage could be done to our electrical grid--destroying transformers and causing power outages that could last months or even years. During the 1859 event, Northern Lights were seen as far south as Cuba and telegraph wires caught on fire!

Since the NAS report came out, the utility industry has awakened to this concern and begun modifying electrical systems to make them more robust, but the concern is still very real, according to experts.

Resilient design

It is this sort of vulnerability that I thought about during my bike trip and during the remainder of my sabbatical when I was back home. It turns out that many of the strategies needed to achieve resilience--such as really well-insulated homes that will keep their occupants safe if the power goes out or interruptions in heating fuel occur--are exactly the same strategies we have been promoting for years in the green building movement. The solutions are largely the same, but the motivation is one of life-safety, rather than simply doing the right thing. We need to practice green building, because it will keep us safe--a powerful motivation--and this may be the way to finally achieve widespread adoption of such measures.

Over the coming weeks, I'll describe how we can address this vulnerability with more resilient homes and communities. Achieving such resilience won't be easy and it will require investment, but I believe it is crucial for our future wellbeing.

Alex Wilson is the founder of BuildingGreen, Inc. and executive editor of Environmental Building News. To keep up with his latest articles and musings, you can follow him on Twitter.

Return of the Insulation Webcast: Guidance on choosing the greenest insulation

Tristan Roberts — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:45:00 GMT

Paper Towels vs. Efficient Hand Dryers: New Study Makes the Choice Clear

Paula Melton — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:01:00 GMT

Drying your hands requires far more water than washing them, according to a surprising new manufacturer study. Low-flow faucets and other water-saving fixtures have become a standard water-saving feature in public bathrooms. Unfortunately, it turn...

Towels' greater impact is due mainly to their disposability: even reusable cotton roll towels have a short life, so many thousands of towels would be manufactured and shipped during the five-year life of a typical hand dryer.

Looking at the whole life cycle

The LCA considers each method's entire life cycle, from resource acquisition to disposal, including everything from the water used to generate electricity for manufacturing and use--hence the high water consumption for all methods--to the global warming potential (GWP) of plastic trashcan liners used for throwing out paper towels. In a thorough "sensitivity analysis," it even takes into account a number of what-ifs--looking at how different the results would be if paper towels were composted instead of landfilled and what would happen if you used each cotton roll towel 130 times instead of 103.

These extra steps help mitigate concerns about biased assumptions, and the study results do generally make sense. BuildingGreen did a far less formal LCA of various hand-drying methods way back in 2002, when the then-pioneering XLerator came on the market, and came to much the same conclusion about paper towels vs. high-speed hand dryers.

Study covers emissions--also suffers from omissions

While the Airblade comes out looking clean (and dry) as a whistle in the study, it's important to keep in mind that LCA is an imperfect tool for assessing environmental impacts. These book-length reports look thorough and include more data--and more details about how the data came to be--than you can shake a stick at, but there can be significant omissions.

In this case, the most glaring one is that the hand dryer brands most similar to the Airblade, such as the Mitsubishi Jet Towel, were not included in the study results. We look forward to seeing equally thorough comparative LCAs from others in the industry--including manufacturers of high-speed hand dryers whose energy performance may equal or exceed that of the Airblade.

Checking the paper trail

In addition, paper towel manufacturers have argued with Dyson's LCA conclusions before. Kimberly-Clark, for example, has faulted Dyson for not taking hygiene into consideration in its research; the company distributes a brochure titled "Are 'High Speed' Dryers Really Worth the Risk?" (PDF) in which it claims that the Airblade increases bacteria on hands 42% while disposable paper towels reduce bacteria on hands 77%.

While Dyson has publicly questioned such claims, its latest LCA does not take hygiene into consideration at all--an odd oversight, given that hygiene is the primary justification for hand-washing in the first place. If your drying method makes them less clean, the environmental impacts hardly seem worth it.

Because of the water consumed when you burn electricity, you're using a lot more water to dry your hands than you are to wash them--unless you choose to wipe them on your pants, a possibility not considered in the study.

Drying our hands with water and carbon

While we wait for more data that perhaps takes hygiene into account in addition to dryness, it's worth considering that even the Airblade dryer uses 18 liters of water and contributes 4 g of CO2 to the atmosphere every single time you use it. Isn't drip-drying or wiping hands on clothing an option? We'd also love to see an LCA of alcohol-based hand sanitizer added to the mix.

Meanwhile, watch for the January issue of Environmental Building News for a deep look at product transparency and how to get what you need from such reports while also taking them with a grain of salt.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Alex Wilson — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:30:00 GMT

All alone on Route 118, approaching the Davis Mountains in West Texas. Back in March I reported that I would be taking leave from this blog as I embarked on an eight-month sabbatical. With support from the Hanley Award I received last year, I was ...

My route took me along the Mexican border in places; here's the infamous border fence in California.

For me--someone who has been involved in energy conservation and green building for 35-plus years--this was an opportunity to think about where we're heading with green building and how to bring about the dramatic reductions in energy consumption that are needed if we are to head off the worst impacts of climate change.

I did a lot of that--and will discuss my emerging perspectives over the next several weeks. But first let me discuss the rejuvenation part of my sabbatical.

The Hassayampa River Nature Conservancy Preserve in Arizona--green in the desert.

Starting in late March, I bicycled through the major desert biomes of the American Southwest. I flew with my 12-year-old Cannondale bike, four panniers, and an assortment of gear (including a new ultra-lightweight MacBook Air computer) to San Diego, California. With the help of a friend, I reassembled my bike the night I arrived in my hotel room and the next morning packed up all my gear into the front and rear panniers and handlebar bag, and began an adventure that would take me 1,925 miles over six weeks.

I won't say that the trip was easy. I have been a commuter bicyclist for decades, but I don't think I had ridden more than 25 miles in a day for 25 years before I started out. Some 30 years earlier I had participated in a 600-mile trip to raise money for the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, of which I was executive director, but that was long ago, I was with a group, and we had a support vehicle. On this trip, I was alone, a lot older, wiser (well, maybe not), and self-contained.

Among the challenges I faced:

Getting drenched by cold rain on my second day as I rode out of Alpine, California. (I would later come to long for some of that precipitation in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, where I saw scarcely a drop of rain.)

Camping at 6,000 feet in Eastern Arizona as I threaded my way through the Rockies.

Riding through a tunnel on Highway 60 going uphill after I left Superior, Arizona. There was no shoulder, and the Adventure Cycling map I had with me warned of the dangers. In the middle of the tunnel, a dozen Harleys passed me with throttles wide open and mufflers modified to be extra loud. I learned later that it was Motorcycle Week in Arizona.

Keeping warm camping at 6,000 feet after crossing a pass near Three Way, Arizona, as I threaded my way through a section of the western Rockies. I had a very lightweight down sleeping bag and even with virtually all my clothes on in my bag and in my solo tent, I was really cold. I didn't have a thermometer, but a water bottle I had in the tent with me froze pretty solid that night!

Trying to avoid predicted wind, I got an early start out of Kingston, New Mexico, and had pedaled 20 miles by sunrise.

Getting blown into the road in Hatch, New Mexico where winds coming out of the southeast were a steady 30-40 mph, with gusts as high as 60! The dust blowing across the road blocked visibility to such an extent that the New Mexico Highway Department actually closed the highway between Deming and Hatch!

In Hatch, New Mexico, the wind was so strong that it literally blew me into the road several times.

Competing with traffic and exhaust on the seemingly endless strip of fast-food restaurants and gas stations in El Paso, Texas as I skirted the Mexican border.

Fixing a flat--my only one!--near Sierra Blanca, Texas, in the middle of nowhere.

Breathing the smoke of West Texas fires and getting stuck at the McDonald Observatory for a second night due to wildfires in the area. (Staying two nights at the observatory was a great thing, but the fires were a bit disconcerting!)

East of Fort Davis, Texas, I rode past miles and miles of burned-over land from wildfires a few days earlier; here a pronghorn antelope paws in the dust.

Surviving unseasonably hot weather in West Texas; it was 104° when I biked into Langtry, which is a dirt-poor, dust-dry town of just a few tens of residents that was made famous by Judge Roy Bean, who famously took things into his own hands with his "law west of the Pecos."

Nursing my sore knees on the endless miles of Texas, where the only food would be at gas station convenience stores (and their packaged white-bread sandwiches) that might be 50 miles apart. I pedaled over 1,000 miles in the state!

Making my way down to Houston, Texas, where I ended my trip, on a six-lane frontage road to an eight-lane highway.

John Kuehne in front of one of the large telescopes at the McDonald Observatory.

But, those hardships were really pretty minor. Overall, I had an amazing time, exploring from the ground level a part of our country that few of us ever get to know. I had no falls or run-ins with vehicles. The big-sky vistas and rolling highways were spectacular. I met wonderful people, especially members of the Warm Showers network who graciously open up their homes to bicyclists.

El Paso, Texas seemed like an endless strip mall--though the backdrop was nice.

I visited nature preserves with verdant springs hidden deep in the desert. I dipped my toe into the back-road towns and forgotten highways of the rural Southwest. And I got a taste of political attitudes that are quite different from what we have in Vermont--let's just say I wouldn't have wanted to be riding through Texas wearing an Obama tee-shirt!

And while I got less of the reflective time than I thought I would on the bike trip--instead of wiling away the miles lost in thoughts about the future and solutions to our energy problems I was mostly thinking about my knees and my butt and how good a Gatorade would taste about now as I labored up yet another hill, and whether I would really make it to the next town, still thirty miles away--I did come away from the experience with new, fresh perspectives on the challenges facing us.

Growing cotton in the Imperial Valley of California takes a lot of water, all of it from the Colorado River and delivered via flood-irrigation. This in an area getting 8 inches of rain annually.

Biking through the Southwest, where for about 1,800 miles of my trip scarcely a drop of rain had fallen since the previous fall, I thought a lot about our most precious of resources: water. I saw first-hand how great our dependence is on the rivers and aqueducts carrying this precious commodity from mountains many hundreds of miles away--and how vulnerable we are to droughts and shortages.

That experience informed much of my work during the remainder of my sabbatical, when I was focused on "resilient design." I'll be addressing that over the coming weeks.

Alex Wilson is the founder of BuildingGreen, Inc. in Brattleboro. To access archives of his daily blog on this bike trip, visit Alex's personal website. To keep up with his latest articles and musings, you can follow him on Twitter.

Light Bulb Finder App Wins EPA Competition

Evan Dick — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:28:00 GMT

Choosing light bulbs can be a baffling ordeal. An award-winning app uses EPA data to make it simple again. How many apps does it take to change a light bulb? Apps can't actually do that yet: you still have to climb on a chair and balance p...

Using the app is easy. Thanks to a borrowed iPhone, I was able to select a replacement bulb for my living room in less than two minutes. This is definitely less time than I would have spent staring blankly at the light bulb aisle at Home Depot. Had I gone through with the transaction, UPS would have delivered the bulb to my doorstep in 10–14 days.

The app makes its judgment based on inputs from the user about the light bulb being replaced. These inputs include type of light fixture, style and diameter of the base of the current bulb, whether or not a dimmer will be used, current bulb wattage, number of hours the light is used per day, and the location of the light (e.g., kitchen, bedroom, bathroom).

Carbon footprint of travel options, at your fingertips

The app challenge is geared toward putting the reams of environmental data collected by EPA to good use. EPA makes the data and other resources available for free to app developers for this purpose. Thirty-eight apps competed in the challenge, and the makers of the winning apps were invited to Washington to present their creations to EPA experts and managers.

The runner-up for best overall app was Hootroot, a Web-based app that allows users to enter an itinerary and compare the carbon footprint and travel time of different forms of transportation. For instance, a trip from Boston to Washington, D.C., by car will release 478 lbs of CO2 and take about 8 hours and 11 minutes. A similar trip via public transit--the train in this case--takes 25 minutes less and results in only 32.12 pounds of CO2 emissions.

An app for environmental justice

The competition also featured apps developed by students. EarthFriend, the best overall student app, uses EPA's databases to create a series of games and fun facts around five categories: Climate, Water Pollution, Air Pollution, Land Pollution, and What Can You Do?

The runner-up for best student app uses EPA data to promote environmental justice. This Web-based participatory mapping tool allows users to locate active and abandoned uranium mines on or near the Navajo and Hopi reservations in northeastern Arizona. Other layers include water sources and coal-fired power plants. Users with GPS devices can record the locations of unlisted sites and add them to the map. There are more than 500 abandoned uranium mines in the region.

Peoples' Choice: compare quality of life from city to city

The Peoples' Choice award went to an app for mobile devices called CG Search, which provides users with graphs and city-to-city comparisons of air quality index scores, air pollutant levels, and energy consumption for various cities in the U.S.

Green or Greenwash? The Quiz

Tristan Roberts — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:00:00 GMT

ol, ul { list-style-position: outside; margin-left: 12px; padding-left: 24px; } li { margin-top: 5px; } Do you really know the difference between FSC and SFI? Has the federal government ended all our greenwashing woes? Find ...

Greenwashing isn't something we need to worry about anymore, because the U.S. Federal Trade Commission prohibits spurious claims and requires third party certification of manufacturer claims in its "Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims."

True
False

The definition of a certification is as follows, according to ISO:

"a document, established by consensus, approved by a recognized body that provides for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results..."
"a stamp of environmental sustainability granted by Underwriters Laboratories (UL)."
"any activity concerned with determining directly or indirectly that relevant requirements are fulfilled."
"a statement from a manufacturer guaranteeing the sustainability of a product"

Which is the most robust, third-party multi-attribute environmental certification available for carpeting?

NSF-140
Sustainable Choice
Green Label and Green Label Plus
A and B
B and C

Which of the following statements about the forestry certifications SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) and FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) is true, according to a 2008 study by the Yale Program on Forestry Policy and Governance, commissioned by the U.S. Green Building Council?

SFI and FSC mostly address the same issues
SFI does not address social considerations--unlike FSC
A forester may have greater latitude to pursue exceptional environmental performance under SFI
FSC puts a premium on the preservation of old-growth stands
All of the above

If a product is recyclable, it means that:

Laboratory standards are established for recovering resources from that product
It is cost-effective to recycle the product
The product can be recycled on any scale--small or large
The product's content is 100% recycled

Which of the following is a strength of multi-attribute certifications, in which a single product is evaluated under many different lenses?

Certified products must meet a high bar for performance in many categories, not just one
They provide consumers with a point-by-point scorecard, revealing a complete picture of environmental and social performance
At their best, they allow consumers to quickly identify best-in-class products
Their backing by the federal government means that more certified products are available

Sector-specific green product certifications, like those covering wood and composites:

Don't necessarily guarantee that a certified product is greener than its material alternatives
Usually cover multiple attributes
Provide key performance data for products, as well as evaluation of whether those products meet key thresholds

Most green product certifications address toxicity in the following way:

Most certifications don't address chemical hazards
They include a "red list" of banned ingredients
They require disclosure of ingredients to 1,000 parts per million
They require reporting of hazards through Material Data Safety Sheets

Which statement about certifications for wet-applied products like paints is NOT true?

The historical basis for VOC (volatile organic compound) regulations has not been indoor air quality, but smog-related
These products are commonly dealt with by restricting the quantity of total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) in the product, as opposed to measuring the VOCs emitted from it
The most robust guidance on wet-applied products, on which other certifications are based, is California Section 01350
Certifications are moving to address not only product content, but interaction between products like paints and their substrates
All of these statements are true

In assessing the value of first-party, second-part, or third-party claims, it is most important to:

Use first-party claims, because manufacturers understand their products best
Always avoid second-party claims, because trade associations and consultants can be biased
Whatever the type of certification, scrutinize the relationships and the quantifiable rigor of the program
Always choose consensus standards that push an entire industry to better performance

When comparing life-cycle assessment data from two similar products:

Look for a cumulative score across many categories as the most meaningful measure
Look to make sure that the assumptions and protocols behind the data are the same

For projects that are certified Platinum under LEED-NC, 50% of all materials on a project must be third-party certified to environmental standards.

True
False

1: b. 2: c. 3: b. 4: e. 5: b. 6:c. 7: a. 8: a. 9: e. 10: c. 11: b. 12: b.

How did you do? Post your comments and questions below, and we'll respond with background on why we chose each answer.

When Smells Signal Building Science Problems

Tristan Roberts — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 06:00:00 GMT

A victim of a hepatitis E infection she picked up unknowingly in Brazil, Genevive Bjorn's liver rebelled against her one night in Hawaii. Her body almost shut down on her, but with help from the hospital, a battery of tests, her watchful boyfriend ...

Attic smell: Air leakage problems

Attics smell different: it's some combination of the insulation, the wood dried to a crisp by the summer heat, and probably some history of squirrels, mice, or both. When I smell this in the upstairs of a house--not in the attic--I read it as a telltale sign of extreme air leakage: lots of holes in the basement and attic floor that allow air to leak out, and to move in the other direction on some windy days. Solution: seal up the air leaks in your home, particularly between the attic and the living space. (See our GreenSpec guidance on products that help form a home's air barrier.)

Basement smell: Dampness, leakage

It's alarming when you can smell that musty basement smell on the first floor. Even the basement should not smell that way--if it does, work on improving exterior drainage, putting vapor barriers over damp walls and floors, and dehumidifying, among other things. If that smell is migrating upstairs, look for air leakage from the basement up through plumbing and electrical penetrations, and moisture problems migrating up from damp basement walls through sill plates. Check the bottoms of exterior walls for signs of mildew or mold, and manage the water at its source.

Combustion gases: Safety issue

If when inside you smell the exhaust from your wood stove, furnace, boiler, or other combustion appliance, your health may be in jeopardy from the particulate matter in the smoke, or from carbon monoxide (CO)--which is odorless but often accompanies other gases. In all these cases, bring in the appropriate technician as soon as possible (the fire department may also be willing to measure CO levels for you), particularly if you're due, in case there is an immediate problem with the heating appliance.

If you only smell these smells on a windy day, or when a low-pressure system has settled overhead, the issue may be that the normal weather patterns that help gases exhaust from the home are working against you. This topic is more than we can delve into today, but if it's a regular occurrence it is worth investigating with a contractor's help. One quick point: if it's a building with a high-capacity range hood, beware of "depressurizing" your home with that fan, leading exhaust to get pulled into your house from your furnace. Do you have carbon monoxide detectors? Why not?

Shower smell: Check the bath fan

If you can smell that moist, shampoo-scented air from the shower and you are not in the bathroom, then you either don't have a bathroom exhaust fan, it's not on, or it's not powerful enough. Unvented bathrooms can cause your home to rot from the inside out--costly and bad for your health. Put in a bath fan if it's missing (see our GreenSpec guidance on bath fan selection), and get the electrician to have it come on with the light or with a humidistat.

Kitchen smells: Install a range hood

Sometimes it's nice to smell what's cooking all through the house, but in the long run it's bad for indoor air quality, particularly due to the moisture generated by cooking. Install a range hood and run it when cooking. (See our GreenSpec guidance on kitchen range hood selection.)

Dryer exhaust: Moisture, fire hazard

Smelling dryer exhaust inside the house is a red flag indicating lack of a vent, or a plugged vent. Lack of a vent risks moisture problems inside your house, and coating everything with dryer lint. A plugged vent is a serious fire hazard. Take immediate action!

Stuffy smell: Need more fresh air?

Does the building smell stuffy? Many homes and offices don't have enough fresh air, for a variety of reasons. In commercial buildings, the most common problem is poorly designed or malfunctioning ventilation equipment. Calling in an indoor air quality expert or a commissioning agent would be wise. In homes, it's likely that there is no ventilation system bringing in fresh air, and because of weather patterns or because the home is relatively tight, you're not getting enough fresh air. A ventilation expert can help.

Off-gassing: Keep harmful chemicals out

To maintain good indoor air quality (IAQ), avoid bringing smelly stuff into the house. If something smells bad, get rid of it. In the world of building materials there is a lot to keep up with here, but at a minimum look for low-VOC coatings, and other products with IAQ certifications such as Greenguard Children & Schools, and FloorScore. (See our guide to key green product certifications for more info.)

I've just scratched the surface here--keep your nose out and let me know what you've been smelling!

Tristan Roberts is Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, Inc., in Brattleboro, Vermont, which publishes information on green building solutions.

Photo: Mold is afflicting this post-Katrina New Orleans building. However, it doesn't take a hurricane to cause mold; the range of estimates for U.S. buildings with mold or dampness problems is 18% to 50%.

Credit: Infrogmation

Webcast: How to make the right insulation choices for your specific building applications

Tristan Roberts — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:42:00 GMT

BuildingGreen presents a FREE 1-Hour Webcast on Wednesday, December 7, 2011 2 p.m. EST To help professionals make the best design and material choices for their specific projects (and budgets), BuildingGreen recently developed and released the Gui...

Capture Green Value Over Time, Not with Short-Term Payback Analysis

Peter Yost — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:44:00 GMT

Letting short-term payback analyses drive economic decisions about high-performance buildings is crazy. If we let simple or even net-value payback analysis alone drive the economics of high-performance buildings, we might as well throw in the ...

The National Association of Realtors has recently developed the Green MLS Toolkit, and it works! And the new white paper available from Ecobroker, "Unlocking the Full Value of Green Homes," (PDF) also provides excellent guidance.

"Educating lenders and appraisers, along with Realtors, is the single most important factor for recognizing the value of green building," says Dakota Gale, owner of mortgage company Green Mortgage Northwest in Portland, Oregon. "Disclosure of energy performance with a miles-per-gallon measure such as HERS is a close second," he says.

Dakota, a LEED Accredited Professional, has a background in green building design as a green building engineer along with work as the Sustainable Finance Director for Earth Advantage Institute, a green-building non-profit. I met Dakota at the EEBA conference this year, where he gave the best presentation on green finance I have ever seen.

As realtors learn the way to present the increased value of high performance homes, it leads to higher sale prices, building the database that green appraisers need for their work.

Green appraisers

The appraisal industry is by its very nature a steady and conservative lot; appraisers need plenty of hard data and "comps" (homes that have the same features to establish comparable value) to justify any "new" increased value associated with home performance. They, too, now have the tools they need for this. The Appraisal Institute (AI) has a series of green appraisal education tools, including detailed case studies.

And just recently, AI has developed a new appraisal form, "Residential Green and Energy Efficient Addendum" (PDF). According to Jason LaFleur of the Alliance for Environmental Sustainability, "the new form is intended to be used as an optional addendum to Fannie Mae Form 1004, the appraisal industry's most widely used form for mortgage lending purposes."

Green lenders

The work of realtors and appraisers all comes together when a buyer goes to borrow for a higher-value, higher-performance, home. Even in the current very conservative and risk-averse lending environment, there are banks, particularly local and regional ones, who get the green angle on homes and see them as high-quality and sound investments.

Dakota Gale again: "By creating a financial ecosystem surrounding the purchase or refinance of a green home, the value of the energy efficient features can be translated into language a bank underwriter will understand." Dakota's new green mortgage company offers a variety of benefits including discounted closing costs, preferential insurance rates, a roster of green-educated appraisers, a local version of a high performance home appraisal addendum and paperless transactions. He is working to develop a carbon-free closing for his clients as well as discounted private mortgage insurance for green-certified homes.

Peter Thompson of Laconia Savings in New Hampshire has been a construction loan specialist for 26-plus years. I met him when he came to a two-day NAHB training titled Advanced Green Building: Building Science. He is the first professional from the financial sector to attend any of the trainings I do on high-performance homes--what a treat! "I successfully created a green mortgage program and built a network of appraisers who know how to bring added value based on understanding the HERS reports and convince my underwriters to accept," says Peter. "I am proud to say that I am the first and only lender in all of New England that holds the NAHB Certified Green Professional designation, but at the same time I am ashamed that I am the only one from the banking community."

Peter feels strongly about the local nature of his work: "Do not look to the large banks for guidance or acceptance of high performance energy-efficient homes. They have their hands full with toxic mortgages. The secondary markets (i.e. Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac) have their own issues. The key to financing lies with the local community banks and credit unions that are primarily portfolio lenders that make their own decisions and do not answer to shareholders."

Thompson closes by saying: "The demand for high-performance homes is increasing. We have a great opportunity to distinguish ourselves as premiere builders and lenders. The train is leaving the station. Don't be left in the dust!"

Value transfer, not payback analysis, can build the market

Long-term investments in greener, higher-performance homes are valuable--the homes are less expensive to operate and more comfortable to live in. But any time the value of an investment extends well beyond the current holder's time frame, the increased value has to be easily transferred to the next investor.

While important, payback analysis alone can never build the market. Value transfer accomplished by green realtors, appraisers, and lenders is the key to that process.

BIPV Solar Shingles Angle for Space in the Residential Market

Brent Ehrlich — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:24:00 GMT

Dow's Powershingle BIPV is designed to blend in with asphalt shingles and provide power via CIGS PV cells. Can a building-integrated solar shingle compete with cheap crystalline? Focusing on aesthetics and installation is a great...

A bit about the shingle

The Powerhouse shingle is assembled in a recently built factory in Midland, Michigan using copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin-film cells made by Arizona-based Global Solar. These cells have a conversion efficiency of 12%, which is great for a thin film, and the shingles are designed to match a conventional asphalt roof so they are barely noticeable. This latter point is important because there are some people who don't like the look of conventional PV panels--they are banned by some homeowner associations--so this building-integrated PV (BIPV) solution offers a PV option in those circumstances.

Each shingle connects to the next so that no wiring is exposed and there is only one roof penetration.

Dow is marketing this as a roofing shingle as much as PV. The shingles are hand-nailed in place by roofers specifically trained by the company. For the PV, each shingle connects to the next (if one goes out the rest still work) and then feeds through a hole in the roof that is covered by the shingle. There are no exposed wires and the shingles "provide their own flashing," according to a Michigan builder who has installed the shingles.

With no cost advantage, how do these fit in?

Up until a year or so ago, CIGS thin-film PV was considered a decent investment because of its low cost. Thin-film cannot match crystalline PV performance, of course, whose efficiency exceeds 20% in some cases, but thin-film PV offers decent low-light performance and works better at high temperatures (the kind found on asphalt roofs), so the energy gained over the course of a year can be comparable under the right circumstances.

But thin-film's cost advantage has been severely hurt by the influx of inexpensive, high-quality PV panels from China. BuildingGreen pressed Dow for specific performance and cost information, but all the company would say is the Powerhouse shingles will add $10,000–$15,000 to the installed cost of a typical asphalt-shingle roof, after incentives and that a new home could support 5 kW of capacity.

A lot of potential for mainstream markets

Powerhouse shingles are being rolled out in limited distribution in Denver under an agreement with homebuilder D.R. Horton and will be available in limited markets depending on local and state incentives.

With homebuilding at a standstill and a glut of inexpensive crystalline PV available, this is a challenging market for launching a residential BIPV roofing product, but Powerhouse has the potential to be an important PV product. Though their performance is not as good as current crystalline panels, thin-film technology is improving, and there is no reason Dow won't be able to integrate improvements into its shingles as the technology advances. And creating a PV product that integrates into a home so that it is barely noticeable is a positive step toward PV becoming a routine part of our lives.

"Green" Bamboo Flooring: What Matters Most?

Jennifer Atlee — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:54:00 GMT

Eco-friendly bamboo options have gotten better, but the choice is still not simple. If you want the "greenest" bamboo flooring out there what do you look for? We have talked a lot about bamboo over the years, starting in 1997. The opti...

Low-emitting--by what definition?

Bamboo has very little naturally occurring formaldehyde, but the many strips of bamboo that make up most bamboo products are usually glued together with a urea formaldehyde binder. That emits a lot of formaldehyde, which is a carcinogen.

There are plenty of low-emitting alternatives today, but also many different ways of showing it, making things complicated. GreenSpec accepts a broad range of measures: products may be certified to meet Floorscore or Greenguard Children & Schools, demonstrate that they meet Carb Phase II emissions requirements for formaldehyde, or have formaldehyde emissions of 0.05 ppm or lower using the ASTM E-1333 test for Europe's E1 standard (you can also find products certified to the more stringent E0 standard). Because the binders are the potential source of emissions concerns, GreenSpec also includes some products that don't have emissions testing but use binders and adhesives that have ultra-low formaldehyde concentrations (less than or equal to 0.02 ppm) or no added formaldehyde.

Our articles go into more detail on other issues, such as variable hardness of bamboo, and variability in manufacturing performance (unfortunately ISO 9001 and 14001 registration may not have the same level of verification in China).

Looking beyond current bamboo products

We'd love to see an FSC and Greenguard Children & Schools certified hard, durable, and gorgeous product from a reputable manufacturer that uses an internationally rigorous ISO-accredited auditor... but it's not out there, so we list the best available and we'd be interested in hearing how you make the final cut.

Lastly, it's always worth asking if there's an alternative material available for your particular situation that's a better fit for the environment and the project. I enjoyed a "Bamboo Schmamboo" comment we got from a reader, Clarke Snell, because it further challenges the broad-brush application of a rule-of-thumb like "bamboo is green." He makes some good points, and if you happen to know a forester local to a North American project who is clearly harvesting hardwoods sustainably, that may be your greenest choice (even recognizing that due to the efficiency of ocean freighters, the transportation energy of a Chinese bamboo flooring product may be comparable to a domestic hardwood flooring product.), so understand your actual alternatives.

Along those lines, I'll quote Snell for today's closing comments: "I continue to maintain that the first prerequisite for moving toward a sustainable society is a critical mind."

What Do Top Architecture Schools Have in Common? BuildingGreen Resources

Paula Melton — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 16:25:00 GMT

DesignIntelligence has released its annual report on the top architecture schools, and 80% are campus-wide BuildingGreen subscribers. The top architecture schools for 2012, according to DesignIntelligence. Hey, don't we know you? ...

We first started offering campus-wide subscriptions because professionals who also taught wanted to share BuildingGreen with students and the wider campus community. This subscription gives everyone on campus--from design students to sustainability directors to facility managers--unlimited access to Environmental Building News, GreenSpec, and the high-performance buildings database.

Keeping it real

"While many practitioners admire theory courses, they feel students need heavier doses of reality," writes James P. Cramer in his Architectural Record article about the DesignIntelligence lists. So we have some questions for you.

If you teach sustainable design, how do you "keep it real" for your students so they will be prepared for the jobs that (hopefully) await them after they finish their degrees?

If you are a sustainable design or building professional, what gaps would you like to see filled in the education or experience of interns fresh out of design school?

And finally, what can BuildingGreen do to help close the gaps between design school and professional life? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Research Finds New Solar Power Technology

Tristan Roberts — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 02:49:00 GMT

New ways to make and save energy, from university research An environmentalist dies and reports to the pearly gates, but there is a mix-up and she is sent to the gates of hell. Once in hell, she is horrified by the air and water pollution, global ...

A new way to generate solar electricity

Researchers in applied physics at the University of Michigan have discovered a method that uses the magnetic component of light to generate electricity without using semiconductors or photovoltaic (PV) panels.

When the electromagnetic waves in light passes through certain transparent materials, the magnetic waves are amplified, causing electrons to move away from their nuclei, and creating a static electric field. Conductive materials can be placed on either end of the transparent material to collect the voltage generated across the field, a method that could potentially achieve close to 100% conversion efficiency, because it does not rely on the heat-creating light absorption that limits efficiency of PV panels. The researchers have applied for a patent and are currently investigating suitable transparent materials to use in further experiments.

Converting waste plastics into crude oil

Oregon-based alternative energy start-up Agilyx says it has developed a system to convert difficult-to-recycle discarded plastics into synthetic crude oil. The technology has been in development for a year and a half, and the company predicts that it will be ready for commercial applications in mid-2012.

The system vaporizes the plastics and then condenses the vapor into oil. The modular system currently under development, according to the company, will be capable of converting 10,000 pounds of plastic into 60 barrels of synthetic crude oil a day. Once the technology is developed, Agilyx plans to sell the modules to trash companies, which would own and operate the machinery and sell the synthetic crude oil to refiners.

Technologies like this one, dubbed "resource recovery," are becoming increasingly attractive as solid-waste stockpiles grow and extraction of virgin materials becomes more costly. Agilyx predicts that its systems will provide owners a 25% rate of return on their investment, and major players in the trash industry, such as Waste Management, have already invested in the company.

A natural replacement for toxic flame retardants

Alternating layers of clay and chitosan (a polymer derived from crustacean shells) have shown promise as a possible flame retardant in lab tests at Texas A&M University. When applied to foam and exposed to a direct flame for ten seconds, the coating formed a protective thermal barrier that kept the foam from igniting or melting--giving researchers hope that coatings made from renewable materials could eventually replace toxic brominated flame retardants (BFRs), which are ubiquitous in consumer items.

Unlike BFRs, which chemically disrupt a fire that has already begun, this coating is designed to prevent ignition, Grunlan explained. Chitosan between the clay layers does flame up briefly, but the clay quickly "collapses," he said. "The polymer gets eaten out by heat and fire initially, and what's left behind is a layer of clay-rich coating which acts as a heat barrier."

Hydro power that's safer for fish

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has received $1.5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to field-test a new hydroelectric turbine developed by research engineers at Alden Research Laboratory. The turbine is designed to maximize the use of hydroelectric resources without further jeopardizing migrating fish populations.

Preliminary testing indicates that the Alden turbine can maintain high efficiencies while allowing fish migrating downstream to pass with a 98% survival rate; upstream migration issues must be addressed separately with other mechanisms, such as fish ladders.

Instead of the six or more blades common in older turbine designs, the Alden turbine has only three blades, reducing the chance that fish will be struck by a blade. The blades also have a semi-round edge, which pushes enough water in front of the spinning blades to move the fish out of their path.

If the Alden turbine proves successful in field tests, it could open the door to maximizing the use of hydropower resources currently being lost to dam spillover and through-fish bypasses meant to protect migrating fish populations. Researchers estimate domestic hydropower capacity lost to fish protection measures to be as much as 25,000 megawatts.

Have you seen some cool research items? Let me know!

Thanks to my colleague Evan Dick for his work in compiling this information.

Tristan Roberts is Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, Inc., in Brattleboro, Vermont, which publishes information on green building solutions.

Going the Extra 3,000 Miles for Passive House Windows and Doors

Jennifer Atlee — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:58:00 GMT

When it comes to green building, you can't always get what you what. So how do you get what you need? Whole-window R-value of 6.7. Not too shabby! Note: some of the links below will only work for registered subscribers. See low-co...

Ultra-high efficiency isn't here yet

EBN just reviewed high-performance exterior doors, and we list the same efficient doors in GreenSpec. On the residential side, more than with windows, the same level of quality for doors isn't readily available domestically. According to EBN, "In general, German-made Passive House doors are not widely available and are much more expensive than the best North American-made residential doors. However, the performance differences between the two are too striking to ignore." (With all this talk about ultra-high performance it's important to remember, in a small home, two code-compliant exterior doors make up just over 1% of total surface area of the building--so if you're on a tight budget don't stress about this one).

We're curious: who among you are importing products from overseas suppliers to meet specific product performance demands? What products have you gone through the trouble to purchase and import from afar because you just can't find what you're looking for domestically?

While in GreenSpec we try to stick to products that are readily available domestically, sometimes we include products that are harder to get but too good to ignore. Would you like to see more of these in GreenSpec or is that just too frustratingly out of reach?

The Schüco windows Andrea and Ted chose are made with PVC (minus the nasty plasticizers).

A new expanding tape

A few other interesting window product tips--Ted and Andrea used Tremco Expanding tape for some applications, but found it expands too fast for windows, and so went to Iso Chemie's Iso Bloco One Tape. This tape is fitted to the window prior to installation then expands over approximately five days for an insulating airtight and watertight seal. Last year we explored another option, CC Expanding Sealer.

We're looking forward to keeping an eye on what other product choices this brave duo makes as the project proceeds into the interior, including what passes Ted's sniff test.

Fire Risks Not Limited to Spray-Foam Insulation

Tristan Roberts — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:56:00 GMT

Spray foam is only one of a number of building products and methods which increase the risk of catastrophic fire loss (and potential loss of life). [Editor's note: After asking him to pen his series of 10 Riversong's Random Reflections on ou... As one who has been both a designer/builder and a volunteer firefighter for 30 years, as well as an instructor in sustainable design and construction, I can shed some light on the issue of fire safety in construction and remodeling.

Dangers of truss and engineered lumber construction

One common construction practice has been the use of light-frame floor and roof trusses. These have often been replaced, at least in floors and sometimes roof assemblies, with "engineered lumber" such as wood I-beams. In both cases, structural integrity depends on the synergy of all parts of the assembly, including chords, webs, struts & ties and their connectors (typically metal truss plates). With smaller elements, these engineered structural units fail much more quickly in a fire than either light wood frame or timber frame construction. In trusses, the metal gang nailing plates quickly overheat, char the wood they penetrate and fail.

Even small-town fire departments often have to engage in pre-planning to note which buildings in their jurisdiction are made from truss or engineered lumber construction. An I-joist, like a truss, will also fail more quickly than a comparable 2x joist or rafter. We typically will not enter such a building for interior fire suppression and will avoid going onto the roof to ventilate the heat. This leaves only outside fire suppression and makes the building more vulnerable to fire and water damage as well as collapse.

Ventilating a fire in progress

A non-combustible roofing material may be sensible if using a woodstove for heat or if in a wildfire zone. But with interior-origin fires (which most are), a non-flammable roof such as metal or slate will contain the heat and fire longer and often result in more serious structural damage. One of the first things we firefighters do at a structure fire is to cut one or more holes in the roof to ventilate the super-heated air. Sometimes breaking windows is sufficient unless the fire is already in the attic.

Early morning of April Fools Day, 2008, my department responded to a structure fire in our central village--a former home and barn used as a spa/salon and an antique store. The fire was triggered by a propane explosion, and the building was fully involved at our arrival. The building had been renovated so many times that we discovered (after the fact) a number of double walls and a double roof built up over an existing roof. Attempting to ventilate the roof did not work because of the secondary roof below. Outside attack hose streams were blocked by extra walls just inside the windows, and the fire chases created by the doubled interior partitions increased the rate of fire spread. Unintended consequences.

Cellulose implicated in convenience store fire

In August of 2006, our department was called to a convenience store under construction after the original one burnt down and a new model replacement (which was meant to be the prototype for all similar stores for this locally-owned Vermont chain) also burnt to the ground just two months earlier. It seems the same cellulose insulation contractor who had blown the suspended ceiling the day before the previous fire was at the site filling the ceiling again. This time, an employee noticed smoke coming from the hopper of the truck-mounted blowing machine, so he stopped the operation and emptied out the hopper. At the bottom, just above the overheated muffler from the compressor, was some charred cellulose.

If properly treated with borates, cellulose is one of the most fire-proof insulations on the market. While it won't support combustion, it will char and smolder. Apparently, two months earlier and with the same blower, this contractor had put some smoldering cellulose into the ceiling. Overnight, it ignited some non-protected framing member, which spread the fire to the entire hollow ceiling and metal-clad roof. Almost as soon as the fire department arrived, the entire roof collapsed. Unintended consequences.

I was the firefighter who collected samples of the charred cellulose from the second reconstruction and got it to the state fire inspector. The earlier fire was then determined to be caused by a faulty cellulose machine and that contractor went out of business. We provided water while a septic pumper sucked all the new cellulose out of the ceiling and saved the store from a third fire.

While cellulose-related fires are an aberration (cellulose is so effective at fire prevention that it's been third-party certified as a fire stop), there are an infinite number of potential errors which can result in a fire during construction (two of the most common are oily rags auto-combusting and space heaters left unattended).

Choose building materials with care--and think about unintended consequences

The lesson is that care and consideration are required, both in choosing materials and methods and in maintaining a safe construction site environment. Some materials, such as plastic foams, can dramatically increase fire risk – both in application (ASTM E85, referenced in IRC R316, sets flammability standards and thickness limits, which are often less than code-minimum R-values) and during occupancy. If foam insulation is part of a structural panel system, then the structure can collapse once the melting point is reached or the required 15-minute ignition barrier is breached. Once burning, plastics accelerate fire spread, smoke development and building damage.

Using non-flammable materials and avoiding fire chases (including the exterior chase created by a rainscreen cladding system) can help reduce both the likelihood of fire and the extent of fire damage. Make sure there are adequate fire stops in all enclosed soffits, attic kneewall areas, under first floor bathtubs and around chimneys. Install wood-burning appliances (and all combustion appliances) to factory specifications and according to applicable fire codes. Design in fire egress windows in all sleeping areas, and a safe route to the ground. Beware of wildfire zone issues and codes. Of course, install hard-wired smoke and CO alarms and make sure any exhaust flue exits the house above maximum snow level to avoid CO back-drafting.

But, above all, think about potential unintended consequences. Every design and construction decision has the potential to increase or reduce the risk, intensity and extent of fire. About 4,000 people die every year from fire in the US, and the almost 400,000 annual residential fires create nearly $8 billion in losses. These are consequences best to anticipate and avoid.

Editor's note: BuildingGreen's guide to insulation materials and practices helps readers navigate some of the material choices alluded to here.

copyleft by Robert Riversong: may be reproduced only with attribution for non-commercial purposes

Robert Riversong has been a pioneer in super-insulated and passive solar construction, an instructor in building science and hygro-thermal engineering, a philosopher, wilderness guide and rites-of-passage facilitator. He can be reached at HouseWright (at) Ponds-Edge (dot) net. Some of his work can be seen at BuildItSolar.com (an article on his modified Larsen Truss system), GreenHomeBuilding.com (more on the Larsen Truss), GreenBuildingAdvisor.com (a case study of a Vermont home), and Transition Vermont (photos).

DIY Passive House? Nothing "Passive" about That

HB Lozito — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:29:00 GMT

Building to the Passive House standard is hard enough for the pros. We get a peek into what happens when you try to go it alone. Zip-taped and on piers. We were lucky enough to visit while seams and interior I beams were still vi...

Process makes (almost) perfect

Ironwood's own design/build process is a large part of this project. Eli points out that while the company is a high-end residential design/build company, at the shop they're also computer-assisted manufacturers. This has been quite a wet year (it's raining as I write this, actually) in Southern Vermont, but that hasn't stopped Ironwood from moving steadily forward with this project. By utilizing CAD/CAM processes in a year with 50+ inches of rain, they were able to wait out storms with pre-cutting, pre-painting, and pre-construction. Ultimately, this allowed the house to be dried-in in just three onsite days--two of crane work and one day sheathing the roof.

Back on their own blog, Andrea and Ted tell tales of having to adjust their expectations and let go of some things they once held dear like a 30,000 Btu wok ring. Since the house is sealed so tightly, there are many challenges around combustion and air-exchange for appliances like gas ranges and dryers. But finding alternate creative solutions is part of the fun on a project like this!

Working with what's available

An example we witnessed on our trip involved availability of materials. Some that they wanted to use weren't available in New England or were only sold by the pallet, as was the case with the 24-inch I-beams for the roof joists.

To avoid excess materials and spending, Eli redesigned the roof, which spans 26+ feet, to use exactly one pallet of beams. The solution? The West wall goes all the way up past the joists to eliminate a need for that pallet-busting 24th beam.

For more in-depth insight into the products used on this project, look for an upcoming blog post from Jennifer Atlee.

Passive House: an active collaboration

Ted and Andrea originally set out to build this project on their own. They soon realized that it was going to be quite complicated and called in some great collaborators. Eli says of this relationship that:

[w]e can connect dots, but there's no one of us that can really know what we need to know to pull off a building like this. I know [Ted and Andrea] spent a lot of money at the start in those soft costs. And I'd like to think that someday, that through either [BuildingGreen's] work or larger communities of people--it doesn't have to be just one person taking that on. But I feel really glad that these guys took it on.

If you'd like to come along for the ride, listen to an audio recording of our tour.

Continue following the progress of 'The Almost Passive House' at vermontpassive.com.

Top Products from the Greenbuild Expo Floor: Part 2

Brent Ehrlich — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 17:43:00 GMT

Mem's NaturHemp insulation offers comparable R-values to other batt insulations and is made from rapidly renewable hemp. It is made in Canada, where industrial hemp can be grown legally. More new products from Greenbuild! Thi... .

Kohler takes a different tack with battery technology and had its Hybrid Energy technology on display. Instead of installing hydro- or solar-powered battery-charging systems to power sensors, the company simply decided to install lithium ion batteries that will last for the service life of the faucet. The technology is available on the company's Insight line of 0.5 gallon per minute non-aerated faucets.

Delta had its new touchless Touch2O.xt faucet system on display. This residential faucet can be set to a specific temperature and then, as one gets close enough, it triggers the water flow. You don't need to touch any part of the unit, yet the company claims there is no infrared sensor, which sometimes requires hand-waving before the water comes on; instead, the entire faucet has a four-inch "sensing field." Instead of the water running while washing hands, brushing teeth and the like, it simply shuts off. Inanimate objects cannot trigger the faucet. It is currently only available in 1.5 gallon per minute model, but we hope Delta offers it in an even lower-flow model in the near future.

General Woodcraft's residential rainscreen system attaches to the exterior sheathing with clips rather than furring strips, and is available with FSC-certified wood siding.

Recycled content from Toto/Crossville and VaproShield

Speaking of Toto, Crossville is now including about 4% porcelain from Toto's manufacturing stream for use in its tile products. This pre-consumer recycled porcelain is verified by Scientific Certification Systems and comes from just across the border in Georgia. According to the company, they now use more waste products to create new products than they generate (they recycle 12 million pounds annually). The 4% is just a part of the recycled content the company offers, and some of their tiles contain 50% post-consumer content.

One of the more interesting products at the show also happened to be at a smaller booth off the main corridors: ReNewShield from VaproShield. This is a vapor-permeable air barrier (75 perms) that is made from 70% post-consumer PET from water and soda bottles. ReNewShield can handle 120 days of UV and climate exposure before cladding is installed, according to the company.

Residential/light commercial rainscreen

General Woodcraft, makers of Mataverde hardwood decking and siding, introduced its Climate-Shield Rain Screen Wood Siding System at Greenbuild. Like a simplified commercial rainscreen system, the siding slides into clips that are screwed into the sheathing, creating an air space between the sheathing and the housewrap that allows moisture to escape. It does not require furring strips, and no screws penetrate the siding. A number of siding profiles are available; it can be installed vertically; and FSC-certified wood is available.

Hemp insulation

There was a time when industrial hemp was one of the U.S.'s most important resources (anyone remember the World War II film "Hemp for Victory"?), but that time is long past, and it is illegal to grow industrial hemp in the U.S. without a special permit--even though it has virtually no psychoactive ingredients. The fibers are, however, extremely versatile, and the plant grows quickly and in poor conditions, making it, potentially, a very attractive product.

Two companies were showing their hemp insulations at Greenbuild: American Lime Technologies, which is currently importing its Breathe Insulation, and Mem Inc., which had its NaturHemp on display. Neither product uses a chemical binder, and both are held together with a small amount of polypropylene or polyethylene fiber (<5%). NaturHemp uses ammonium sulfate as a flame retardant, and we are checking on Breathe's flame retardant, as theirs is "proprietary."

Breathe is currently imported from Denmark by special order (and at considerable cost), but the company has plans to set up a manufacturing facility in Wisconsin using fibers imported from Canada. NaturHemp is currently grown and manufactured in Canada and comes in 5.5" thicknesses in dimensions of 16" x 48" or 24" x 48". These products have an R-value similar to other fiber insulations (around R-3.7 per inch), with none of the binders or high firing temperatures of fiberglass or mineral wool. It is fairly rigid and compresses slightly to friction-fit inside the studs, similar to mineral wool.

Mem claims it will not sag, but like cotton and wool batts, installation is likely to be tricky, since hemp is a tough fiber and is not easy to cut. I took a bread knife to our sample, and it was easier to cut with than cotton or wool insulations I've tried, but finding the right tool/saw/blade will be key to simplifying installation, and be prepared for some hemp on the floor.

So there you have it, new products from Greenbuild Toronto! We will be covering some of these in greater detail later, and writing up others that we didn't get a chance to review here, such as Carrier's 13 HSPF air-source heat pump and Syntheon wall system that acts as a continuous insulation. So stay tuned!

Saving Energy and Water: Now, a College Sport

Paula Melton — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:16:00 GMT

By leveraging social media, a national campus competition helps students turn small commitments into large-scale change. Combining social media with intercollegiate competition provides two forms of motivation: it shows participant...

By combining a sophisticated energy dashboard with social media, the competition aims to both challenge and inspire students to make a difference in their own dorms and classrooms.

Colleges and universities need to sign up by November 1, and the actual competition will take place from February 6 through April 23, 2012.

Why focus on individuals?

BuildingGreen has been around for 20 years now, and for most of that time, the focus of the green building community has been primarily on design and construction: how can we design, build, and retrofit our buildings and communities so they perform better?

The humans who live and work in our buildings have been a lesser--some might say nonexistent--focus. But in the past five years or so, the green building community has started to wake up to a very important fact: no matter how well we design a building or plan a retrofit, the occupants hold the keys to environmental performance.

"Occupant engagement"

As the buildings themselves have become more efficient, the building occupants' role in achieving sustainability goals has increased. Occupant engagement--the art of combining social science and building science to motivate individuals to save energy and water, reduce waste, and contribute to indoor environmental quality--has started to emerge as an ever-more-important field of research and action.

This is such an important emerging topic that our November Environmental Building News feature article on occupant engagement will be free to everyone, whether you're a BuildingGreen member or not.

Occupying our buildings more mindfully

While I, like many people, often despair at the vast discrepancy between my small individual actions and the need for mass collective action, projects like the Campus Conservation Nationals not only inspire me but also show me the immense power of individual action--once I can visualize it as part of a larger effort.

Not all of us can leave our jobs, classrooms, or homes to occupy Wall Street full time, but we can all do a better job of occupying our built environment. Whether you're a college student or not, what commitments--small or large--make you feel like you're doing your part? How do you visualize and evaluate your success, and what motivates you to do more?

A Heating Fuel Cost Comparison "App"

Tristan Roberts — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 02:51:00 GMT

I recently caught up with where the rest of the world was in 2005 by watching the hit documentary "March of the Penguins." It's been on my list for a while but when evening arrives I'm much more prone to watching films about people--people like Jam... Let's check on the prices of major regional heating fuels. According to the Department of Energy, the average price this month for residential heating oil is $3.68 per gallon (wholesale is $2.97). Residential propane costs $2.78 per gallon ($1.52 wholesale). This varies all over the map, but the most common price I am seeing for delivered cordwood is $250 per cord. Wood pellets are priced at about $270 per ton. Electricity here in southern Vermont currently costs 14 cents per kilowatt-hour, but it's all over the map (literally) across the country.

Heating value and per unit of fuel varies

By themselves, these cost figures don't mean much because the heating value, or Btus, contained in a unit of each fuel is so different. For example, one gallon of fuel oil contains 0.15 million Btus, while one gallon of propane contains 40% less: 0.091 million Btus.

Efficiency of consumption varies a lot too

Also, the amount of useful heat obtained from a given fuel depends on how efficiently it's consumed. Combustion efficiency varies widely--from as low as 30% for the worst of the outdoor wood boilers to over 95% for a top-efficiency, condensing gas boiler. Heating with electric baseboard heaters is 100% efficient. (Keep in mind that most electricity comes from coal or natural gas, and utilities are only about 30% efficient in converting those fossil fuels into electrons delivered to your home.)

Buildings using electric heat pumps have much higher efficiencies (typically 200%–300%), because electricity is used for moving heat from one place to another, rather than being converted directly into heat.

...And don't forget efficiency of distribution

To further complicate fuel cost comparisons, a third factor is how efficiently heat is distributed. With electric baseboard radiators, the heat is produced right in the room, so the distribution is 100% efficient. Baseboard hot water (hydronic) heat is also usually very efficient, though uninsulated hot water pipes running through an unheated basement can lower that efficiency.

With a hot-air furnace and ducts to carry the heat, however, the distribution efficiency can be quite low, especially if poorly insulated, leaky ducts run through an unheated attic or crawl space--distribution efficiency as low as 60%–65% is not uncommon.

To calculate the actual delivered efficiency of your heating system, you have to multiply the combustion efficiency by the distribution efficiency. For example, if you have a 78% efficient oil furnace and a relatively leaky duct system running through an unheated attic (65% efficient distribution), your overall efficiency of delivered heat is just over 50% (0.78 x 0.65)--meaning that only half of the energy you've paid for is actually being used to keep you warm!

Combining factors into one easy comparison

In order to combine all these factors into a meaningful comparison of heating fuel costs, it's easiest to use an online comparison calculator like one offered by BuildingGreen.

This allows you to enter your cost for a particular fuel, your heating system efficiency, and its distribution efficiency. The end result is a figure in dollars per million Btu that reflects your real costs of delivered heat and allows you to compare that with other options.

Example: Switch from oil to propane?

I know someone who heats with oil, paying $3.68 per gallon, and uses an older forced-air furnace with roughly 75% efficiency. The heat is distributed through ducts that run through the heated space, with roughly 98% efficiency. Using the online calculator, we can see my friend is paying $36.10 per million Btu.

Let's say he wants to upgrade to propane in order to take advantage of the more stable prices, and the 90% efficiency offered by good propane furnaces. With the same ducted distribution, he would be paying $34.51 per million Btu.

Switching to propane would, in this case, save some money, but not a huge amount, and particularly with fluctuating prices a fuel switch here would be debatable on cost grounds. On a carbon comparison, however the higher efficiency, cleaner-burning propane would be an improvement. I might advise this friend to switch now if he felt really motivated by that, but otherwise to get more life out of his current furnace and in the meantime, work on air sealing and other cost-effective efficiency measures.

What are you heating with, and what are you considering switching to? Check out our free online calculator at BuildingGreen.com/calc/fuel_cost.cfm and let me know what you think.

Tristan Roberts is Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, Inc., in Brattleboro, Vermont, which publishes information on green building solutions.

Choosing Insulation: What Are Your Deal-Breakers?

Paula Melton — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 23:44:00 GMT

Part 2 in our series, "What Type of Insulation Should You Use?" Even our savvy readers had some trouble with the GreenSpec insulation quiz. Does it really have to be this hard to choose the best insulation for your project? ...

Which ball to drop?

Before you can decide what you think, you have to know which things to think about.

Making good decisions about insulation--or helping your clients make them--requires a thorough working knowledge of the relevant issues. When considering any insulation material, we have to keep in mind what is for most of us the least flexible issue--cost--while also juggling:

embodied energy
global warming potential
offgassing risks
potential for moisture and mold
interactions with other materials in the wall, roof, or slab assembly
structural properties
durability
vulnerability to insects
fire resistance
recycled content
recyclability
downstream effects of landfilling
ability to source locally
pollution from resource extraction and manufacturing
social justice issues related to manufacturing
building codes
building certification requirements, including red-listed materials and energy performance standards

Keep in mind that the best jugglers on earth can only handle about seven balls at a time for any extended period. Based on results from our GreenSpec insulation quiz, juggling this number of insulation considerations at the same time is nearly impossible--even for you, our exceptionally well informed readers.

That said, it's better to choose which balls you want to drop based on your own and your clients' priorities rather than just letting them fall willy-nilly.

Finding your deal-breakers

Let's say that you, like my friends, want to maximize what you get out of your insulation by making sure it controls air leaks as well as conductive heat flow (see Part 1 for a primer on heat flow). Do you know which insulation materials are airtight enough to act as a dedicated air barrier?

More than 80% of our quiz-takers knew several materials that would not work: they chose "none of the above" from a list that included cellulose, fiberglass, and mineral wool. However, almost 13% of people who took the quiz thought cellulose could act as the dedicated air barrier.

This is actually a persistent myth that building scientists have been working to debunk for years. Here at BuildingGreen, we love cellulose for its exemplary environmental performance, but we shouldn't let that get in the way of the facts: cellulose is not an air barrier. It does a much better job at air resistance than either fiberglass or mineral wool, but only a handful of insulation materials act as an air barrier, and they are all petroleum-based.

If installing insulation that doubles as an air seal is a high priority for you, SPF might be the way to go. But if you or your client has known chemical sensitivities, even a tiny risk of reacting to SPF might be a deal-breaker for your project. Maybe cellulose is a reasonable compromise--but cellulose might not even work for the extremely sensitive, due to ink in the recycled newspapers that are used to make it. (Cellulose has other potential issues as well, like dust that can be an irritant and vulnerability to moisture.)

Decision-making tools for insulation

Most people make their insulation decisions based on information from manufacturers or installers, which can be problematic--not because they intentionally mislead people (although that can happen) but rather because it has not been their job to cut through greenwash and explain the complexities of building science, environmental considerations, health risks, long-term performance, and all the other issues associated with the panoply of insulation options available on the market right now--and then finish all that off by helping you weigh these considerations against your needs, your personal values, and the limitations of your pocketbook.

That's actually a pretty good description of what BuildingGreen is all about, though, and it's the reason we've added Alex Wilson's new Guide to Insulation Products and Practices to the independently produced resources we offer.

Alex offers a really handy table of BuildingGreen's bottom-line insulation recommendations to use as rules of thumb for various applications. But as we're hopefully communicating with this blog series, deciding what insulation to use for your project can get really tricky; it's a project-by-project decision that we can't make for you. So the book also gives you the tools you need to make different choices based on your own or your clients' priorities and special circumstances. It can be read from cover to cover or used as a reference tool.

If you haven't had a chance to take the insulation quiz, do head over now and test your knowledge. You might be surprised!

Finding the right balance

Incidentally, my friends have decided to fill their empty wall cavities primarily with blown cellulose but will also use SPF in various hard-to-reach places in the attic.

What would you have done?

Top Products from the Greenbuild Expo Floor: Windows

Brent Ehrlich — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:31:00 GMT

Renovate, from Berkowitz, LLC. is a retrofit glazing that fits on the interior of single-pane commercial windows, improving the center of glass U-factor from 1.03 to 0.16. Finding the top Greenbuild products among 900 exhibitors ...

R-20 (!) quintuple-pane windows

As always, there were quite a few companies offering windows/glazing with impressive U-factors. Southwall's Heat Mirror film has been around for years, but the company is now offering a quintuple-glazed unit with a ridiculously low center-of-glass U-factor of 0.05 (or R-20, which is better than many walls!). This is a krypton-filled unit with a visible light transmittance of 0.53 and solar heat gain of 0.38--not bad for three layers of film. And Southwall can incorporate different films and coatings depending on need. This glass is available in Duxton fiberglass windows.

A high-performance window retrofit

Traco manufactures the entire OptiQ line from frame to glazing, which helps keep this triple glazed window cost competitive.

PPG had another interesting window, a retrofit window named Renovate that is sold through Berkowitz, LLC. There are a lot of single-glazed, energy-wasting commercial windows out there, and replacing them is expensive. These retrofit windows install on the interior, and are made from PPG's low-e glass, low-e coating, and a ½" argon-filled space. A spacer containing a desiccant separates this unit from the original pane. This system takes a ¼" single-pane monolithic window and improves the center-of-glass U-factor from 1.03 to 0.16. Renovate can be installed with minimal disruption to building occupants.

Cost-competitive triple glazing

Traco, a division of Kawneer, had its OptiQ triple-glazed window at Greenbuild as well. Developed with assistance from the U.S. Department of Energy, this window has center-of-glass U-factors of 0.17 and 0.22 for fixed and operable units. According to the company, these are commercially available windows, and unlike some high-performance windows, are cost competitive because Traco makes the entire window and does not outsource the glazing.

Thermochromic self-tinting panes

One of the most interesting window products at the show was Pleotint, a thermochromic "Sunlight Responsive Tinting" (SRT) film that is sandwiched between two layers of glass and installed as the exterior panel of glass in an IGU. You could see Pleotint at three different booths: Pleotint's (of course), PPG's (which is co-marketing Pleotint), and Southwall, which is incorporating the material into its glass units.

In general, Pleotint is clear in indirect light and tints in direct sunlight, but more specifically it reacts to temperature. It is at its darkest at 149°F (65°C) and is clear again at 77°F (25°C). Pleotint's tint range cannot be adjusted for temperature, however, and there are still questions about performance in extreme climates and lifespan, but this is a promising technology that offers a lower-cost, less complicated option to electrochromic tint windows.

Next week we'll take a look at a couple of natural insulation options, water-efficient products, and some interesting uses of recycled content.

Occupy Green Building: The Economy As a Design Problem

Jennifer Atlee — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:13:00 GMT

What do over a thousand protests around the world last weekend in support of Occupy Wall Street have to do with Green Building? When NYC Mayor Bloomberg was speaking via video-link at Greenbuild, and while the Toronto Airport security strik...

At Greenbuild I thoroughly enjoyed a session called Beyond LEED, which had Jason Mclennon from ILBI and Brendan Owens from USGBC exploring the interconnection of LEED and Living Building Challenge, and others also tackling the broader question with gusto. Where I go beyond LEED is beyond buildings, even living buildings, to resilient and generative communities and economies in a rapidly changing world. I also go to the question of what would material management look like in a sustainable society?

So what's the connection here?

Ultimately a smattering of living buildings in a dying economy won't take us much further than a smattering of "green" products in an economy where it's still cheaper to ignore ecological and social consequences of manufacturing and its supply chain. A smattering of companies taking "triple bottom line" and "corporate social responsibility" to heart is equally limited when publicly traded companies can get sued if they let anything get in the way of maximizing financial shareholder value, and where discounting the future is basic unquestioned business practice.

What I get out of this upswelling of activism is that many in this country and the world are ready for a new economic story. It's not just about jobs, although that's a big part of it. People are connecting the dots between things that don't work in our food system, our education system, our building industry, our government, and so much more–-and why the fixes we attempt seem to get stymied by the incentives and assumptions embedded in our current economic system. More and more people are actively looking for alternatives.

What's fantastic is just how many creative alternatives are out there–-just like the green building movement, there's a whole world of people and organizations testing new ideas and designing a new economy. There are new corporate structures that let publicly traded companies concern themselves with more than profits; proposals for a financial transactions tax and to replace labor taxes with resource taxes; new ways to get dollars circulating in local communities; even alternate frameworks and entirely new models for the economic system as a whole.

I'd like to see the building design and construction community approach the economic system as a design problem to be solved rather than a design constraint to operate within.

Don't get me wrong; I'm astounded by all the creativity and progress that's been made in "tunneling through the cost barrier", showing how green design is cost effective today–-but imagine if building green products, buildings, and communities was the no-brainer default option because the economy gave us the right signals. Just think what would be possible!

What Type of Insulation Should You Use?

Paula Melton — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:31:00 GMT

Part 1: The Basics Click to Read Part 2: Identifying Your Priorities Choosing the best insulation to maximize performance and minimize environmental impacts is one of the most complex decisions you can make for a building project. Insula...

How Insulation Works

To understand insulation materials, one needs to understand the basics of heat flow.

There are three primary mechanisms of heat flow: conduction, convection, and radiation.

Thermal conduction is the movement of heat from direct contact: one molecule is activated (excited) by heat and transfers that kinetic energy to an adjacent molecule.

We generally think of conduction occurring between solid materials--the handle of a hot skillet conducting its heat to your hand, for example--and that is the most efficient mode of conduction. Thermal conduction also occurs within liquids and gases, but more slowly.

Convection is the transfer of heat in liquids and gases by the physical movement of those molecules from one place to another. As air is warmed, it expands, becomes more buoyant, and rises--a process called natural convection. This occurs with liquids, too, as we experience with thermosiphon solar water heaters.

Finally, radiation is the transfer of heat from the surfaces of one body to another via the propagation of electromagnetic waves. When you sit in front of a fireplace and look into the fire, your face is warmed by the radiant transfer of energy from that heat source to your face. That radiant energy is not affected by air currents and occurs even across a vacuum--as we know from lying in the sun and experiencing radiant energy that has traveled 93 million miles through space.

Here on Earth, heat flow is almost always moving in all three modes simultaneously, and our insulation must reckon with that.

In Part II of this series, we'll discuss some of the thorniest questions building professionals confront when selecting insulation.

In preparation, be sure to test your basic knowledge of insulation materials by taking GreenSpec's insulation quiz.

Asking the Right Questions About Sustainable Materials

Jennifer Atlee — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:23:00 GMT

Are there any sustainable materials? What does that even mean? Near the end of another exciting and exhausting Greenbuild, I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with three other women deeply invested in sustainable material...

We asked the audience--"What new or different questions can you ask when considering material sustainability and material stewardship?" and here's what they said:

How do we change the economic model? What is the new model?
Who can I work with who's thinking about this stuff?
Maybe we should match the durability of a building product to the length of time it'll be used.
Can we achieve sustainability in the context of exponential growth of demand and an exploding global population?
Is sustainability a thing we can achieve--or a process we embark on? Does what it is depend on regional needs?
What do your competitors or critics say about your product? (If they don't answer, then don't work with them).
We need to form our own definition of quality. Ask manufacturers: are you helping or hurting?

The questions we brought to the table:

What if we acted like our quality of life depended on Nature and each other?
What if we saw our economic system as a design problem instead of a design constraint?
What if our materials contributed to creating conditions for health?
What if we could have more happiness with less stuff?

What other deeper questions do we all need to be asking? Who needs to be in the conversation? What are the best forums out there now for getting to the heart of the challenge we face in materials management, and what's still missing? If you'd like to be part of this continued conversation email research@greenspec.com, or comment on this blog post.

Fire-Rated No-Formaldehyde Substrates Can Discolor Exotic Veneers

Evan Dick — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:07:00 GMT

The increased use of no-added-urea-formaldehyde (NAUF) wood products is great, but can occasionally cause unsightly "bleaching" of gorgeous veneers. What to do? Exotic veneers like this deliciously buttery English sycamore can be devastati...

It's not the materials; it's how you combine them

NAUF substrate manufacturers recognize the discoloration problem, but identify the complexity of mixing different types of materials and adhesives as a prohibitive factor in comprehensively addressing the problem, as this excerpt from substrate manufacturer Sierra Pine's statement on the issue demonstrates:

We do not know why these rare cases present themselves where particular customers' processes or materials create adverse reactions. There are too many factors, procedures, materials, and end uses adopted by our numerous customers (including, but not limited to environmental conditions, surface coatings, veneer glues, pressing time and temperatures and/or chemical systems used to manufacture FR [flame retardant] products) for us to control, anticipate, or provide guidance on every potential adverse event.

Panel Source, another NAUF substrate manufacturer, has a document outlining veneering guidelines. Highlights from the veneering guidelines include acclimatizing MDF panels to room temperature for 48–72 hours, protecting them from high humidity, and adhering to manufacturer specifications for press time, pressure, temperature, and curing time. It appears that in some instances closely following guidelines may not be enough. In a May 2011 article published by the Woodwork Institute, Dick McClure lays out some strategies for understanding and averting the problem.

First he identifies the instances in which problems are most likely to occur:

Affected veneers are typically of the exotic varieties (figured Makore, English Sycamore, Wenge) and tend to be much thinner than other veneers. Second, none of the affected veneers had any type of backing or barrier sheet between the substrate and adhesive and the veneer. Third, all of the substrates were specified as 'fire-retardant panel.' Oddly though, we have not seen discoloration occurring with any of the thicker domestic veneers that may or may not have a backer sheet on them.

Not everything needs to be fire-rated

McClure also identifies some potential solutions to these problems. First, he recommends asking questions to make sure that fire retardant panels are actually needed. They are sometimes specified unnecessarily, and if asked, the "code inspector may tell you that only exterior walls and/or interior walls with door openings are required to be fire-compliant." The second solution is to put a barrier between the substrate and the veneer. He writes, "a cross-grain veneer glued on prior to the finish veneer appears to be a workable and successful technique to prevent any penetration to the surface veneer."

Another option is to "request the manufacturer of the substrate to provide a paper or phenolic face and balance sheet to their fire-retardant substrate during the factory lay-up process." McClure acknowledges that these solutions add time and cost to projects, and the Woodwork Institute is continuing research into the problem.

Brian Feagans, AIA, at Ratcliff Architecture, worked on a project that encountered veneer discoloration and told GreenSpec about his firm's experience. The problem became apparent four months after completing the first phase of the project, but luckily before the second phase began. In this instance, the problem manifested itself in "roller marks" over areas where the adhesive was applied thinly. When thickly applied, the adhesive coating created enough of a barrier between the fire-treated NAUF MDF, and a thin exotic veneer to avoid the discoloration. However, when applied too thinly, discoloration occurred. Thanks to a suggestion from the casework fabricator, the team addressed the problem in phase two construction by applying a sacrificial barrier in the areas where the fire-rated material was necessary, and using non-flame-retardant NAUF MDF where it wasn't.

Slap on more adhesive?

McClure told GreenSpec that while in some instances adhesive thickness may prevent the problem, it isn't wise to rely on thick application of adhesives to prevent it:

Applying adhesives is hard to do consistently; they may be rolled on or sprayed on, and the bottom line is that something is penetrating the veneer...it almost looks like the veneers are being bleached. It is either the borate or the silica in the fire-proofing that is causing the problem...the surefire suggestion is to use a backer or barrier [with these problematic combinations of materials].

McClure went on to talk about the gravity of the problem and the Woodwork Institute's efforts to raise awareness, saying most problems seem to show up six to twelve months after installation and that communication before installation is crucial. "The only way to fix it is to remove, replace, and refinish [both substrate and veneer]; otherwise it is never going to be right again."

Communication between architects, contractors, and inspectors can help identify which areas truly need a fire-resistant coating. Then it is important to make sure the manufacturer knows that not all the substrate needs to be fire-rated material. In areas where the fire rating is required, make sure that a backer or barrier is specified. McClure told GreenSpec that in one project "I saw 22,000 square feet of walls that had failed. In a meeting with the owner, architect, general contractor, and fabricator, we came to the conclusion that many of the walls didn't need to be fire-resistant. Communication and coordination could have avoided a significant amount of the problem in this instance."

Looking on the bright side

Now that we know more about this problem, communication and coordination can avoid it altogether.

There is an unexpected and positive outcome that may result from this issue. If designers, contractors, and inspectors are using more care in identifying areas that need flame-retardants, we may see a reduction in the rote specification of flame-retardant material. This would be a good thing from a green building perspective, given the history of toxicity concerns around some flame-retardant chemicals.

The Future of LEED: Conflict Comes Before Happy Endings

Paula Melton — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:32:00 GMT

It's easy to get bogged down in the details of one credit or another, but Greenbuild offered a refreshing look at the bigger picture. Scot Horst opened the LEED master session series with a dramatic production of the first scene of...

For those keeping track at home, the second public comment period for LEED 2012 has now ended (audience feedback from this Greenbuild session will be included), and USGBC plans to open a third comment period in January or February. The first comment period elicited about 6,000 comments, the second one about 8,000.

'Net-zero environmental impact'

The most impressive thing about this session was getting insight into the long-term goals of LEED. Brendan Owens, vice president of LEED development at USGBC, stated the primary goal explicitly: net-zero environmental impact that can be documented.

There was notably no target year proposed for achieving this ambitious goal, but it's good to know that the changes we're seeing are not just reactive, random, or (as some have feared) responsive to industry demands. They are strategically chosen steps in a clear direction--or that's the intention, at least.

Knowing where LEED is headed in the long run does help explain some of the more inflammatory revisions in draft two, particularly around manufacturer-declared life-cycle assessment and non-certified wood products.

What if we had an FSC for steel?

Net-zero environmental impact might seem like pie in the sky, but listening to Brendan, I really got the sense that they had a plan for baking and eating the thing. Starting with materials transparency is a pretty major part of that plan--because you can't assess and document and decrease the impact of your materials if you don't know where they come from or where they're going to end up when you're done with them.

Discussions of the second public draft seem to have gotten bogged down in certified wood, a very emotional topic for years now, but at the session people were asked to take a step back and imagine a world in which we know as much about extraction of resources for steel, copper, glass, and other materials as we do about wood. That's what USGBC is attempting to move the needle on with credits that reward life-cycle assessment and environmental product declarations.

Transparency is not an end in itself

These transparency credits are controversial because they are awarded regardless of the material's environmental performance. (Materials receiving credit for being environmentally preferable are a little different, as they must also achieve credit for low indoor emissions.)

The overarching goal with materials transparency is actually to build a database of materials' environmental impacts; everyone at USGBC sees it as a transitional phase that will eventually result in stricter requirements. You can't set these stricter requirements if manufacturers don't measure or report the environmental impact of their products in the first place.

Fear and anger

Still, I can understand why people are reacting with fear, confusion, and anger to the new materials credits. While it's easy from the process side to see the 2012 draft as tacking one direction in order to head in a different direction, folks on the design and construction side will be living and breathing the 2012 version of LEED for at least a couple of years, and they don't want the perceived high standards to falter even temporarily.

LEED has significant power in its slice of the building sector, and if the credits incentivize the wrong thing, the market won't respond as desired. Two or three years of that could be at best really confusing for practitioners and their clients, and at worst counterproductive and deeply damaging. In the long run, I don't think anyone thinks it's a good idea to reward product transparency in itself.

On the other hand, maybe all this drama over a relatively small sliver of the LEED rating systems is much ado about nothing. A couple credits in a five-fathom sea of possibilities? How much is really at stake?

The great globe itself

Perhaps this is why Scot Horst, senior vice president for LEED at USGBC, overlaid the LEED master sessions series with the narrative arc of The Tempest, even going so far as to end the LEED 2012 session with one of Prospero's many famous soliloquies from that play:

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Wow. I think Scot might be trying to put things in perspective here....

What do you think of the changes to LEED 2012? Do you expect a comic or tragic ending? Do these bigger-picture explanations help you understand them better or accept them more readily?

If you don't like the direction that the current draft is tacking, how would you do things differently? Is there a better way to incentivize materials transparency and get us closer to the happy ending with less conflict in the meantime?

Top-10 Products for 2012: Our Picks for a Resilient Future

Paula Melton — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 16:31:00 GMT

Our Top-10 Products for 2012 look ahead, offering forward-thinking solutions you can put in place now. Greenbuild is one of the highlights of the year as we scout out new, innovative products for GreenSpec and Environmental Building Ne...

InterfaceFLOR carpet tiles with PFC-free carpet fibers

A great example of looking toward the future is InterfaceFLOR. While Greenbuild mourns the passing of Ray Anderson, Interface founder and green building visionary, he leaves a legacy of sustainability behind. His company is now offering tile carpeting that does not contain any perflourinated compounds (PFCs).

PFCs are complex, man-made chemicals that do not break down in the environment and are found on virtually all other carpet products: they are a very effective coating that keeps spills from penetrating the fiber. The problem is, the carpet has to be washed, and these chemicals eventually wash away too and enter our soil and groundwater--where they remain virtually forever. But InterfaceFLOR tiles use fibers made to resist spills without PFCs, preventing unknown long-term health and environmental effects caused by most carpets.

Lifeline PVC-free resilient flooring

Many people don't realize that resilient vinyl flooring doesn't have a built-in wear layer. Its durability relies on a constant cycle of waxing, stripping, and re-waxing: this process, which occurs quite frequently in hospitals and schools, pollutes the indoor air with a variety of toxic chemicals. Vinyl flooring also contains PVC, which has long-term impacts due to persistent, carcinogenic chemicals used in its manufacture that also can leach out after disposal.

Lifeline does have a tough, built-in wear layer and does not require this constant waxing and stripping. It also contains no PVC, an added bonus. So it helps protect kids and hospital patients from one of the most prevalent sources of potent indoor VOCs while also avoiding the introduction of persistent organic pollutants like dioxins to the environment.

CI-Girt Rainscreen System

If there's one thing we need to be taking really seriously, it's the resilience of our buildings in the face of climate change. Rainscreens are great at keeping moisture away from commercial buildings, but a typical rainscreen system comes with an energy penalty.

That's because during installation the insulation must be hand-cut, an imperfect process that is quite expensive and also ends up allowing significant thermal bridging. The CI-Girt system is designed to allow continuous insulation, though, and they also contain an interchangeable cladding system that will allow a building to adapt to new owners and uses, without sacrificing performance.

EonCoat waterborne ceramic coating

All these years we've been using industrial and commercial coatings high in health-threatening and smog-producing VOCs when the ingredients we needed could have been found at any 1950s drug store? EonCoat sounds almost too good to be true, and I have to admit our editors were pretty skeptical at first.

This two-part, waterborne ceramic coating is made out of phosphoric acid and milk of magnesia. It's a fascinating and elegant solution to a problem that has plagued us for decades. And the performance really seems to be there: industrial facilities are starting to use it in highly corrosive environments and finding it amazingly durable.

Aqua2use Graywater System

While many regions are dealing with way more water than they can handle as "global weirding" really starts to hit home, in other places clean water is becoming an ever-scarcer resource. A really effective system that allows us to reuse water is going to be a crucial part of facing climate change.

The Aqua2use system is kind of like a rain barrel, but instead of collecting rain it collects the water that goes down the drain from your sinks and washing machine. The water goes through several (cleanable) filters and can then be safely used for outdoor irrigation. In places where drought and wildfires are a problem, people are actually sometimes ordered to water lawns to help keep the fires from spreading. A system like this makes it possible to water lawns or keep backyard food crops going during a drought without requiring precious potable water.

Cypress Envirosystems' analog-to-digital wireless thermostat

This is one of the most exciting and innovative retrofit products we've seen in a long time. It pretty seamlessly replaces an analog pneumatic thermostat with wireless digital controls, allowing much more granular energy automation, management, and data tracking than you will ever get out of a manual system.

During a recession when hardly any new buildings are going up, people are instead looking for ways to upgrade older buildings to save money. This wireless retrofit can be set up in about 30 minutes without tearing out walls or replacing air-handling infrastructure. What better way to protect our future than by bringing our existing building stock into the 21st century?

Ritter XL solar thermal system

This solar thermal system is also offering a new twist on existing technologies, but in this case it's combining several of them to achieve unprecedented levels of solar thermal efficiency that can be used in really high-demand applications like district heating and multifamily housing.

By combining evacuated tubes, compound parabolic reflectors, and water--which is a more efficient heat-transfer fluid than the usual glycol--these sophisticated modules can produce very hot water even in very cold climates. The advanced controls keep the heat-transfer fluid from freezing. As we look beyond buildings to larger-scale energy solutions, projects like renewable district heating are going to be key.

Mitsubishi ductless heat pumps and variable-refrigerant-flow systems

Ground-source heat pumps (which use water or glycol) provide energy-efficient heating and cooling--but they require deep wells or a nearby water source, and they are expensive. Ideally, air-to-air heat pumps (also known as "split" systems) can lower the initial cost while providing similar performance, but these systems often don't operate well at very low temperatures.

The Mitsubishi ductless heat pumps are a leap forward in air-to-air efficiency, almost rivaling ground-source at a fraction of the cost. They can be used in multifamily and hotel applications, where custom setpoints and even submetering may be desirable, and they work well even at very low temperatures--a limitation on air-to-air heat pumps in the past.

AllSun Trackers

The AllSun Tracker is an innovative, climate-adaptive product with some really sophisticated controls that maximize efficiency while also protecting the equipment from severe weather.

The trackers use GPS to track the sun's path across the sky from dawn to dark. In high winds, the module folds itself flat on the ground to help prevent damage from a hurricane or tornado. And what better self-sufficiency feature for northern climates could you ask for than a daily snow-dump feature? A product like this one will help those of us with less plentiful solar resources to harvest every photon we can get.

Philips EnduraLEDs

I cannot think of a more outdated product than the incandescent light bulb. Nor of a better way to look forward than a high-efficiency (and mercury-free) bulb that can screw into an incandescent socket.

Philips has been a real pioneer in trimming down the wattage required to produce and scale 60-watt equivalent bulbs. The product we're recognizing is a 60-watt replacement that uses 12 watts--but next year another version of this bulb is the L-Prize-winning 10-watt version.

I actually went to see both of these bulbs in the Greenbuild exhibit hall, and I was surprised at how warm the light is. The bulbs have unusual-looking heat sinks that some people might find a little odd (I find them attractive, but it's not what people are used to with an incandescent). Once you turn them on, though, they are so bright you would never even notice the shape.

What about 2013?

As I write this, Brent is roaming the exhibit hall looking for candidates for next year's Top-10 Products. I can't wait to hear about what he's seeing today!

In the meantime, I'm posting Alex's Greenbuild presentation below for those who couldn't attend today. Please let us know what you think about our Top-10 picks in comments. Which are you most excited about?

What Is Microsoft Doing at Greenbuild?

Paula Melton — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:11:00 GMT

Microsoft releases initial results from an energy management pilot project that uses the MS campus as a test bed. The Microsoft campus is serving as a test-bed facility for a "smarter buildings" pilot project that analyzes and interprets e...

That data set also includes real-time weather data and building occupancy statistics. Now Microsoft is developing algorithms that take all this information and learn about how buildings respond to weather--not just climate--as well as occupancy on a really granular level. This is really cool stuff with a lot of potential for providing us with better predictive energy modeling as well as greater ability to get building occupants invested in controlling their own energy use.

Start making sense

The pilot project also focused on getting data to make more sense for facility managers. The systems can diagnose, prioritize, monetize, and alert the operations staff about problems before anyone complains--and about problems no one would notice to complain about. This "smart building" idea, according to the paper and a Microsoft blog post about it, can pay for itself in 18 to 24 months and offer energy savings of 10%–30%--without any capital improvements or retrofits.

Clearly, sealing and insulating your building is also important, but if you streamline your ability to manage your energy data before undertaking a big retrofit project, you might even be able to diagnose and prioritize the most cost-effective retrofits before you get started.

I'll be talking more about this pilot project in an article on occupant engagement in next month's Environmental Building News. Meanwhile, what do you think of Microsoft's idea of saving 10%–30% on energy without so much as picking up a pry bar?

Panoptix: Making Connections in Smart Buildings

Paula Melton — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 03:08:00 GMT

A new Johnson Controls tool, called Panoptix, has tremendous promise. But will people see past the name? Johnson Controls made a big announcement today about what many are viewing as a game-changer in the emerging "smart buildings" market. If ...

Traveling to Greenbuild: Syracuse Center of Excellence

Paula Melton — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 17:30:00 GMT

Car trip! The BuildingGreen team drove to Toronto for Greenbuild, making a quick stop along the way to tour a new test bed facility in Syracuse. The Syracuse Center of Excellence is a unique test bed for indoor environmental quali...

The SCOE also includes:

A weather tower that will help study the impact of buildings on outdoor air quality
A biofuel R&D lab
A green roof whose runoff and other impacts will be studied to determine its effect on the ecosystem.

For me personally, one of the really exciting things about the tour was the building manager's obvious commitment to his building. Tim Benson seemed really excited about all the cool technology--such as the automatic blinds that are sealed within the insulated glazing unit--but also readily admitted that, as with any building, some of the features didn't function as intended at first.

While the automated blinds seem a little twitchy, Tim is very pleased and proud of the building overall. Note the very comfy low-emitting furniture and the ceramic fritting on the glass for shading with a filtered view. Photo: Alex Wilson

Little modifications here and there are ongoing--like some tape marking the water level in the rainwater catchment tank that ensures it will pump adequately to the toilets but not overflow--but he didn't seem burdened by them. In fact, he seemed pretty darn thrilled to have such a cool building to take care of.

Another story that intrigued me involved some lights that glow green or red when it's a good or bad time to open the windows. There were a couple issues with these lights: first, when conditions were borderline, they kept chiming. Tim ended up disabling the auditory alerts just to keep everyone in the building sane. Second, people kept ignoring the red light and opening the windows anyway--which required a little intervention and training.

Since I am writing an article about the emerging interest in occupant engagement and its relationship to design, I found these stories quite fascinating. (Watch for that in Environmental Building News next month! I'm getting a lot of great info from the people who are blazing this trail.)

Our founder and executive editor, Alex Wilson, has taken a break from his sabbatical to be at Greenbuild this week, and he took some great photos during the tour. I'll just use the rest of the space to share his shots with you, along with my own explanations (as best I can remember). Enjoy!

Next time you go through Syracuse, I highly recommend a visit.

In these booths (which can include privacy curtains if needed), test subjects undergo medical screening to establish a baseline for comparison in differing indoor environments. Photo: Alex Wilson

Workstation test beds can be fully individualized with sophisticated controls. The fixture on a stalk behind the computer monitor is not a light but a ventilation fan delivering conditioned air. Photo: Alex Wilson

In the mechanical room beneath the workstation test bed you can see the individual air filtration devices. Photo: Alex Wilson

The green roof runoff will be tested to help determine impacts from the materials. Photo: Alex Wilson

The biofuel lab includes windows that will blow outward in case of an explosion. Photo: Alex Wilson

Greenbuild Toronto: We're There Yet!

Paula Melton — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:55:00 GMT

We were worried about finding the convention center, given a distinct lack of street signs, but it turns out you really can't miss it. Well, it was a long drive--with a special stop at a test bed facility in Syracuse that I'm going t...

Girl Eats Bug: The Case for Entomophagy (Insect-Eating) and Sustainability

Tristan Roberts — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 23:41:00 GMT

The Large Blue Butterfly, found in Europe, lays its eggs on a marsh gentian leaf. Its larva (a caterpillar) hatches and falls to the ground and emits a scent that smells to certain species of ant just like its own larvae. The ants carry the caterpi... I had the chance this week to talk with Daniella Martin, host of the website GirlMeetsBug.com, and a leading teacher and promoter of the topic. Although it's difficult to know for sure, Daniella quotes a common estimate that 80% of the world practices insect-eating--and as a delicacy, not just "famine food." Why, I asked her, are Americans so squeamish about something that is so commonly accepted elsewhere?

"Every culture has its identity," she told me. "For Muslims, not eating pork is part of their identity--for Hindus, not eating beef. For most Americans, by the time we are 9 or 10 years old we don't even remember where we got the idea that bugs are gross. It's simply part of our cultural identity to not eat bugs."

Did we evolve to eat bugs?

Daniella is convinced that this "cultural thing" goes against our nature: insects are "a deeply native food." She asked, "If you think of primates using their first tools, what do you think of?" I thought of of chimps using sticks to get termites out of their nests, and then devour them. Daniella describes herself as someone with food issues--lactose-intolerant, allergic to alcohol, but she has never had a problem eating insects. "It feels from an organic level that we are biologically evolved to eat bugs," she says.

If you don't feel that you were evolved to dip into some grubs, there are some other reasons why you might consider it.

Nutritional value: off the charts

Our main animal protein sources are pigs, chickens, cows and fish, with each animal and cut of meat providing a unique nutritional profile. According to Daniella, the same is true in the insect world. The flavors vary incredibly from red ants to silk worm pupae to crickets to grasshoppers, and so does nutritional value.

Per 100 grams of lean beef, you can get 27.4 grams of protein and 3.5 mg of iron. The same quantity of caterpillars would give you 28.2 grams of protein and 35.5 mg of iron, with little fat. Crickets offer 12.9 grams of protein, 5.5 grams of fat, 5.1 grams of carbs, and an incredible 75.8 mg of calcium. As you can see, it's not just about protein, as people commonly think.

According to Martin, athletes and body builders who eat "scientifically" are very predisposed to insects, because of the variety of nutritional value offered, and the fact that it's packaged as a whole food, not just an isolated supplement.

Efficiency at converting feed to food

Insects are much more efficient than other forms of livestock at converting food and water into edible body mass. Says Daniella, "Many commonly farmed insect species require several times less food, 100 times less land space, and 1,000 times less water than beef to create the same amount of food." While cows spend a lot of their energy just staying warm, insects are ectotherms, or cold-blooded creatures. Insects contribute far fewer greenhouse gases like methane to the atmosphere than livestock do, and don't require deforestation or other development. Cattle-farming, by contrast, is the cause of 70% of deforestation, according to common figures, and is a larger contributor to global warming than driving cars.

Bugs require so little space that an insect farm can be started in a closet or an old 55-gallon drum, and insects can be raised on food that people throw away: leaves, food scraps, and bran, for example.

While our common livestock are stressed out and made sick by factory-farming conditions, insects are accustomed to being raised in tight quarters, and can be farmed in great density without apparent stress. As ectotherms, they are killed by cold temperatures. Daniella puts insects she farms or traps into a jar in the freezer, (saying a brief prayer, she notes), killing them. They then come out of the freezer and into the frying pan, oven, or wok.

I stopped by the local outdoor outfitters today for a butterfly net--they didn't have one, but they did sell me a finely meshed fishing net. While she's visiting us, Daniella is hoping to use it to catch some local grasshoppers or crickets, which she says you can treat pretty much like shrimp. I am hoping to get over the "ew" factor. How about you?

Update: I got over it. Sauteed, local grasshoppers are great! And waxmoth larvae make a great snack.

Tristan Roberts is Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, Inc., in Brattleboro, Vermont, which publishes information on green building solutions.

Images: Daniella Martin

GreenSpec Goes to Greenbuild Toronto

Brent Ehrlich — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 02:06:00 GMT

Come visit BuildingGreen and GreenSpec at booth 434 in the North expo hall. Click the image to download a full expo floor map (north) with all the greenest products marked. I look forward to Greenbuild every year--especially thi...

A map of the South expo floor where you can find HBN and Pharos at booth 5042. Click the image to download a full expo floor map (south) with all the greenest products marked.

For those unfamiliar with GreenSpec, our editorial team searches out the top green building products on the market. We are an independent, subscription-based service that doesn't accept advertising, so we're untainted by manufacturer influences. As products editor at BuildingGreen and GreenSpec, I'm used to wandering the aisles on the Greenbuild expo floor looking for new products, but it too can be overwhelming, so every year we sort through the exhibitors and find those manufacturers already in GreenSpec (and by "we" I mean our own Martin Solomon).

This year, Martin also tracked down those listed in the Healthy Building Network's (HBN) Pharos http://www.pharosproject.net product library. These manufacturers can be seen highlighted on the maps here (click the map images to download PDFs of both the North and South expo floors): GreenSpec-listed manufacturers are highlighted in light green, and Pharos with a "P."

As you can see by the maps, not every exhibitor is in GreenSpec. Some of these manufacturers might offer fine products that just don't meet our high standards, but I hope to find some brand new, undiscovered game changers. This is why the expo floor at Greenbuild is particularly valuable: we get to see the products up close and talk with the manufacturers.

There's something else new this year: the team has been working hard on a new GreenSpec with expanded portfolio and search capabilities and other exciting features. Please stop by and visit BuildingGreen at 434 North to try out these new features. Meanwhile, current subscribers can access our product listings here.

Please stop by and visit BuildingGreen at 434 North or HBN at 5042 South, and I hope to see you on the expo floor!

Brent Ehrlich is the products editor at BuildingGreen, Inc.

Public Lukewarm About the Smart Grid, Despite Benefits

Tristan Roberts — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 20:00:00 GMT

I had the honor of being within a few feet of a barn owl this weekend at the wildlife festival at the Southern Vermont Natural History Museum. Kept alive after being injured years ago and now a frequent visitor to classrooms and museums, this bird ...

Demand response and the smart grid

Or let's say you were the utility, and on a hot summer day when everyone's air-conditioners were cranking up, you'd like to be able to crank something else down--like say, everyone's washing machines--to smooth out demand. Doing so might help you meet demand with more efficient "baseload" power plants, keeping generally less-efficient "peaking power plants" offline.

In these cases you might want to have a "smart grid." The "grid" part of the equation is the network that conveys electricity from plants to consumers. It includes power lines, substations, transformers, and switches. Just like a "smart" phone opens up a world of applications that come from adding a computer to your phone, the "smart" part of the grid means computerizing the electric utility grid.

Appliances and other potential innnovations

All the meters, voltage sensors, fault detectors, and more, are enabled with digital sensors and two-way digital communication. The central utility can "listen" to the devices and adjust and control them from a central location.

One potential smart-grid innovation is for appliances within homes to be embedded with devices that would allow them to receive signals from the utility telling them when rates are favorable for turning themselves on or performing energy-intensive functions, like automatic defrosting on a refrigerator. General Electric is putting this technology into refrigerators, ranges, clothes washers and dryers, dishwashers, and microwave ovens. (It says that customers will be able to override the automatic functioning.) One study in Washington State showed that consumers, armed with devices informing them of favorable times to use energy-intensive appliances, saved money.

Public distrust of utilities and smart meters

Widespread deployment of smart grid technologies may be a ways off, however. As Alan Meier wrote earlier this year in Home Energy magazine (My Friend the Smart Meter), utilities, regulators, and governments have done a terrible job in deploying smart meters. Weak public relations and policy efforts have left a vacuum of public opinion, which has gradually filled with distrust.

Chart: Some critics have raised concerns about radio frequency (RF) emissions from smart meters. As shown in this chart, risk of exposure is very low compared with the risk of RF exposure associated with other common devices. RF exposure from cell phone use, for example, is many orders of magnitude higher--in part because the device is used right next to the head. Source: EPRI

As Meier wrote, "The balance of benefits from smart meters overwhelmingly favors the utility. Among other features, smart meters permit time-of-use pricing. This is a sensible idea, and if consumers carefully limit their electricity demand--yet another complex technical concept to understand and manage--they will get lower bills. But without simple in-home devices and controls, a great many customers will enjoy few or no financial benefits, no matter how hard they try to manage demand. Then, to add insult to injury, privacy restrictions won't even give customers ownership of their consumption data. Right now, some customers can't even access their data." (See Maryland for an example of a failure to get the public on board due to concerns about pricing.)

Are wireless devices a health hazard?

Furthermore, some people have been freaking out about the radio waves generated by smart meters, which use wireless technology to transmit data to utilities. As power and gas companies have begun installing them, some customers have protested (with a few reporting the onset of mysterious illnesses after installation), and some studies have claimed that radio frequency exposure might exceed U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) limits.

Although the objectivity of this study is challenged by smart meter opponents, one industry investigation, using empirical data from two areas in California, found that the exposure risk from smart meters is much lower than that associated with many common household items that people use frequently and keep much closer to their bodies, like cell phones and microwave ovens.

Tristan Roberts is Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, Inc., in Brattleboro, Vermont, which publishes information on green building solutions.

Green Building Laws: Are We LEEDing Legislators Down the Garden Path?

Paula Melton — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:56:00 GMT

Green building is about more than saving money, but policymakers are embracing the business case for LEED and other rating systems--with sometimes confusing results. A school bike rack is standard, but it doesn't help anyone if the bike r...

"The whole standard ends when the design is over," points out Mark Frankel, technical director of the New Buildings Institute. LEED and Washington's own similar programs offer "the potential for better operation"--but how the building is operated and occupied is beyond the designers' control. "There is this wide misconception that you can design to LEED standards and everything will be OK," Frankel continued. "LEED is not a code. It leaves a lot of room for misunderstanding for jurisdictions to use it as a code."

The report estimates that these buildings cost 1%–3% more, and legislators want to know when they'll get their money back: that's why they commissioned the report. LEED, though, is not just about saving energy, water, or money. Depending on the choices the client makes, it can also be about protecting people from carcinogens, supporting the local economy, providing habitat for wildlife, and many other public goods. Like bike racks.

Measuring ROI means tracking energy

While we can certainly look at such choices and see how they improve quality of life and might even save a community or a state money in the long run, we don't get a monthly gas bill letting us know that Little Johnny won't get lung cancer when he's 62 or that our bioswales will help prevent a disastrous flood in 2045.

No, it's probably not fair to mandate a whole-building design standard and then measure its cost-effectiveness by looking at nothing but utility bills. But the green building community has put a lot of effort into making the business case for sustainable building practices. Can we back up our claims with actual performance outcomes or not? Now that policymakers are paying attention and want to calculate their ROI, we have to stick with results we can measure in the short term.

And then we have to measure them. Apparently, building owners in Washington aren't any better at this than anyone else in the country, despite the legal requirement that they do so. While the report pushed some people's political buttons by showing mixed energy results from buildings that actually had data--along with a more promising trend showing better results after the first year of operation--its main finding was uncomplicated and apolitical: there's not enough information. Most people either didn't have a way to collect it, didn't know how to use the equipment designed to collect it, or didn't dedicate staff time to collecting it.

Better performance requires better operation

"Our recommendations were focused on improving data collection," said Keenan Konopaski, legislative auditor for Washington's nonpartisan Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC), which conducted the study. Such a recommendation is a tricky business in the current legislative environment, since state agencies "need to improve how they are collecting data" (which means dedicating labor hours to the task) while "they are also reducing budgets."

That's a bit of a Catch-22, though, since energy managers usually end up paying their own salaries. As the report shows, the building managers who could boast the most impressive energy savings were practicing resource conservation management in all their buildings--not just the new ones--and achieving Energy Star across the board, even in historic buildings.

While designers cannot have direct involvement in resource conservation management, the green building community as a whole could certainly do a better job of acknowledging that good energy performance comes from good building management--not just high-performance gadgets.

The latest trend: mandated energy disclosure

Frankel thinks we may need to face the music sooner rather than later. "Things are changing really fast now with disclosure ordinances," he said. "People are not going to be able to run away from that data anymore."

What do you think? Have green building advocates oversold the economic advantages of sustainable design? And can people working on the design side do anything to ensure that building operators and occupants do their part to save energy? Should energy and water tracking just be a standard part of every green rating system? We welcome your comments below.

A Rare Peek Behind the Scenes at GE's LED Research Complex

Brent Ehrlich — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:25:00 GMT

GE's 9-watt Energy Smart LED bulb is the first Energy Star-rated replacement for 40-watt incandescent bulbs and provides an omnidirectional light that is similar to incandescents. Photo: GE Lighting I recently visited GE's Nela Pa...

Changing perceptions

In general, GE has not been associated with cutting-edge LED performance, but that perception might be changing. When I looked into modular LED lighting last year, for instance, the GE Infusion module was the only unit with adjustable wattage, but the overall performance was not spectacular and the switch seemed like a bit of a gimmick. Manufacturers like Xicato, on the other hand, were creating some of the best LED modules available. In the year since the article was published, GE has completely redesigned its module. The adjustable wattage is gone and in its place are a number of models to fit various needs, including one module with an impressive color-rendering index (CRI) of 90.

Playing to its strengths

The Infusion module is a good example of how quickly the LED industry is changing and of GE's philosophy going forward. Unlike some LED companies, that control the entire production process from the diode through fixture, GE said it doesn't need to manufacture the individual LEDs. Though it still makes them, it is also purchasing LEDs from Cree for use in its bulbs and luminaires.
Taking into account the current performance limitations and high cost of LEDs, Steve Briggs, vice president of marketing and global product management at GE Lighting Solutions, said that people have to understand where using LEDs makes sense and where it doesn't. According to Briggs, GE's current LED portfolio is 94% commercial/professional products, including signage and street lights that benefit from LED's cold-weather performance and where the cold-white color that is disliked in most interior applications is an asset, providing energy-efficiency and good visibility as an alternative to the yellow glow of low-pressure sodium fixtures.

Edge Light technology has the potential to replace standard fluorescent tubes while also providing unique design options. Unlit the panel in this fixture is transparent. Photo: GE Lighting

When lit, this Edge Light fixture provides an even, dimmable, diffuse light with a CRI of 80. Photo: GE Lighting Photo: GE Lighting

Building on its roots?

GE invented the mass-produced light bulb and is not abandoning its residential roots in the LED market. The company is actively pursuing LED incandescent replacement bulbs. Companies like Cree and Phillips have garnered a lot of attention for their bulbs: Cree for pushing the lumens per watt of LEDs, and Phillips for its L Prize-winning 10-watt EnduraLED. GE has somewhat quietly gained some notoriety itself. It offered the first Energy Star-rated 40-watt equivalent A bulb on the market, the 9-watt, 3000K Energy Smart bulb, that has an omnidirectional light. (The company now makes a 13-watt version as well and a full line is in the works for 2012). Why is this innovative? LED lighting typically shines in one direction. If that LED is a lightbulb, then the light shines up onto the ceiling and not on the book you are trying to read or article you're trying to type. That is a problem. The Energy Smart bulb provides lighting similar to incandescent and is designed to look as much like a conventional bulb as possible.
It is even white when off, unlike the EnduraLED bulb, whose phosphors give it a yellow appearance when off, similar to a bug light. The majority of the Energy Smart parts, cooling fins, and optics, are interchangeable at the factory level, so the company does not have to "reinvent the lightbulb" for each wattage bulb it produces. This should help bring down the cost, because at the current $50 suggested retail ($29 in some stores), the price will have to come down for it to become a viable incandescent replacement.

Cutting-edge lighting

I began this post with some history, so maybe it's fitting I end it looking toward the future. One of the most interesting lighting fixtures I saw at GE was the company's Edge Lighting. While many companies are cramming LEDs into tubes to create fluorescent T-8 and T-5 replacements, Edge Lighting contains LEDs built around the edge of a ceiling (or potentially wall) fixture, so when turned on the LEDs can either produce a diffuse 80-CRI light across the entire panel or the light can be focused onto a particular area. The fixtures are going to be first available as square troffers in 2011, but the technology can be built into almost any shape to open up design options. They are instant-on, fully dimmable, and easily integrated into building controls. I expect to see a lot more Edge Lighting in the coming years.

Water and Global Warming: Is It Too Wet to Fix It?

Paula Melton — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:39:00 GMT

Watching our sweet little brook turn into a raging river during Hurricane Irene was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. An NRDC report tries to re-create this experience for others--before it's too late. Not in your back ya...

How wrong we were. During Hurricane Irene, the water was within a foot of our basement door, and I was packing the toothbrushes in anticipation of being evacuated. "Did you think it would be this high?" I shakily asked my husband. "Yes, but I didn't think it would be this scary," he replied.

That's when the rain slowed and the water level started to go down, but the adrenaline is taking a lot longer to recede. We've had lots of sunny days since the storm, and I feel better. But rain, which I have always found soothing, now makes me anxious.

'No one is immune to climate change'

I'm not the only one who's been watching the weather with slowly creeping panic. From blizzards to tropical storms to the wildfires in Texas, this has been one of the craziest and most expensive years our country has ever seen, weather-wise. This is exactly the kind of extreme weather climate scientists have been warning us about for twenty years or more. Maybe we knew it would be this bad, but we probably didn't expect it to be this scary. Not in our own back yards, anyway.

A report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) attempts to show people just how close to their homes catastrophic climate change is likely to get. "What we found was that there was really no area or region that was immune to effects from climate change," said Michelle Mehta, a lead author of the report, which is called "Thirsty for Answers: Preparing for the Water-Related Impacts of Climate Change in American Cities." Her hope is that the study, which includes maps showing huge new swaths of flood-prone areas in city streets and other compelling imagery, will "crystallize" the information for the general public. If people look and say, "I know these streets, I know that beach," she said, "it makes the issue real."

I wrote about the report well before Hurricane Irene started creeping up the East Coast, and it was already giving me nightmares. Then the nightmares started coming true.

On the brighter side, though, places like New York City are already on the job. Although Irene missed them this time, the next hurricane could easily make landfall there. The dense, aging infrastructure of everything from roads and subways to sewer and water treatment systems--much of it far below sea level--makes the city incredibly prone to water-related disasters. And the densely packed population there would be like the proverbial fish in a barrel.

Is it wrong to prepare for the worst?

Anyone who felt like criticizing Mayor Bloomberg for (unnecessarily, as it turned out) evacuating the most vulnerable people before Irene arrived would likely have felt differently if they'd read this NRDC report. I don't know for sure, but I suspect these evacuations must have stemmed at least in part from the city's relatively higher awareness of its increasing vulnerability to floods and rising sea levels.

Other cities are not so aware, and that's one of the things NRDC wanted to highlight too. Many, like St. Louis, haven't even started looking into the problem--let alone changed development plans or made infrastructure changes. Yet that city, like many others, will likely face increased precipitation, worse storms, and increased flooding.

Others, including Miami and Los Angeles, will likely have less precipitation but will need to simultaneously address rising sea levels--a combination that could severely compromise their drinking water supplies, as less rain falls and more salt water creeps into water treatment infrastructure. "Local planning is key," says the report.

As good as any man's house

How can cities afford to put resources into studies, planning, and infrastructure upgrades when they're already having trouble paying for basic services? On the other hand, how can they afford not to?

One of my favorite songs is an old Appalachian folk ditty called "Arkansas Traveler." It encapsulates some of the deepest wisdom about human nature I've heard. My favorite incarnation of the song is a straight man/funny man routine performed by Michelle Shocked. After some banter about whether the supposedly ignorant old farmer has lived there all his life ("Not yet!") and how deep the mud hole is ("Only comes up to here on my ducks..."), the traveler asks, "Hey, farmer. When you gonna fix that leakin' roof?" The farmer answers, "When it's rainin' it's too wet to fix it, and when it's dry it's just as good as any man's house."

We all fall into this trap. While a crisis is happening, all our energy and money go into just getting by: bailing the basement, fighting the next fire, rebuilding bridges and roads. After we're done with that, well, it's as good as any man's house again!

But this planet is our only house. NRDC's report has a very clear message: it's time all of us, in every city of the U.S., got around to fixing our roofs.

Greenbuild Toronto: A Preview

Paula Melton — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:14:00 GMT

I've got my passport, my schedule, and a map of the expo floor. Just need to grab my coffee mug and my running shoes. Peter Yost, residential program manager (read: building science genius) at BuildingGreen, will be moderating the ...

If you can't make it to Alex's talk, you might want to see our other fearless leader, Nadav Malin, in the same time slot (session #SU05) giving a presentation on Top LEED Tips from LEEDuser Experts and Forums--alongside some of those very experts: Mara Baum from HOK, Jenny Carney from YRG, and Marcus Sheffer from 7group. They'll be highlighting some of the hottest topics and helping members of the audience with whatever LEED questions are on their minds that day. Hey, maybe this would make a good reality TV show....

At the booth

If you're LEEDuser-curious but haven't tried it yet, I encourage you to head over to our booth (#434N) and get some hands-on experience with this amazing tool, a project certification roadmap that offers not only expert guidance (see above) but also checklists, documentation toolkits, and those amazing forums where you get real-time answers to questions from peers who've struggled with some of the same sticky problems. Several BuildingGreen staff members who work with LEEDuser every day will be on hand to answer questions too--whether you're just starting your first LEED project or you're in the thick of your tenth one and want to ask about a specific credit.

Whether you already use GreenSpec or not, you'll definitely want to stop by and check out the exciting changes the GreenSpec team has been rolling out over the past few months--including a brand new look and enhanced search, forum, and portfolio features that make it that much easier to find the top green products for any project you might be working on right now. Product experts will be on hand from our own staff as well as from Healthy Building Network, creator of Pharos, which shows you what's really in building products and which alternatives are healthiest. Watch this space--and our Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter feeds--for more on exciting upgrades to both GreenSpec and Pharos soon.

Are there any sustainable materials?

Speaking of product experts, our research director Jennifer Atlee (also my wonderful office mate, which for some reason doesn't show up on her resumé) will be co-presenting on Thursday at 4:00 on the topic "Are There Any Sustainable Materials?" (session #PL01). Jennifer has been tight-lipped on the answer to that question, but I have overheard a few conversations with her co-presenters, and they seem to be having way too much fun for the answer to be "no." I wish I could go!

There are a lot of other sessions I'm looking forward to. I'm attending at least two about LEED 2012 and another I'm really excited about on active design guidelines. A couple others focus on one of my pet topics: how to ensure energy goals are met after we mere mortals actually start using a building.

I'm also really excited to learn more about USGBC's Project Haiti, which will apparently be a big focus this year. I just spoke to Roger Limoges at USGBC, and he said HOK would be unveiling the plans for the new orphange, and would have a whole booth dedicated to it. This is a really moving project that we'll be following closely over the next two years.

Lifelong learning

Meanwhile, we'll be filling out the details of our Greenbuild preview in the next few days and also keeping you up to the minute with blog posts, tweets, and Facebook updates while we're there.

I hope you'll be able to stop by our booth and visit in person, though. Our folks really know their stuff, and are so warm and welcoming too. While we will be sharing our resources with you, it's very low-key and--perhaps more importantly--it's all about you and your needs. It can provide a very nice respite from the rest of the expo floor.

We'll be answering lots of questions and being as helpful as we can, but we'll also be listening carefully when you come by, trying to make sure we know what your needs and struggles are, what topics interest you most right now, and how we can provide you the resources you need to continue doing all your good work after Greenbuild is all over.

Until then, watch here for more updates. You might also want to keep tabs on the official Countdown to Greenbuild blog. And don't forget to check out Lloyd Alter's Picks for Greenbuild in handy map form! Also check out his helpful, poignant, and just plain fun Buildup to Greenbuild series over on Treehugger.

See you in Toronto!

Net-Zero Energy Families Show How It's Done

Tristan Roberts — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:07:00 GMT

Shifting from coal to natural gas would have limited impacts on climate, new research indicates. If methane leaks from natural gas operations could be kept to 2.5% or less, the increase in global temperatures would be reduced by about... The situation is further complicated by uncertainty over the amount of methane that leaks from natural gas operations. Methane is an especially potent greenhouse gas.

Simulations: climate change to accelerate

Wigley's computer simulations indicate that a worldwide, partial shift from coal to natural gas would slightly accelerate climate change through at least 2050, even if no methane leaked from natural gas operations, and through as late as 2140 if there were substantial leaks. After that, the greater reliance on natural gas would begin to slow down the increase in global average temperature, but only by a few tenths of a degree.

"Relying more on natural gas would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, but it would do little to help solve the climate problem," says Wigley, who is also an adjunct professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia. "It would be many decades before it would slow down global warming at all, and even then it would just be making a difference around the edges."

Eight net-zero-ready homes, eight families

In the category of changes that actually make a difference, eight families on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts recently were able to demonstrate how important energy conservation is in reducing our need for carbon.

As reported in the Environmental Building News article Want a Net-Zero Home? Be a Net-Zero Family, the families moved into nearly identical, superinsulated homes last June. South Mountain Company designed and built the LEED Platinum homes for the Island Housing Trust with the goal of allowing the residents to operate them at net-zero energy, using the 5 kW photovoltaic arrays on the roofs for power. In case the energy cost savings didn't provide enough incentive, South Mountain offered a reward to any household that came in at net-zero energy for the first year. Two families achieved this goal, and won their choice of a $400 dollar gift certificate at a local fish market or a one-year membership at the local CSA.

Submetering of major energy systems

Each of the eight houses in the Eliakim's Way project on Martha's Vineyard sports a 5 kW PV array, which provides most or all of the home's energy. Credit: Derrill Bazzy

South Mountain installed equipment to allow submetering of all the major energy systems in the homes, providing an unprecedented window into exactly how the families use energy. A report by South Mountain engineer Marc Rosenbaum highlights key insights from this experiment--among them the importance of collecting data monthly.

Though variations from the estimated energy use will be greater on a monthly basis than on an annual basis, it allows users to catch meaningful anomalies more quickly. In the case of one family, the data helped reveal that a child had turned off an exterior AC disconnect from the PV system during the first month, allowing that family to generate only 279 kWh instead of the 630 kWh that the other seven homes averaged.

Two families operate at net-zero or below

In a testament to the efficient construction, water-heating energy exceeded space-heating energy in all but one of the homes. Rosenbaum suggests that a good further investment would be for solar hot water or heat-pump water heaters. The submetering also showed that the biggest loads were the two uses of electric resistance heat: the radiant ceiling panels and the water heaters.

In the end, two families were able to operate below net-zero energy, while two others were close. On the other end of the spectrum, one family used a measured 11,635 kWh in one year, nearly twice the 6,873 kWh provided by the solar panels. In all cases, lights and plug loads accounted for about half of total energy use. With that in mind, the report quotes energy consultant Andy Shapiro: "There are no zero-energy houses, only zero-energy families."

Tristan Roberts is Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, Inc., in Brattleboro, Vermont, which publishes information on green building solutions.

Affordable Thermostat Retrofits: Analog to Digital in 30 Minutes

Brent Ehrlich — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:39:00 GMT

This Cypress Envirosystems' Wireless Pneumatic Thermostat replaced the old thermostat (lower left) allowing remote control and monitoring of building temperatures at a fraction of the cost of direct digital controls. Photo: Cypress Envi...

Installing a digital retrofit is not so easy

Unfortunately, retrofitting old buildings with new wiring and ceiling-mounted equipment is disruptive, often requiring the work area be closed down (which can also be expensive!). Workers need to access walls and ceilings, and the labor required is significant, particularly in old buildings that might still contain asbestos. Cypress Envirosystems' WPT system, on the other hand, requires almost no invasive work. Installers, certified by the company, take the old thermostat off the wall and remove the air pipes, reattach the pipes to the new thermostat, and attach it to the wall. Next, they set up the wireless network, and the system is up and running. It takes about half an hour.

Demand-response capable

WPTs communicate back to a central box that can be hooked into any building automation control (BAC)--a Web interface is used if the building has no BAC--and provides a platform that can monitor zones and control chillers, making it possible to systematically manage building temperatures. This is a valuable tool that keeps occupants comfortable and allows commercial buildings to participate in demand-response programs (where utilities are linked to a building's HVAC controls to lower energy use during periods of peak demand when electricity is expensive and often created with more polluting equipment). Commercial buildings account for 50% of peak-demand power consumption, but only about 4% of commercial buildings participate in demand response, said Roberts.

Old pneumatic thermostats like the one shown here have to be adjusted manually yet are still used in the majority of commercial buildings. Photo: Cypress Envirosystems

Does it work?

WPTs have been installed in a number of high-profile buildings, including the Capitol Hill Government Offices in Washington. The somewhat less powerful county of Santa Clara installed the WPT in 300,000-square feet of its government buildings and showed a 7% reduction (227,327 kilowatt hours) in electrical consumption over seven months and an estimated annual savings of $42,000 in equipment and electricity. Walt Dubois, P.E., facilities manager at the 550-bed St. Joseph Hospital in Phoenix, has installed more than 60 of the thermostats in patient rooms and is impressed by the technology. He said he has diagnosed stuck dampers and other problems from home, and has been able to schedule repairs when the patient was out of the room. "We cannot just lift ceiling tiles in patient rooms," he said. "There are issues with infection controls and risk assessment." In over a year's worth of use, he notes, not a single WPT has failed.

The best part: cost

Dubois installed pure direct digital controls in the hospital prior to 2008 at around $2000¬–$3000 per thermostat, but after 2008 he no longer had the budget. At around $400 each (Cypress Envirosystems says the current price is in the $500–$600 range, including labor and wireless set up) WPTs were inexpensive enough that he was able to pay for them as a standard operating expense.

What are the tradeoffs?

You won't get quite as much data and performance from WPTs. "Pure digital systems with digital motors at the damper will give you better granular data," Roberts admits. And you will have to change the batteries every few years (the dashboard will give you a warning). Direct digital controls "are the Cadillac and we are the Chevy, but we think we are getting 90% of the benefit at 20% of the cost," he said. Cypress Envirosystems estimates a payback of less than two years on the WPT and all of its other products, which include wireless steam-trap monitors, gauge readers, and transducer readers.

Brent Ehrlich is the products editor at BuildingGreen, Inc.

Utility Wind Energy: Worth the Environmental Impacts?

Tristan Roberts — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 16:42:00 GMT

Correction: The author has posted a comment (see below) clarifying the likely width of the ridgeline road associated with this project. One of my favorite pieces of Vermont trivia has been that the tallest manmade structure in the state is the Ben... Not so. The road you have to build to get the turbine there, and building infrastructure like transmission lines, has a huge effect. "There is a huge difference between planting a turbine in a cornfield next to a residence, versus putting a turbine on a ridgeline where there are no roads and no transmission lines, which is the case with most of Vermont's ridgelines," says Wright.

According to Wright, who quoted permitting documents to give me these figures, the Lowell project will require an access road of between 190 and 215 feet in width along four miles of ridgeline. Then, at each turbine, an additional 190 feet must be cleared in a circle for the crane to be able to turn around it and do its work.

An Interstate highway on a mountain ridgeline

Given the density at which the turbines are being placed, this amounts to 400 feet of road running almost continuously across what is now an untouched ridgeline. Like any highway, this one will require extensive blasting and flattening to provide the required access.

For comparison, one lane of I-91 is 12 feet wide, meaning that 33 lanes would fit into this "access road." That doesn't include additional access roads and clearing performed for transmission lines.

According to Wright, there are basically three permitting bodies that a project like the one in Lowell has to go through: the Public Service Board, the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR), and the federal government, in the form of the Army Corps of Engineers. The Lowell project has cleared the first two hurdles.

Can our stormwater systems handle the runoff?

Having just been through Hurricane Irene, and the massive and destructive flooding that it brought to Vermont, I am acutely aware of the natural flow of water through our mountainous landscapes, and how water can build and lead to flooding, erosion, and sedimentation patterns that would be difficult to imagine in drier times. Much of the reaction after the flooding has focused on lost homes and destroyed highways, but fish and wildlife are adversely affected when streams, pools, and other waterways fill up with silt and when riparian habitat is washed away.

I asked Wright how building four miles of Interstate highway on top of a ridgeline--a rocky environment exposed to plenty of rain, and upstream of hundreds of square miles of streams, pools, culverts, bridges, and roads--could be deemed safe by ANR with respect to flooding risk.

Dueling experts disagree

Wright depicted the permitting process as involving "Two sets of dueling experts who come together and see who has the most people standing, once they have tried to cut each other into pieces." The result? "We felt that we proved that the engineering design was unworkable and then we reinforced that with the opinion of a disinterested third party, but even then the ANR rejected our findings and approved the project."

To be clear, Wright noted that neither he nor the towns that he is working with, Craftsbury and Albany, are opposed to the Lowell project. "We never said that we don't want the development. We have said that you had better take care of our interests and concerns."

For its part, GMP's FAQ section on its website emphasizes on the wind project's website that the project has passed the required environmental impact review:

What environmental impacts will result from the installation of Kingdom Community Wind?

The project's developers, state and federal environmental experts and regulators have closely studied the potential impacts of the project. All necessary environmental permits must be received and complied with, as well as additional conditions placed on KCW as a result of its certificate of public good (CPG) issued by the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB). With those requirements, including mitigation plans for known impacts, the regulators have determined that KCW poses no undue adverse impacts to the environment.

I don't think they answered the question--do you? The question that was asked as about "impacts." The question that was answered was about "undue adverse impacts" as defined narrowly by lawyers.

Black bears need beechnuts

What about the interests of other Vermonters--black bears, among them? "Loss of wildlife habitat" is so abstract--but Wright explained to me exactly what that means.

Right about now, in early fall as black bears are getting ready for hibernation, beech stands at high elevations are an important source for protein. Although they are still in a a milky, unhardened state, beechnuts are forming now in abundant clusters in healthy, high-quality stands. Bears climb the trees, often quite a ways up, gather up clusters of nuts in "brooms" and chew them down.

The developer in Lowell plans to destroy 22 acres of "high quality" American beech growth for the access road up from Route 100. ANR approved a deal in which they preserved about 500 acres of land in a different location, but according to Wright, this land contains much lower-quality beech forest.

Learning everything I've shared with you here has been enough to give me serious pause in considering wind development. Is it hypocritical for environmentalists to oppose wind? We do need clean energy, right? Exploring that issue will require another column, however. In the meantime, send your comments and questions on monuments, ridgelines, bears, beeches, and anything else from today.

Top image: A photo simulation of Kingdom Community Wind in Lowell, Vermont. Green Mountain Power

Lower image: Construction of the First Wind project in Sheffield, Vermont. Click for credit info and more photos

Tristan Roberts is Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, Inc., in Brattleboro, Vermont, which publishes information on green building solutions.

Is Your Lunch Trashing the Planet? Top Three Ways to Deal with Food Waste

Paula Melton — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 19:23:00 GMT

We waste almost as much food in the U.S. every day as we should be eating--about 1,400 calories per person. Wasting less is best, but if we really can't eat it, where should we put it? Lunches like these are typical in American sch...

Food waste and global warming

It still is wrong, but we have ever more urgent and tangible reasons for paying attention.

First are the immense resources that go into producing our food--most notably, petroleum and water. While you might be able to justify gaining sustenance from the most resource-intensive foods (beef, for example, is notorious), you are needlessly throwing out oil and clean water with every unwanted morsel.

Also, most wasted food goes to landfills, where it contributes to global warming by producing tons and tons of methane. Even if people wasted less--something we should obviously try to do in our own kitchens by buying less food and perhaps owning smaller refrigerators--there would still be apple cores, potato peelings, chicken skins, coffee grounds, and many other unwanted parts thrown in the trash from millions of homes every day.

Food waste isn't going away. What, then, should we do with it?

Food down the drain?

A new study finds several environmentally preferable alternatives to sending our food to landfills. The best ones involve treating our wasted food as an asset rather than a liability. Luckily, this is an attitude shift that people can make fairly readily--at least when compared with the idea of reusing human waste, a possibility people find much harder to face. The trick is to implement this attitude shift at the municipal level.

The life-cycle analysis was commissioned by InSinkErator and conducted by independent research group PE International. While the manufacturer has touted the analysis as proof that processing food waste in a kitchen garbage disposal system is environmentally preferable, the results were actually much more complicated: if you don't know the gruesome details of how your municipality deals with your wastewater sludge and its biogases, you can't truly assess how green your garbage disposal is.

In my back yard, please!

In fact, while the scenarios studied covered a wide spectrum of environmental impacts, only one wastewater treatment scenario stands out as a truly sustainable option. Here's a rundown of the top three ways of dealing with food waste, according to the life-cycle analysis:

Municipal compost--Composting is the real winner in this life-cycle analysis. Industrial "advanced" composting is becoming more popular in municipalities around the U.S. and Canada, and this study's results suggest they need to become more common. In most such systems, the pile is covered and aerated to create high-heat aerobic digestion, and emissions are captured. The resulting compost is used as fertilizer and releases a small amount of CO2, giving this method the second-smallest global warming potential of all methods studied, (2.1 kg of CO2 equivalent per household per year).
Waste-to-energy--In this scenario, solid waste is separated into landfill trash and food waste. The food waste is burned to run steam generators to make electricity, giving this method a comparably small carbon footprint (3.6 kg of CO2 equivalent per household per year).
Wastewater treatment--Most wastewater treatment methods use a lot of energy, and only a few do anything to offset the global warming potential of this energy. The method with the most promise uses anaerobic digestion, capturing the methane for heat-and-power cogeneration and using the spent biosolids as fertilizer. This method has negative global warming potential. Other wastewater treatment methods had much higher carbon footprints than composting and waste-to-energy.

Sink over garbage can

All that said, if your only two options are washing the food down the drain or filling the landfill with it, your choice is fairly clear, according to this study: go with the garbage disposal. Even though processing all that wastewater takes way more energy than just trucking and dumping your food scraps, the global warming potential (GWP) of any method of wastewater treatment is dramatically lower than that of the landfill.

What about the water?

You might wonder, as I did, about the constant running of water while the food is getting ground up in the drain. Oddly, the study only gives cursory treatment to water use, estimating a slight increase in usage per household but not considering that as an environmental impact. When I asked an InSinkErator spokeswoman why that was, she replied that the water use was negligible and pointed me to a couple of studies on the topic. Another industry expert told me that it's very difficult to find controls for such studies because "almost everyone" has a garbage disposal, but apparently some have shown that net water use is actually less. A study done by New York City showed a negligibly slight increase in water use.

My visceral reaction to wasted water is similar to my visceral reaction to wasted food, so I wish this study done more to study the impact of water use in its otherwise pretty comprehensive life-cycle analysis. I can't stand watching clean water run down the drain, so I won't be installing a food disposal system anytime soon. Luckily, we have both a backyard compost pile and the option of municipal composting.

Your next move

In my Vermont county, our composting program started with restaurants and other businesses, and it is slowly being extended to households. Soon there will even be curbside pickup in Brattleboro.

The program accepts a lot of trash that you can't normally put down the drain, recycle, or compost in your back yard--making it even more awesome. Everything from pizza boxes and waxed paper to dog poop and chicken bones can go to the compost facility. Every week here at BuildingGreen, we divert a large number of used paper towels from the landfill by composting them; between the compost and the recycling, we are getting very close to being a zero-waste-to-landfill business.

While waste-to-energy and wastewater treatment with cogeneration both look like low-impact ways to deal with food waste, a composting program should be much easier for a community to put together. It also diverts a lot of heavy trash that many municipalities would otherwise have to pay tipping fees to get rid of, making it a very good investment. If you want to move your community toward a cheaper and more environmentally sustainable way of dealing with solid waste, pushing for a municipal composting program would be a very good idea.

Water-Based Polyurethanes and Panelization of Athletic Floors

Evan Dick — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 18:25:00 GMT

Projects are having trouble with performance of low-VOC finishes on gym floors, but there are ways to avoid problems. Bona SuperSport water-based sealer is applied to a gym floor. Credit: Jason Thomas Flooring Wood a...

Splitting and panelization problems

The splitting and panelization was observed in areas that experience wide seasonal swings in relative humidity, including the Northeast and Midwest. These problems mostly occurred where water-based polyurethane had been specified for maple flooring¬--maple is one of the more common and higher-performing athletic floor materials.

Another architect who has researched panelization shared this description of the mechanism behind the problem with GreenSpec: "Water-based finish is not very viscous and it is very hard. As a result, it flows freely between and under the boards. It then can lock the boards together. When the floor contracts during the lower-humidity heating season, large cracks may develop in the floor because the floor is locked in place by the water-based finish--it is unable to shrink normally. Sometimes boards will even split down the middle or along the edges. Panelization is a significant source of complaints within the industry."

Panelization is not a new problem, and can have structural causes beyond finishes, including subfloor material and the type of nailing used. The wood flooring company, All-Wood Flooring describes panelization on its website: "It is caused by flooring boards losing moisture to a drier interior environment and shrinking in groups. The groups of strips, or 'panels' may be any number of pieces and within this 'panel', boards remain tight together. This transfers the aggregate shrinkage, or total shrinkage for all the pieces in the panel, into large gaps between strips on either side of the 'panel'."

Solutions to panelization

Several options exist for addressing this problem. One approach is to maintain constant humidity between 35% and 50%, although this could be energy-intensive and impractical in a large space. Another architect suggested the following: "Spec edge-grain parquet rather than strip maple when LEED IEQc4.3 is a requirement. Edge-grain product works fine with water-based finish because it does not expand and contract on the horizontal plane."

A third option suggested has to do with changing the application technique. "The typical finish technique is a pretty heavy application of the finish liquid, almost if not literally poured on the surface, with spreading by lambs wool pads. With the low viscosity of water based finishes, this results in a substantial amount of the finish filling the joints between boards leading to edge or side bonding. This in turn means the floor can't move as it is supposed to. The obvious solution to me is 'thinner' applications and more coats. This does mean added costs for the additional labor."

Another potential solution is to use prefinished flooring. This solution is problematic however, as Feagans writes. "We would recommend against any prefinished products for several reasons, including ball bounce [disrupted by grooves] and cleanability [grooves collect dust and dirt]. The bigger issue, however, is that in our K–12 projects, high-use sport floors get sanded down and refinished at least every 10 years, depending on use. Then the [flooring] company will more than likely use the high-VOC oil-based finish because that's what they are comfortable using and can stand behind it on their warranty (and lower price). And the architect likely won't be around to argue the point on the owner's behalf."

Recommendations from manufacturers and installers

The Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association (MFMA) recognizes panelization as a significant problem. In a statement on its website MFMA, cautions installers and end-users that "the use of some water-based finishes has produced a sidebonding effect that can result in localized excessive and irregular separations ('panelization') between maple flooring strips. We strongly recommend that end-users, project architects and specifiers consult with their flooring installer and finish manufacturer to obtain approved procedures for sealing and finishing a raw maple strip floor with water-based products." In other words, anticipate the problem and work with all relevant parties to take steps to minimize the risk of panelization.

Micahel Grimaldi, a flooring contractor and owner of All-Wood Flooring in Connecticut emphasized to GreenSpec the complexity involved in selecting the right product and ensuring compatibility, "with every product out there you have to consider the pros and cons of that product in conjunction with the environment and wood species to come up with the best compatible sealer and finish combinations. There are different sealers that change how I apply any type of finish to maple, but this goes even further back into the sanding that is used as well as the grits and how many cuts should be made and to what degree of fineness you stop at before apply sealers and finish. Too fine of a sanding results in sealers or finishes that can lift or peel, and not adhere properly."

Grimaldi told GreenSpec that he has found sealer/finish combinations that address the panelization problem. "What we have done is find sealer products that don't hold [i.e., they don't allow the flooring to lock up and panelize] as well and apply the finish to that to totally alleviate the problem." He went on to say that application technique for water-based finishes is important, "water-based [polyurethane] needs to be applied in more multiple thin coats rather than heavy coats." He said that application technique is important for all finishes, and that lighter more frequent coats with time allowed for proper drying are more effective.

Choosing water-based polyurethanes

Water-based polyurethanes come in one-part and two-part systems. As GreenSpec notes in our product guide to CSI Section 09 93 33 sealants and coatings, "One-part polyurethanes are less expensive but may not have the durability of two-part systems. Two-part polyurethanes contain a resin and a hardener or crosslinker. These polys are considered to be the toughest in the industry, but they are expensive and are usually only sold to trained professionals." Grimaldi concurred that the two-part water based polyurethanes are among the best coatings available, telling GreenSpec, "I love the product and use it on 75% of my jobs."

Successful application of these products requires care to prepare the floor surface properly, completely removing any old finishes, stains, sealants, or waxes that may be incompatible with the water-based product. In some cases a sealer will be needed to prepare the wood for coating. Care should be taken to ensure any sealing products are compatible with the finish that will be applied. Most manufacturers offer low-VOC sealers designed to work with their water-based coatings.

Know your LEED credits and check the addenda

LEED requirements for VOC emissions can be confusing and difficult to pin down. Always check the addenda to make sure the numbers you are working toward are accurate and up to date. One of the designers used as a source for this blog understood the VOC requirement for LEED IEQc4.3 to be 275 g/l or less, meaning that no solvent-based polyurethane could be specified.

However, after reviewing addendum number 100000419 (PDF), and the related discussion on LEEDuser.com titled "Perplexing Reference Guide language for Table 1, SCAQMD Rule 111," it is clear that for LEED 2009 projects the limit is actually 350 g/l. The following excerpt shared with GreenSpec by David Posada, Sustainability Manager at GBD Architects, both explains the situation and illustrates the complexity that LEED can present. "Even in 2011, projects pursuing LEED 2009 are to follow the VOC limits in Rule 1113 'frozen' at 1/1/2004, and not the lower limits that are scheduled for later effective dates. Thus, from page 483 of the 2009 BD&C Reference Guide, clear wood finishes would still be at the ceiling limit of 350 g/L since it was lowered to 275 on 1/1/05."

Striking a balance between performance and VOC emissions is important. While striving for lower emitting products is essential, this can backfire if those products fail and require further application of products with higher emissions. In the case of water-based polyurethanes, the lowest emitting products are also the highest performing. Make sure that contractors and installers understand and account for the risks of panelization. This may be especially challenging in areas that have experienced multiple instances of panelization, as contractors and clients are more likely to resist using the lower VOC coatings to avoid problems. However, if applied properly, water-based polyurethanes can work in most instances. The payoff for successful application of these projects couldn't be greater--creating durable, high-performing, and chemically safe surfaces for generations of kids to play on.

New Hub for Information and Action on Embodied Carbon and the 2030 Challenge for Products

Jennifer Atlee — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 19:14:00 GMT

BuildingGreen is pleased to announce the launch of the 2030 Challenge for Products Information Hub. Launched by Architecture 2030 in February 2011, the 2030 Challenge for Products is a call to action to reduce not only the operational energy of bui... The 2030 Challenge for Products Information Hub is a free resource for anyone trying to address the embodied carbon of products. A partnership of Architecture 2030, BuildingGreen, and Healthy Building Network, it provides a jumping off point for understanding embodied carbon and links to a host of resources to help measure it and move toward greater embodied carbon efficiency. The Information Hub, hosted by BuildingGreen, is the definitive source for:

Facts and in-depth information on the embodied carbon of building products
Industry updates and related articles from Environmental Building News
Initial research on Product Category Rules (PCR), Environmental Product
Tools, calculators, databases, and information on relevant standards.

BuildingGreen is committed to supporting the 2030 Challenge for Products by providing timely information on new efforts toward measuring and improving embodied carbon of products and buildings. As quality data becomes more available BuildingGreen will incorporate this information into GreenSpec helping designers to find products with lower than average embodied carbon and manufacturers who are focusing on embodied carbon reductions. Pharos will also include the data over time, making it easy to screen for products by how much they've reduced embodied carbon, alongside VOCs, chemical health hazards and other product data. BuildingGreen will continue, of course, to take a comprehensive view of the impact of building products--including health concerns and other life cycle impacts. Embodied carbon is just one part of this broader picture, all of which needs to be addressed. However, we can no longer overlook the significance of Embodied carbon in the built environment's contribution to climate change. We want to work with you on this. Are you already incorporating embodied carbon of products and buildings in your work? Is this a new complication you haven't really considered yet? Let us know what you think, what you need help with, and any resources we may have overlooked. We aim to help.

First Class of LEED Fellows Named by GBCI

Tristan Roberts — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:57:00 GMT

We grumbled when GBCI overhauled the LEED AP program, introducing specialities, fees, and difficult-to-navigate credential maintenance. Is this the silver lining? Today and at Greenbuild Toronto we stand and applaud the first class of LEED A...

In the words of GBCI, The LEED Fellow designation recognizes exceptional contributions to green building and significant professional achievement within the rapidly growing community of LEED Professionals. Thirty-four of the world's most distinguished green building professionals were selected to be LEED Fellows through a peer nomination and portfolio review process. Among other requirements, LEED Fellows must have at least 10 years of green building experience and hold a LEED AP with specialty credential."

The 2011 class:

Alan Scott, Green Building Services
Alicia Ravetto, Alicia Ravetto Architect
Anthony Bernheim, AECOM
Chris Schaffner, The Green Engineer, LLP
Christopher J. Webb, Chris Webb & Associates, Inc.
Dagmar B. Epsten, The Epsten Group, Inc.
Dan Nall, WSP Flack + Kurtz
Dan Young Dixon, Opus AE Group, Inc.
Gail Vittori, Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems
Helen J. Kessler, HJKessler Associates
Jerry Yudelson,Yudelson Associates
Jim Ogden, 3QC Inc.
Jim Weiner, Collaborative Project Consulting
John Boecker, 7group
Kath Williams, Kath Williams + Associates
Kathleen Smith, Davis Langdon, An AECOM Company
Ken Wilson, Envision
Kim Shinn, TLC Engineering for Architecture
Kris Callori, Environmental Dynamics, Inc.
Lidia Berger, HDR Architecture, Inc.
Lois Vitt Sale, Wight & Co.
Malcolm Lewis, CTG Energetics, Inc.
Marcus B. Sheffer, 7group
Mario Seneviratne, Green Technologies
Michaella Wittmann, HDR Architecture, Inc.
Michelle Halle Stern, Perkins+Will
Nellie Reid, Gensler
Paul Marmion, Stantec
Prasad Vaidya, The Weidt Group
Rick Carter, LHB Engineers & Architects
Rob Bolin, Syska Hennessy Group
Sandra Leibowitz, Sustainable Design Consulting, LLC
Stephen Carpenter, Enermodal Engineering
Tom Liebel, Marks, Thomas Architects

The LEED Fellows will be recognized in Toronto at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo from October 4-7, 2011. The nomination period for the 2012 LEED Fellow class will open January 4, 2012. For more information on the LEED Fellow program, please visit www.gbci.org/fellow.

Building Tips for Reducing Flood Risks

Tristan Roberts — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:17:00 GMT

A lot can change in two hours. At 8 a.m. Sunday, I walked the length of our half-mile driveway here in southern Vermont, checking the culverts and water bars, all fortified and cleared the day before. All good. The brook next to our driveway was ra... As water temperatures rise in the South Atlantic, tropical storm systems will pick up more energy, resulting in higher-magnitude hurricanes on the Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard. Elsewhere, changing precipitation patterns are expected to deliver more rainfall in intense storms that could result in river flooding.

...While development makes our landscapes less absorptive

To complicate matters, development has made our landscapes less able to absorb rainfall, says architect Don Watson, who is writing a book on "design for resilience." "We've taken away all the absorptive capacity of our landscapes," Watson says. Adapting to climate change will require making our buildings more resilient to storms and flooding. In the longer term, we need to prepare for rising sea levels and restoring the ability of our land to absorb water.

While it may be cold (and wet) comfort to owners and residents in damaged buildings, here are some tips for adapting to increased flooding, adapted from "Design for Adaptation: Living in a Climate-Changing World," an article on our website written by Alex Wilson and Andrea Ward.

Expand capacity with natural systems

Avoid building in flood zones. Flood zones are expanding--often faster than revisions to zoning regulations, meaning that simply following the law relative to the siting of buildings may not be enough. Instead of designing to 100-year floods, consider designing to 500-year floods, seeking civil engineering or surveyor assistance as needed.

Expand stormwater management capacity and rely on natural systems. More intense storms will strain the capacity of standard stormwater management infrastructure in some areas. Provide larger stormwater conveyance and detention basins, and try to rely on natural features, constructed wetlands, and other ecologically based systems to manage stormwater. "Restore the ecological services of the landscape," says Watson.

Design to survive extreme winds

Design buildings to survive extreme winds. Examples of specific measures that impart good wind resistance to a building include installing impact-resistant windows or exterior shutters; installing outward-opening doors that are less likely to be pushed inward in intense wind; designing walls to resist uplift using hurricane strapping and other metal fasteners that provide a continuous load path from foundation to roof.

Raise buildings off the ground. In flood-prone areas--even where flooding is only remotely possible--raise buildings or living spaces above ground level to minimize damage in the event of flooding. With any type of pier foundation, use great care to ensure that energy performance and airtightness are not compromised; raised floors are notoriously difficult to insulate and seal.

Specify materials and components to survive flooding

Specify materials that can survive flooding. Especially in locations where flooding or hurricane damage is likely, use materials that can get wet and then dry out with minimal damage. Such materials include preservative-treated sills and wood framing, fiberglass-faced rather than paper-faced drywall, and tile or resilient flooring rather than carpeting.

Install specialized components to protect buildings from flooding or allow flooding with minimal damage. Breakaway wall panels on pier foundations in flood-prone areas can allow floodwaters to pass under a house without destroying it. Flood vents (permanent openings in foundation walls) allow floodwaters to escape. Specialized flood barriers, including removable barriers for entrances, can keep rising floodwaters out in certain situations.

Elevate mechanical and electrical equipment. To minimize damage--and danger--from flooding, elevate mechanical equipment, electrical panels, and other equipment above a reasonably expected flood level. Even if the whole building can't be elevated to such a level, it may be cost-effective to elevate just the equipment.

Please share below your flood survival stories and thoughts on adapting to global weirding!

Photos by Tristan Roberts.

Top image: Floodwaters rose higher than at any time in memory, surrounding valley homes that thought they were safe.

Middle: The builders of some of these homes were either lucky or knew something, though: the slight rise on this site was enough to protect this home from major damage.

Bottom: The house adjoining this garage was on slightly higher ground and survived, but even a solid foundation here meant little to the raging waters.

Tristan Roberts is Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, Inc., in Brattleboro, Vermont, which publishes information on green building solutions. You can learn more at www.BuildingGreen.com.

Red List Mania: Three Ways to Make Chemical Avoidance Guides Work Better

Jennifer Atlee — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 13:26:00 GMT

This Venn diagram shows the overlap of various "red lists" that recommend chemicals to exclude from building products. Courtesy Healthy Building Network A "red list" of chemicals is supposed to make the screening process simple. Bu... It really depends on the product category. For example, we decided long ago not to list electrical wire at all until someone made a halogen free ROHS compliant wire (now available), because the hazard concerns were significant and there wasn't another key environmental differentiator between wiring products. However, we list PVC framed windows with a unit U-factor of 0.20 (a higher efficiency threshold than windows with other framing) and we list a PVC-based flashing product for which there is currently no equivalent, because we believe the unique performance benefits are paramount.

How to make it better

Making use of a red list can be an important step in starting to incorporate hazard concerns into designer's work. The EBN article Chemistry for Designers, is our effort to help our readers understand these red lists and add context for making decisions in practice. Ultimately there are a few other things we'd like to see happen:

Greater disclosure. It's hard to assess constituent hazards for a product if you don't know what's in it. We do the best we can while working toward ever greater transparency and clearer reporting standards, in partnership with HBN. HBN has been diligently working with manufacturers to get more complete disclosure of contents for listing in its Pharos directory of products. When designers make Requests For Information through the Pharos system, manufacturers hear a clear message from their customers.
Stronger national regulation. While clear market signaling can make a big difference and move us toward cleaner products, we need industry-wide shifts, which are hard to get without regulation. Too often innovation toward healthy products happens in response to international regulations like REACH, leaving both domestic manufacturers who can't sell in those markets, and domestic consumers, who still can't buy the healthier alternatives, in the lurch. A clear regulatory signal gives all manufacturers an even playing field; so healthy products are not just a niche high-end market but standard practice. A glance again at Tom's diagram reminds me that federal clarity is also important for everyone's sanity.
Focus on hazard characteristics and greener lists. While a good first step, ultimately we need to get beyond a red-list mentality. First by focusing on hazard endpoints (as illustrated by broadest circle--the Pharos part of the chart). Instead of replacing a listed carcinogen for an unlisted carcinogen we need to be assessing the hazard profile for all constituents and avoiding those that have the hazard characteristics of concern.

Focus on the positive

Going further, we need to be manufacturing and designing with a "green list" in mind: substituting chemicals and materials that are inherently safer, ideally with a long history of use (so as to not introduce completely new hazards (For example, we've written about emerging nanotechnology concerns). The Green Screen for Safer Chemistry by Clean Production Action provides benchmarks for rating chemicals on their hazard characteristics to point toward inherently safer and informs the Pharos scoring protocols that rank building products on the hazard characteristics of their contents. In the meantime, this is a really cool diagram that I hope helps you understand what each list does and doesn't cover should you be considering adopting a red list in your own work.

Garbage Disposals and Worms Face Off Over Environmental Food Waste Disposal

Tristan Roberts — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:25:00 GMT

Composting and waste-to-energy are winners in a new study of food disposal options. I have been having a lot of fun feeding worms my garbage. We have something you could either call a "worm bin" or a "home vermicomposting system," and we throw our... >Most of this trashed food goes straight to landfills, where it releases huge quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. A new study looks at several ways in which food waste is processed, and identifies environmentally preferable options.

New environmental analysis bankrolled by food disposal maker

The analysis, commissioned by the manufacturer of InSinkErator food disposal systems and performed by independent research group PE International, looked at 12 common ways that municipalities deal with food waste and compared their environmental impacts, including global warming potential (GWP), energy use, and likely effects on soil, water, and air quality. The study takes into account the cradle-to-grave life cycle of associated equipment (trash cans and bags, garbage disposals, etc.) but does not appear to consider water use--an apparent oversight, considering that garbage disposals require running water before, during, and after use.

Composting and waste-to-energy are winners

Although several water treatment options require more energy than landfills, garbage disposals come out looking quite good compared with landfills in terms of GWP and direct effects on soil, water, and air quality. Even the most energy-intensive methods of wastewater treatment weigh in at half the GWP of landfilling.

However, composting--not the backyard scrap pile, but centrally located "advanced" composting--and waste-to-energy had miniscule energy and GWP impacts compared with most wastewater treatment options. Composting is not without issues, however, including the second-highest smog potential among the 12 methods considered.

Food disposals better than landfill

Based on this study's findings, a garbage disposal is not necessarily the most environmentally friendly way to deal with wasted food, even as InSinkErator often argues for its benefits. However, the study indicates that if your only two options are the trash can or a garbage disposal, the garbage disposal is a safer bet in terms of greenhouse gases and most other environmental impacts, despite its greater energy use.

Fortunately, a growing number of people have more choices than landfill or garbage disposal. For example, folks in our municipality here can compost in the backyard, or if that's not your cup of tea, you could consider dropping your waste, including paper food containers and other items for "advanced composting" with the solid waste management district. My favorite option, though, is definitely letting worms eat my garbage. I just love watching those little worms canoodle.

Tristan Roberts is Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, Inc., in Brattleboro, Vermont, which publishes information on green building solutions.

BuildingGreen Goes Back to School with New Classroom Tools

Paula Melton — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:36:00 GMT

Many professors use EBN feature articles as course material. We're always looking for ways to make their lives easier. We are already adding blankets to our beds here in Vermont, and it's still dark when my husband and I get up for our early-morn...

Digging deep

I reached Jim Wasley, AIA, who chairs the department of architecture at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, just after he had cleaned his office in preparation for the fall semester. When I asked him how long he'd been reading EBN, he confessed that he had just recycled all twenty years' worth, including Volume 1, Issue 1 (fortunately, he can still find our very first feature story, "Rigid Foam Insulation and the Environment," online).

Wasley has been using EBN in his classroom since 1996--initially as photocopies, but now he just sends his students to BuildingGreen.com instead. He assigns EBN feature articles as the primary text for his graduate Green Building and Professional Practice seminar. It's a good fit, he said, because for the seminar "you can take almost any topic and dig deeply instead of skating on the surface"--and "you can do all that within EBN."

"No contamination"

It's not just architecture programs that use EBN as a textbook. Charles Kibert, Ph.D., P.E., professor and center director at the Powell Center for Construction & Environment at the University of Florida–Gainesville, uses it as the primary text in all three of his master's courses in sustainable construction. "I try to bring them up to the most current information immediately," said Kibert. His students read each issue as it comes out and use EBN as a source for research papers.

Charles Kibert, Ph.D., P.E., has been using BuildingGreen content as course material for years in his sustainable construction courses at the University of Florida–Gainesville

"Historically it's always been fair and dispassionate and objective," Kibert said. "I don't always agree," he added--"but it's objective." The lack of manufacturer sponsorship is a major selling point for Kibert, as it is for many professors. "There are a lot of publications out there now, but they are taking advertising," Kibert told me. With BuildingGreen, as he put it, "there's no contamination."

Getting support

Our outreach director, Jerelyn Wilson, has been on the phone a lot lately (I know this because I sit right across the hall from her). Not only is it back-to-school time, but in the bigger picture, more and more schools are adding sustainability programs and hiring sustainability directors, and they are all looking for independent, up-to-date green building resources that don't rely on commercial interests for financial support.

If you're interested in bringing BuildingGreen's content into the classroom--whether you already have a campus-wide subscription or not--I encourage you to check out the new syllabus or email Jerelyn directly. From what other academics tell us, there's nothing else like it, and we want to make sure everyone who wants it is able to use it.

Giving feedback

We'd love to hear more about how you use or would like to use BuildingGreen content in your classroom--including what we can do to make it easier. Feel free to send your feedback to us by email or just discuss your needs in the comments.

Home Unimprovement: A Tale of Two Houses

Tristan Roberts — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:57:00 GMT

A simple, sturdy house on Peaks Island, Maine, around 1900. Photo: City of Portland Home unimprovement, noun. During renovation, the removal from a building of misguided features or home "improvements" added during previous renovat...

The same house in 2011--not much has changed. Photo: Chris Roberts

Chris has always been a good renovator because he sees things how they could be, not how they are, but always in a way that is sensitive to how they are. I have seen him squeeze a new bathroom into an upstairs in such a way that you would swear that the bathroom and the surrounding rooms had always been that way. I have also seen him boldly recommend tearing down a wall or addition that wasn't a good idea to keep. (Why he seems to deliver that advice to me regularly, starting me on major overhauls of houses, I'm not sure.) Sometimes being sensitive to how things are means sensing that things are all wrong.

Two identical homes, two different stories

Two houses he renovated over the last few years on Peaks Island, Maine provide good examples. Both homes date from late 1800s, probably built by the same builders using the same book of plans.

One of these houses had barely changed since it was built. It probably hadn't even had a fresh coat of paint, inside or out, although the owners apparently managed to keep a good roof on it, since it remained square and true. The one "improvement" made in its lifetime was the addition of a downstairs bathroom to replace the original outhouse.

You've done a good job if no one notices you've done it

That, of course, was the one piece that Chris needed to unimprove. It was taking up space (and nice light) better used by the kitchen and dining room, and putting a bathroom upstairs with the bedrooms, which Chris did, was now a better idea. He did quite a bit of work to make up for those years of no repainting, and he updated things like insulation and wiring, but the renovated house feels remarkably sensitive to its history.

As Chris says, "You've done a really good job if when you're done nobody knows you've done it."

A nearly identical house built a few blocks away. Photo: City of Portland

This seems like common sense to me, but I have also observed that a lot of builders and homeowners want people to notice what they've done. It's about their needs, not the house's needs.

The other Peaks Island house had a series of "improvements" visited on it virtually since it was built. It was moved back on its foundation to accommodate an enclosed front porch. It got a new dormer off the northeast end for added space upstairs, a wing and new entrance on the southwest end, and more additions off the back.

"Unimproving" this house meant not tearing off these spaces, which add enough space for a larger family, but among other things, framing a new roof over the additions on the back of the house in order to bring some visual unity, and simply to help the water shed properly. The renovated house is really nice, but it still shoulders some burden from its years of being over-improved.

Energy-related unimprovements

Questionable home improvements are often energy-related. Replacing nice, old repairable windows with cheap, uglier sash replacements is a classic. Another is adding insulation into an attic or crawlspace without first air sealing around penetrations like pipe chases and light fixtures. A third example might be redoing the siding on a house without also improving the insulation. All three of these create missed energy opportunities, and create a lot of work to unimprove in the future, if doing so is even possible.

At a larger scale, a great example of home unimprovement is the Brattleboro Food Coop here in Vermont. Sometime earlier in the 20th century, the lot was filled with a brick street-front building matching the other street-front buildings on Main Street. Then someone had the bright idea of doing a low, boxy retail store in the back of the lot with room for parking in front. If that sounds familiar, it has happened in towns and cities across the U.S.

Back to the old

After a few decades, the Coop and its shareholders, now owners of the plaza, found that this "improvement" didn't improve things at all in terms of overall quality of life and quality of the urban fabric, and it wasn't working that well as a store. So we're going back to a multi-story, mixed-residential-and-commercial building going in at the street front, with the low-rise store in back slated for tear-down when the work is done. It's far from being a carbon copy of what was there, but I bet that once it's in place, a lot of people will have the feeling that it was there all along, or should have been.

The same house, attractive but with decades of over-improvements, in 2011. Photo: Chris Roberts

Another thing Chris said to me is that "prosperity ruins houses." Wealth allows people to buy higher-quality materials, workers with better skills, and to keep things repaired as needed. But it seems that in the area of home improvement, people also make extravagantly bad decisions when they have money to burn.

What are your observations of home and energy unimprovement? Comment below.

Tristan Roberts is Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, Inc., in Brattleboro, Vermont, which publishes information on green building solutions.

Solar Thermal, Water, and Cold Climates: Can't We All Get Along?

Brent Ehrlich — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 16:52:00 GMT

36,597 square feet of Ritter XL solar collectors were installed on an exhibition hall in Wels, Austria, providing almost 7 million Btu/hr of supplemental hot water for district heating. Photo: Ritter Group Most solar thermal sy... .

Focused energy: Compound parabolic concentrating collectors

The heart of the Ritter XL system is the company's evacuated tubes. Ritter makes evacuated tubes for companies such as Bosch, Buderus, and others, but the ones used in the XL system have a larger diameter and are made specifically for large-scale use. The tubes are mounted on a CPC mirror that focuses any light that misses the tubes back onto them at a perpendicular angle to maximize efficiency. The tubes are easy to switch out if they get damaged, but the collectors come preassembled. This makes the collectors a bit heavier (about 140 lbs.) and trickier to install than normal evacuated tube systems where the tubes and frames are installed separately, but they are rated with an impressive Solar Rating and Certification Corporation (SRCC)-rated output of 55,000 Btus per day.

New York City subway maintenance plant uses 48 Ritter XL compound parabolic concentrating (CPC) collectors to supply almost 2000 gallons of hot water a day for washing the city's subway cars. Photo: Ritter Group

Water instead of glycol?

Ritter XL is the only large-scale system that uses water as a heat-transfer fluid. Most of these solar thermal systems use propylene glycol (antifreeze), which protects them against freezing, but, according to Michael DiPaolo, president of Regasol USA, water is more efficient at storing and transferring heat; is less viscous so it saves on pump energy; and it doesn't break down at high temperatures like glycol does. (Glycol breaks down and becomes acidic at high temperatures sometimes generated in solar thermal systems, damaging collectors and pipes.) In addition, water can be plumbed directly into boilers in some instances, completely bypassing heat exchangers.

Can it overheat?

Nope. The Ritter system doesn't require any protection from overheating. The controller just shuts down the pump, and the steam pushes the water out of the collectors and pipes into an expansion tank. When the system cools off again, it restarts.

Freezing is the real concern.

Yes, freezing is the big concern with solar thermal systems. On a commercial-scale system a broken pipe on a roof midwinter can be a nightmare. Ritter XL manages the risk via a digital controller, precise engineering, and a small amount of stored hot water. According to DiPaolo, "Our controller monitors pressure, temperature, time of operation, flow direction, and about ten other parameters." The controller is constantly analyzing water temperature along the pipes and when it gets cold enough the system sends the minimum amount of water necessary to keep the system clear. The engineering to pull off this balance while not flushing hot water through the pipes constantly is impressive. The company claims this freeze protection uses about 2%–4% of the annual solar heat gain, and that these losses are more than compensated by the efficiencies of using water. And as insurance against, freezing, the system requires an uninterruptible power supply in case the power goes out.

Does it work and what will it cost me?

So far the systems appear to be working as advertised, with more than 50,000 residential and commercial systems installed in Europe, including a 36,597-square-foot district heating installation in Wels, Austria. They also installed 48 collectors New York City subway maintenance plant on Coney Island that supplies almost 2000 gallons of hot water a day for washing subway cars. DiPaolo said the systems cost about $200 per square meter installed (about $19 per square foot) installed, and Ritter incorporates all of the engineering into the price of each system.
Vanir Construction Management installed Ritter XL on six YMCA buildings in Winston-Salem, North Carolina--five have 50 panels and around 600 gallon of storage; the sixth has 210 panels. Donald Haase, senior project manager at Vanir, is impressed by the system, adding that his buildings are unique. "They are challenging because they are very dynamic systems, and the demand for hot water varies depending on site, day, and clientele," he said. "On a typical day we see 25 therms a day coming out of these systems, and we are still fine-tuning them." According to Haase, initial results indicate approximately a 51% savings in natural gas consumption over the previous year.
Regasol is going to be bringing this technology to the residential market, possibly by the end of 2011, but is awaiting SRCC-OG-300 certification. The hold-up? Water is frowned upon by SRCC in cold climates, understandably, and it will be up to Ritter to convince them--and a conservative solar thermal industry--that the technology works.

Brent Ehrlich is the products editor at BuildingGreen, Inc.

Energy Retrofit or 401(k)?

Tristan Roberts — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:37:00 GMT

The strategy of living with inefficient homes and cars, and then looking to retirement accounts and paychecks to pay for that inefficiency appears more and more questionable. And I have some numbers to prove it. Sure, I've heard of placentas... An astute analysis was recently posted to GreenBuildingAdvisor.com by Ted Clifton, a builder, and the founder of Zero-Energy Plans (zero-energyplans.com) in Washington. The numbers Ted put together are pretty straightforward, but the conclusions might be startling to many people, particularly those living in a home with significant energy bills, while also thinking about retirement.

Straightforward stats, startling conclusions

Clifton quotes statistics kept by the U.S. Department of Commerce, which has been keeping track, since 1974, of the price that consumers pay for energy. Although energy prices are very volatile, and are different for various energy sources (oil goes up and down, while trending up over time, while electricity is more stable, while still going up), Clifton found that the average annual increase for overall energy prices including natural gas, heating oil, and propane, has been 6.33%.

According to Ted, "By comparison, the Consumer Price Index, used by the government to calculate increases to your Social Security check, has only risen at an annual rate of just under 1.54% during that same period. It is clear just from looking at these two numbers that if you are trying to use your Social Security check to pay for your energy use, you will be falling behind by about 4.8% per year.

"The average American living in a 2,000-square-foot house is currently paying home energy bills of around $214 per month. In addition to the home energy costs, the average American is also spending a similar amount on gasoline for transportation. At the current rate of energy price inflation (over the last 38 years), this number will double in about twelve years. Yet your Social Security check would only increase by about 18% over the same time period."

Are there any sure bets?

Wait, you say. I'm not relying on Social Security--I have a retirement account invested in stocks and bonds. Fair enough. The stock and bond markets have been great at times, with 10-year annual returns often better than 10%. On the other hand, 10-year annual returns can be more like 0%. It's a volatile investment world. Are there any sure bets?

Ted proposes a simple, radical solution: "If you could use the equity in your home to buy your next 30 years worth of energy at today's prices, you could lock in a rate of around 5% interest on the loan, and receive a return of 6.33% over time. This would allow you to earn a return of 1.33% per year on the bank's money."

In other words, do a major energy upgrade on your current home, or buy a new (or used) energy-efficient home. Depending on the home and your needs, you may even be able to afford a "net-zero energy" home, one that produces as much energy as it consumes.

Too far-fetched? Make targeted investments

If this seems too far-fetched to you, maybe some more targeted investments would make sense. I just had an energy audit that identified several possible energy efficiency upgrades, all of them pretty basic stuff--caulking to reduce air leaks, and adding insulation.

To give an example, my single-family home is lacking insulation in a strategic location--the above-grade portion of the basement walls. Adding spray-foam insulation to the interior of those walls would cost $2,310. An incentive through Efficiency Vermont should reduce that cost to $1,760. Thermal House, which did my audit, predicts that this project will save $25 per month in heating costs, meaning that in a "simple payback" calculation, the upgrade will pay for itself in just under six years. Let's say that I borrow the $1,760 at 5% for five years to pay for the work, bringing my overall cost up to $1,848. It still pays for itself in just over six years. Neither of these calculations looks at likely increases in energy costs, either. I'm also not looking at return on investment (ROI), because that varies a lot based on your time horizon.

Start with an energy audit

I hope you can both invest in your retirement and also have an efficient home. But if you're struggling to keep up with energy bills while also saving for the future, I would at least start with an energy audit.

Photo by Tristan Roberts. A blower door test, being set up here, is a key part of an energy audit, which can help assess your home's efficiency, and identify cost-effective upgrades.

Tristan Roberts is Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, Inc., in Brattleboro, Vermont, which publishes information on green building solutions.

Old Window? 10 Tips for Improving Performance

Tristan Roberts — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:56:00 GMT

As I was hosing down the dirt driveway in front of my house last week to keep the dust down with some guests due to arrive, I got to thinking about Chicken Dinner Road. I once lived in Canyon County, Idaho and often passed a junction for Chicken... An air-sealing upgrade and repair package for the existing window can be the place to start. Professional air sealing and repair may involve replacing seals and gaskets throughout the window assembly, replacing double-paned glass or entire sashes if necessary, bringing window frames back into square, and repairing sash frames or the glass itself. While these repairs can be fairly cost-effective (if not always inexpensive), they do not add much R-value to the window--though replacing a sash pocket pulley system with a spring system and filling the air space with insulation will provide marginal improvements.

Combining approaches for better thermal performance

Air sealing does save energy as well as improve thermal comfort by closing off air leaks and reducing drafts, and it can be combined with high-performing storm windows or insulated shades to get up to four times better thermal performance without a pricey window replacement--a great option if you need shades for glare or privacy anyway, or if maintaining the look and feel of original windows is important. Improved operability can also save energy by allowing windows to be opened in the summer for ventilation.

"The only reason to replace a window is complete deterioration," says Jean Carroon, an architect with Goody Clancy in Boston. Carroon specializes in historic preservation, and her work often leads to extensive restoration and repair of historic windows as well as the addition of attachments like interior panels--or even replacing windowpanes with insulated glass units in the historic window frame.

Most of today's windows can't be repaired

Carroon is distressed by the rate at which windows are replaced, especially since most of today's double-glazed, low-e windows cannot be repaired. (I have learned this the hard way, naively taking one such broken window into the local hardware store, and then to the local glass repair shop, before finally taking the numbers off the unit to order a replacement from the dealer.)

Installing non-repairable windows leads to a "cycle of replacement" and is "a symbol of a non-sustainable world," Carroon says. While restoring windows can be labor-intensive (and thus expensive), "you are almost always pouring the dollars into the local economy," not sending it to far-away manufacturers, she notes.

Ten tips for deciding how to handle old windows

Here are some tips on deciding what do to with old, under-performing windows:

Replace existing windows only if they have failed or are in poor shape. Almost all windows need attachments, and opting for a higher-performance attachment, rather than a window replacement plus a new conventional attachment, may be a better solution.
Get a handle on the entire spectrum of possibilities from the last two weeks' columns (on keeping the sun out, and on keepimg the heat in), and by reviewing WindowAttachments.org, and then prioritize your needs.
Using these priorities, compare how well conventional window treatments meet these needs in comparison with more expensive but higher-performing window attachments.
Use the individual window attachment fact sheets (also at WindowAttachments.org) to gain a complete understanding of each option.
Look for and use credible resources--not manufacturer or sales claims--to support your window attachment decision-making. Two such resources are RESFEN and WINDOW 6.3--free, downloadable software tools.
Select an attachment with multiple attributes; sometimes one attachment can solve multiple problems.
At the same time, understand that optimal management of heat loss and gain may require two window attachments--an interior one for the former and an exterior one for the latter.
Take care in combining double-glazed low-e windows with either low-e exterior storm windows or high-performance insulating interior attachments; deployment of either in managing solar gain during the summer may result in damage to the insulated glazing unit seals.
Understand what the proper maintenance will be for your attachments, and any operational needs. Awnings will work only if opened!
Prioritize energy performance in your window attachment decisions, but don't forget to seek out nontoxic materials. While some window attachments typically come in only one form, the market is expanding rapidly. Recycled content, low-emitting materials, non-treated fabrics, and other green options may already be available.

More resources--and versions of the story

As with other recent columns, check out Making Windows Work Better, by Paula Melton and Peter Yost. That's the recent feature article from Environmental Building News, and offers more detail on today's advice along with other more comprehensive information.

Back to that chicken dinner: An online article tells me that one family on the fabled road back in the 1930s was friendly with the governor. They had him over for a nice chicken barbecue, and buttonholed him about the road. He agreed to keep it oiled if the county would grade and gravel it. The county agreed on it, and a legend was born.

Tristan Roberts is Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, Inc., in Brattleboro, Vermont, which publishes information on green building solutions.

Chicken Dinner Road photo by Bold Little Swallow, some rights reserved.

LEDs? Incandescents? Who's Using What for Jobsite Lighting

Nadav Malin — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 03:00:00 GMT

I called Pete Samaras, Senior Electrical Estimator at DPR Construction, to ask him about job-site lighting practices for our product review on LED jobsite lighting (see LED Systems Provide Huge Energy Savings for Jobsite Lighting, EBN Aug. 20...

The subs consistently use 175- or 400-watt HID floods in large, open areas with high ceilings. They use 277-volt circuits whenever possible so that they can put more fixtures on each circuit.

They generally use string lights in corridors and stairwells, but with reservations. Robert Valderrama summed it up well: "We hate string lights. They require constant attention to repair broken bulbs, get trapped in the t-bar and seem to get unplugged too often."

And for task lighting, especially in small spaces, they use halogens on tripods or metal halide or fluorescent "wobble lights." Wobble lights are increasingly popular, because--you guessed it--they wobble, but don't fall down and break. Sprig uses the metal halides, according to Valderrama, because "they are durable, and very easy to install." However, he added: "We have restrictions on where we use them due to the risk of fire. We are currently looking for a suitable replacement."

3. Do your string lights and/or floodlights have incandescent or CFLs? Why?

All the electricians either use CFLs already or are switching over to them. They don't burn out as quickly, which saves on maintenance, and they draw less power than incandescents, which "allows more stringers to be used on a temporary 20-amp circuit," James Goetz explained.

4. Have you considered using more energy-efficient LED lighting or fluorescents on your projects? If not why? If so, where?

All have looked into LEDs, but none have used them yet. Goetz summed it up: "Eventually we will use LED temp lighting. Currently they are very expensive and the technology for temporary powered LEDs is still in its infancy."

And Richard deButts noted that it would be up to the owner to decide to make the investment: "There is no advantage for us to invest in the high front-end cost. The benefit is to the person paying the power bill. This would apply to longer-lasting large projects, not a typical TI [tenant improvement project]."

Electricians providing temporary jobsite lighting are motivated to reduce maintenance costs and increase reliability. LEDs can provide those benefits, but that's not (yet) enough of an advantage to overcome their high first cost. The disconnect between the electricians, who choose and install the lighting, and the building owner, who pays the electric bill, is something that needs to be addressed for LED technology to take hold.

General contractors and designers will have to lead the way here, because they are the link between the owners and the electricians. DPR is looking into investing in LED fixtures that can be moved from job to job, according to Samaras, but the extra work involved in storing and maintaining those fixtures between jobs is a challenge. However, the savings that DPR would be able to offer building owners through the use of LEDs could make their bids more competitive and may offset the additional cost.

What lighting systems are you using on jobsites? How are you saving electricity during construction? Let us know in the comments below.

Photo: Charlotte Matthews, Related Companies

Many construction sites are illuminated 24/7 with strings of incandescent lamps. On this New York City job, compact fluorescents were used instead, saving energy and labor.

Improving Your Windows with Plastic Film Kits, Insulated Shades, and Interior Storm Windows

Tristan Roberts — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 11:05:00 GMT

It's easy to augment your existing windows to keep the heat in better, but some "window attachments" are better than others. Try this little perceptual experiment now: look at yourself in a mirror (or your computer or phone camera). Then look at... A box of clear plastic and double-sided tape is the least expensive and most widely available window attachment--and the performance isn't too shabby. These kits, commonly found at hardware stores, provide modest insulation (adding an R-value of about 1), significantly reduce air leakage, and improve comfort by adding a layer between cold glass and warm rooms. They also help prevent condensation, and both renters and homeowners can install them cost-effectively.

Insulated shades add up to R-4, but watch your seals

If you don't like to look at the film kits, or if you don't like loosing paint when you take them down, you might prefer the benefits of conventional fabric window coverings and interior shades, which increase comfort by adding a warmer layer between the cold window glass and the heated room.

Conventional insulated shades improve R-value by 1–2, but higher-performing shades with side tracks improve R-value by up to 4! These products include cellular shades and "window quilts" that fit snugly to the window trim with side tracks or other fasteners. The shades need to be completely closed in order to provide the full thermal benefit.

If you have insulated shades and double-glazed windows, be careful in the summer. If insulated shades are deployed on a hot, sunny day on south- and west-facing windows, preliminary research indicates that overheating may occur: some modeled temperatures have gone above 200° F (93° C), which could damage seals and shorten the expected window life. Finding other ways to control glare and solar gain on south-facing low-e windows, such as awnings or conventional curtains, is probably a good idea until more is known.

Interior window panels offer several benefits

Fixed interior window panels (widely called "interior storm windows" even though they do not protect windows from the weather) offer unobtrusive high performance starting at a relatively low price and are especially popular in places where exterior storm windows won't work--in historic homes, condominiums, long-term rental properties, and on dangerously high windows.

They are made of plastic or glass--sometimes even low-e glass, which costs more--and come with different framing materials (most commonly aluminum). Some have operable parts and can remain in place year-round, but most have to be removed seasonally; this is the main drawback of interior panels, as they can block emergency exits through the window and also require space for safe storage.

Low-e interior window panels offer a number of benefits when properly installed. They improve R-value by about 2, increase comfort by creating a barrier between the cold window glass and the room, and do a pretty good job of sealing air leaks; the tight seal on the interior also helps reduce condensation by preventing warm, moist indoor air from entering the window assembly and being chilled by the air near the cold glass. Low-e versions have a radiant barrier that further reduces heat loss, bringing the entire window assembly almost up to par with low-e double-pane replacement windows.

Costs will vary hugely

As with window attachments for keeping heat out, Costs of window attachments vary hugely. Film kits are cheap, while other options go up in price--but are often less expensive than replacing a window that's not working for you. Check WindowAttachments.org for some great fact sheets on individual options and comparative costs. My colleague Peter Yost also offers a really insightful case study on getting the most of the windows in his house.

With my other colleague Paula Melton, Peter authored Making Windows Work Better, the recent feature article from Environmental Building News, from where I borrowed a lot of today's advice.

Do you have windows that aren't quite working for you, but you aren't quite sure how to handle them? Other questions or comments? Post them below.

Tristan Roberts is Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, Inc., in Brattleboro, Vermont, which publishes information on green building solutions.
Image information: Top image (credit LBNL): Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory used infrared (IR) imaging as part of its field testing for ongoing research on the energy performance of window attachments. These three photos show the same window, with an interior low-e panel attached, under three different pressure conditions simulating windy weather. Even with a fairly tightly sealed interior window panel, the moderate wind level significantly increases air leakage. Note that each IR image encompasses the same temperature range--a critical detail when doing side-by-side comparisons. Lower image (credit Peter Yost): Low-e storm windows can bring the performance of single-pane windows up to par with low-e double-pane models. As an exterior device, these attachments may not be accepted in some historic areas or condominium communities. Low-e interior panels are a good option in these situations.

Super White Cedar Shingles: Worth the Cost?

Brent Ehrlich — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 12:54:00 GMT

White cedar contains natural oils that protect the Maibec shingles on homes like this from insects, mold, and decay. Photo: Maibec Sidings White cedar shingles protect a building from the elements, have a small environmental footprin... .

So...how much are these going to set me back?

Yes, you are going to pay a premium for white cedar shingles. These are more expensive to purchase and install than most siding options, but the lack of maintenance and good looks might just add to the value of the home, offsetting first costs. Note that white cedar is available in three grades, A, B, and C. Maibec's A-grade has "no imperfections," B has "no imperfections on exposed face," and C has "sound knots on exposed face" and "contrasting tones." So if you are willing to put up with a little imperfection, you can save some money and still have a low-maintenance sustainable siding.

Brent Ehrlich is the products editor at BuildingGreen, Inc.

Keeping the Sun Out: A Guide to Window Attachments

Tristan Roberts — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 12:52:00 GMT

There are good ways to modify windows to prevent too much solar gain in the summer. A few weeks ago I told a story in this space that was third-hand from Gordon Hayward. Well, a lot changed in the telling, and Gordon got back to me with what reall...

Curtains and drapes block up to 60% of solar gain

Curtains and drapes, the old standby, work pretty well: when installed over clear (uncoated) glass, these attachments alone can block 20%–60% of solar gain (depending on material and color), reducing or preventing the need for air conditioning. For comparison, the highest-performing low-solar-gain windows on the market have an SHGC of 0.20 or lower. While that means that those windows block 80% of solar gain while still permitting a somewhat darkened view, they don't provide much privacy, so many people will still use curtains or blinds.

Combining the two is a good bet: the curtains offer privacy, while the low-SHGC windows block the sunlight before it gets into the house, which is much more effective. One drawback of using curtains or drapes is that you may end up with dark rooms and need to turn on lights, which can cut into energy savings.

Awnings leave the heat outside

Awnings reduce glare without affecting views too much, and they block up to 90% of solar heat gain on south-facing windows--before the heat can come through the window. Awnings also block direct ultraviolet (UV) radiation that can damage upholstery, and they protect the window assembly from the weather.

According to John Gant, sustainable development manager for Glen Raven, maker of Sunbrella exterior shading products, awnings "have a different SHGC depending on indoor and outdoor temperature and the position of the sun" as well as fabric weight and color. In general, a heavier fabric in a darker color will provide more shading. However, Gant cautions that "products from different manufacturers may look the same but perform differently due to the quality of pigments and materials and fabric construction."

Stationary metal awnings are available for homes, but be aware that a fixed exterior attachment works best if orientation, climate, and other factors are taken into account using computer modeling--a service used routinely for commercial buildings but almost never for homes.

Exterior roller shades aid ventilation

Like awnings, exterior roller shades, made of vinyl-coated polyester or fiberglass fabric, block solar heat gain while still allowing a filtered view through the window from the inside. These work much the same way that interior shades do--rolling down in front of the window--but go on the outside of the house.

Exterior shades are generally more effective than interior shades at preventing solar heat gain, providing up to 85% blockage, and tend to offer better ventilation. Similarly, hinged exterior shutters (unlike the common decorative kind) shade the window while allowing ventilation as well as daylight; some hinged shutters can be manipulated with adjustable louvers. Hinged shutters generally block views from the interior, though, and are more popular for weather protection. They may also be more accepted in historic areas and condominium communities, where many new-fangled exterior attachments are not allowed.

One such new-fangled device is an exterior roller shutter. Roller shutters are a multipurpose attachment with hollow or insulated slats that fold neatly when not in use but put the home in thermal, visual, storm, and security lockdown when deployed. Is there anything exterior roller shutters don't do? Unfortunately, yes: the aesthetics leave much to be desired, from most homeowners' point of view. They look fairly industrial from the outside and completely block light and views from within. Though popular in some European countries, exterior roller shutters have only caught on in North America in hurricane and wildfire zones. However, they can be a good solution in extreme climates where air-conditioning loads are very high and shading doesn't go far enough--particularly if home security is also a high priority.

Window film also has a place

If you have windows that are in pretty good shape but don't have a low-e coating, or if you have a great view that you don't want to mar with blinds or awnings, you might consider a solar-control window film. Surface-applied films are rated for solar heat gain and visible transmittance, and NFRC publishes an online list of certified products, making it easier for consumers to make choices. EfficientWindows.org also provides helpful guidance on the wide variety of films available.

Homeowners can install window films themselves, but it is very fussy work. An array of surface-applied films are designed for a variety of jobs: privacy, solar heat rejection, and even winter energy performance.

Costs vary hugely

Costs of window attachments vary hugely. Drapes and curtains, and roller shades, are an affordable option. Surface-applied films are relatively affordable, and then awnings and other fixed attachments can get more expensive--but also deliver a lot of benefits. Check WindowAttachments.org for some great fact sheets.

Also, check out Making Windows Work Better, by Paula Melton and Peter Yost, the recent feature article from Environmental Building News, from where I borrowed some of today's advice.

Do you have windows that aren't quite working for you, but you aren't quite sure how to handle them? Other questions or comments? Let me know.

Tristan Roberts is Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, Inc., in Brattleboro, Vermont, which publishes information on green building solutions.

Getting the Most from Old Windows: A Tale of Attachments

Peter Yost — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 12:08:00 GMT

Should you replace your old windows? Using attachments can get more life out of them, and improve performance. Most of us approach poorly performing old windows with a step-by-step exploration from one less-than-optimal fix to the next. Improving ...

Conventional aluminum storm windows

You know these storms--the terrifically annoying, anodized aluminum, triple-track ones. Ours were rickety, with white dust (oxidation) all over the tracks, and most of them were barely operational. You typically risked damaging the storm panels or yourself when trying to raise or lower them. While these storms had apparently done a good job of sheltering the original wood sashes, they were frankly quite ugly and worked poorly. They definitely were headed to our local building salvage operation or metal recycling.

Dime-a-dozen roller shades

Our roller shades were essentially privacy shades. They were unattractive and brittle and made rooms horribly dark when deployed during the day. The roller shades were definitely coming out, in part because they were at the end of their service life but also because they were just not versatile enough.

So if we were eliminating the existing exterior storms and interior roller shades, what did we do to improve our windows?

Decision #1--Keep existing windows, for now...

This first decision was actually dependent on our 2nd decision (see #2 below - high performance low-e exterior storm windows); the 100-year-old window sashes worked and looked just fine. Their problem was mostly thermal performance, something addressed by the storms.

And we did have both a shorter- and a longer-term plan: we would eventually do double-paned wood sash replacement kits for even better thermal performance. But more on this decision later; it turned out to be a bit more complicated than we thought.

Decision #2--Replace existing storms with low-e storms

Although this was our 2nd decision, it was our first purchase. The low-e, baked enamel, aluminum frame, triple-track Harvey storms were sturdy, smooth-operating, relatively air tight, and reasonable at about $100 - $120 per window (there are just two sizes of windows in our house--both 5 feet tall with one just over 2 feet wide and the other just under 3 feet wide). And perhaps most importantly, they continued the history of protecting the wood window sashes while bringing the overall thermal performance pretty close to that of an average new double-paned window.

Decision #3--Install "room-appropriate" interior window treatments

We thought we wanted our interior window attachments to do just three simple things: provide privacy, adjust for varying amounts of daylighting, and add some style and color to our windows. And the importance of each of these varied some from room to room.

So we purchased utilitarian white metal venetian blinds for the home office, where daylighting and adjustability for glare control were the most important. And then for the kitchen and various bedrooms, we purchased quality, heavy-cloth opaque roller shades with matching valances. We even bought bedspreads that matched the pattern of the window treatments for two rooms. The custom-fit venetian blinds were about $80 per window, and the fancy roller shades were about the same (both DIY installations).

Decision #4--Gradually replace sashes

The plan all along was to further improve the thermal performance of our windows by replacing the single- paned wood sashes with Brosco wood sash replacements. We could stain them to look almost identical to the original sashes and get them with low-e glass. While the white vinyl jambliners were a bit jarring, they were not all that visible and the closed-cell foam backing seemed like a thermal improvement over the cord-and-pulley system of the original windows. The sash replacement kits were about $200 apiece (DIY install--pretty simple except for removing the pulleys) so we did them as finances allowed over a 10-year stretch. (For more on understanding different window options and making choices, see Choosing Windows: Looking Through the Options.)

We paused in our purchasing and thought: that ought to do it...

Adding priorities and new options

We did not pause for very long. Window treatment selections turn out to be a lot like hangnails; you just can't leave them alone.

The home office is seriously overglazed, and we really needed better thermal performance from our interior window treatments.

In the kitchen and bedrooms, the lack of view or privacy, depending on how the roller shades were positioned, was frustrating, given how much we had paid for them. And those valances covering up nearly a quarter of the glass area, collecting dust, and covering up the beautiful wood window trim--what were we thinking?

And then we learned about insulated cellular shades with sidetracks that adjust top-down and bottom-up. They come in all kinds of patterns and light-filtering levels.

Changing to insulated cellular shades in the office worked well because the thermal performance of the insulated shades compared to the metal venetian blinds was amazing, and the top-down/bottom-up function gave us lots of combinations of daylighting, glare control, privacy, and view.

Insulated cellular shades (top-down/bottom-up) in the kitchen and bedrooms also gave us the right combinations of view, privacy, and daylighting. And they looked good; while venetian blinds are probably the best at combined view, privacy, and daylighting, they can't hold a candle to the look and feel of the insulated cellular shades, in our family's opinion.

But a closing note on insulated cellular shades--they are not cheap, particularly the top-down/bottom-up with sidetracks. We got ours at an uncommonly good price, about $250 per window.

An unintended consequence

After nearly 11 years of window attachment dithering, you would hope that we ended up exactly where we wanted to be, with the best performing windows possible. Almost.

It turns out that combining high performance window treatments with high performance glazing may create some problems. Both our low-e storm windows and our side-tracked insulated cellular shades, when combined with low-e double-paned windows and intense summer sun, may have resulted in some damage to the seals in the insulated glazing units (IGUs--these are the sealed, double-paned glass). The high-performance attachments combine with high-performance windows to trap quite a bit of heat inside the double-pane windows, enough to degrade the seals. At least that is what appears to have happened with the west-facing windows in our home; research into this issue is under way. (For some background on that and other research with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, subscribers can read our feature story on window attachments: Making Windows Work Better.)

Lessons learned from living with these selections

We have spent quite a bit of money and learned an awful lot about how windows work, and how they don't.

Specific recommendations:

High quality, baked enamel, tracked, low-e storms work great; 11 years later, our storm windows look and operate as if they were brand new.
Insulated cellular shades are just about as multi-functional as venetian blinds and look a hell of a lot better.
Sash replacements need big, beefy seals to accommodate out-of-square old window frames.

General observations

You pretty much get what you pay for; the best-performing, highest-utility window attachments are more expensive.
Window attachments are like shoes--it's not really possible for one selection to do the trick for all occasions and conditions. You probably need multiple window attachments, just like you need multiple pairs of shoes.
In terms of thermal performance, exterior attachments are the best at keeping heat out and interior the best at keeping heat in.
Operable window attachments not only allow adjustment, they require it for optimal performance; this is particularly true for thermal performance.
If you have high-performance windows and attachments, you may need to shade south and west windows to keep the sun out before it gets in.

By my calculations, there are around 17 types of window attachments and 24 attributes to consider in making your windows work better. You can meander about as we did, or, use the new resources at www.WindowAttachments.org, a website created and maintained by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, BuildingGreen, and the U.S. Department of Energy. I guarantee that the Overview Summary Table alone will save you both time and money in your deliberations. And the monitored forums on the site will yield lots of experience and insight from the field.

"The Crash Course": An Information Scout Delivers a Must-Read Book

Tristan Roberts — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:42:00 GMT

Why isn't construction rebounding more? What is wrong with borrowing to get out of the Great Recession? Once upon a time in a village there lived a wise old man. Legend had it that he could answer any question posed to him. A village boy hatched a... Martenson began serious economic research in 2002 and went from there to forecasting the bursting of the housing bubble, and the banking crisis, years before they happened--all while taking his family from a prosperous life in Mystic, Connecticut to a simpler lifestyle in rural Mass.

Not merely good at predicting financial disaster

If he were merely good at predicting financial disasters, however, his book (along with the series of free "Crash Course" videos at ChrisMartenson.com) wouldn't qualify as a must-read. Martenson is equally good at looking at any of what he calls the "three E's," whose limits may define our standard of living for the next 20 years and beyond: energy, the economy, and the environment.

Plenty of analysts have noted problems with our path on any one of these matters, but Martenson puts them together in new and compelling ways. He sums up our ongoing economic troubles with three common-sense words: "Too much debt." Why too much debt is such a problem, though, comes into focus when he looks at energy.

Debt, Martenson tells us, assumes that the future will be bigger than the present. We are happy to borrow money today and pay it back with interest tomorrow, because we will make investments to improve our prospects and our income generating potential. Or perhaps we simply hope that tomorrow will be more favorable and we'll have money then that we don't have now.

The trouble with the debt story

The trouble with this story, and particularly with the massive amounts of debt taken on today at personal, municipal, state, and national levels, is that while the future has gotten bigger and bigger for the last 200 years, that trend has coincided with the exploitation of a onetime treasure trove of easy fossil fuels. Without the energy to fuel more exponential growth having peaked, the means to fuel the expansion required by our debt-based money system isn't there.

Martenson has a great way of answering questions that I didn't know I had, in ways that transform the conversation. Writers since before E.F. Schumacher ("Small is Beautiful") have been questioning the Western imperative to grow, grow, grow--and they have painted convincing pictures of how a world without a "growth is good" mentality could be a better place.

What sustainability has been up against

Martenson shows us what these prescriptions have been up against: our monetary systems today, untethered from any stable anchor, and loaned into existence, require exponential growth--putting these systems on a collision course with our finite planet.

We're fortunate that Martenson not only does his research, but can also communicate about it, fitting skills for a self-styled "information scout." Among other things, he takes the time to fully explore outcomes he considers unlikely, in the process showing us why.

For example, Martenson looks at the next 40 years, asking what energy production we will need worldwide to bring online both to enjoy continued growth in energy supplies, and to offset depletion of existing oil fields. Among other options, Martenson tells us, we would need 200 new nuclear plants per year (the U.S. currently has 104 operating reactors).

For anyone wondering when the homebuilding or the construction sectors are "coming back like they were," Martenson is one of a chorus out there saying that there is no going back. No more unbelievably favorable energy return on energy invested (EROEI), no more capacity to take on debt that we have a hope of paying off, no more abundance, well, really anywhere.

Global warming: A question mark?

Examples like this have the needed--but painful--effect of shattering vague optimisms. Another one--the idea that technology will save our hides on the energy front--is demolished by Martenson with three scorching facts.

Fact One: Technology does not create energy--it only finds and transforms it. Fact Two: Transforming energy is expensive. Look at the four units of wood heat that are wasted in creating one unit of electricity at the McNeil generating station, which I wrote about here recently. Fact Three: Energy transitions take time. "I won't get excited about a transition to natural gas," he says, "until I hear the U.S. president get on television and announce the equivalent of a WWII-era effort to immediately begin building out the necessary infrastructure to make it happen.

On certain points it would be a relief if a skeptic checked all of Martenson's facts and proved him wrong. I don't think it will happen, even if I do have quibbles: Martenson's treatment of global warming, and its potential to transform our world, is cursory, even as he makes us painfully aware of other environmental resource constraints such as those on our farms and fisheries.

One parting Martenson gem: if you think $4.00 gas is expensive, consider that if you put a single gallon in a car, drove it until the gas ran out, and then pushed it back home, it would take you 350 to 500 hours. If you paid someone $15 per hour to do this for you, that gallon of gas would be valued at around $6,000. Cheap gas lets us live like royalty.

Tristan Roberts is Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, Inc., in Brattleboro, Vermont, which publishes information on green building solutions.

How to Get the Shelter We Need, and Nothing More

Tristan Roberts — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:07:00 GMT

Not only can the earth no longer afford our petrochemical picnic cooler McMansions fueled by coal, oil, gas and nuclear power, but also, our psyches can no longer tolerate such exaggerated encapsulation. [Editor's note: This the tenth and final ... The Inuit people shared the land with wolves and caribou, and were comfortable and content with a hooded anorak, skin trousers and a pair of mukluks--hat and boots and a good sturdy coat. We would be wise, as well, to think of our shelters as the same kind of essential wardrobe.

The Web-of-Life on a Gaian Earth

Deep ecologists, eco-psychologists, cutting-edge scientists, Earth poets and millennial philosophers are re-learning what indigenous peoples have always intuitively known: that we are part of a great Web-of-Life, inseparably intertwined and interconnected with all of the animate world and the living earth which birthed and nurtured us. To disconnect from our physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual life-support system is to invite a living death. There are no immutable boundaries in nature – all things are permeable and fluid, and all created things return to dust to become food for new creation. Our shelters need to be the same.

To be truly sustainable, our homes must be built of nature's gifts – natural materials as little removed from their source and as little processed as possible. This means local, low-tech, biodegradable, permeable, respectfully harvested and crafted with care. This also means balancing our personal comfort with the needs of the ecology that surrounds us, and enhancing rather than degrading the evolutionary flow of life. That requires doing more with less, making do with simple, small and pleasant, and foregoing excess and unnecessary architectural elaboration.

In his stunning thesis about "the original affluent society" (1968), anthropologist Marshall Sahlins revealed two approaches to well-being. Hunter-gatherer societies engaged in what he called the "Zen road to affluence" – desiring little and having all needs easily met. By contrast, in modern society "man's wants are great, not to say infinite, whereas his means are limited...and the gap between means and ends can eventually be narrowed by industrial productivity" but never fully satisfied.

As many of us moderns have come to appreciate, we have built a most remarkable cultural treadmill upon which we race to catch an always-receding reward. We have made ourselves into addicts of comfort and pleasure, status and wealth--and collectively and individually we exhibit all the signs and symptoms of profound addictive disorder, post-traumatic stress and chronic dis-ease.

Those who have awakened from the trance have shifted to downward mobility, or the back-to-the-land exodus (encouraged by Ralph Borsodi, whose 1934 School of Living influenced Helen and Scott Nearing) or the more recent sustainability and transition movements. The 1960s were a reprieve from "normalcy" for some, in which the constraints and shackles of society were thrown off for a more natural freedom of expression. Backlash, repression, and the horrors of war, civil unrest and serial assassinations made the moment difficult to sustain. But the cleansed "doors of perception" (Blake), along with the budding environmental movement and the first oil shock in 1973, opened the way for the pioneers of passive solar and super-insulated design and construction. I was among those intrepid explorers, having helped build a geodesic dome in 1970 and then delving into low-cost community-based housing in 1980 and specializing in passive solar double-wall houses since 1982.

The Riversong Truss

My contribution was to take John Larsen's retrofit wall truss system and turn it into a resource-efficient method of new super-insulated construction with native rough-sawn lumber – a system becoming known as the Riversong truss wall – filled with dense-pack cellulose and sealed with air-tight drywall. Another generation of innovators is bringing straw-bale and earthen building techniques into the mainstream, often coupled with traditional timber frames, returning our shelter technologies yet further toward the simple and sublime. Natural building is now incorporated into municipal, state and international green building codes.

Not only can the earth no longer afford our petrochemical picnic cooler McMansions fueled by coal, oil, gas and nuclear power, but also, our psyches can no longer tolerate such exaggerated encapsulation, such inviolable distinction between private and public space, or such wasteful and unsatisfying extravagance. Our physiology is deteriorating, our relationships dismembering, our societies disintegrating, as we wander aimlessly in a spiritual wasteland of our own creation.

More than a house, what we truly need is a sense of home – of being at home in a welcoming and generous world which offers a framework within which we can evolve into the animate creatures we have always been. Whole and wholesome and hearty and hale.

For what does shelter truly require? A sound roof, a solid foundation and sturdy walls. A broad hat to deflect the worst of the rain and wind, a tall pair of boots to keep us out of the mud, and a sturdy coat to wrap us against the cold. Enough and no more.

1.    Context – land, community & ecology
2.    Design – elegant simplicity, the Golden Mean
3.    Materials – the Macrobiotics of building: natural, healthy and durable
4.    Methods – criteria for appropriate technology
5.    Foundations – it all starts here: how do we begin?
6.    Envelope – shelter from the storm, our third skin
7.    HVAC – maintaining comfort, health and homeostasis
8.    Energy & Exergy – sources and sinks
9.    Hygro-Thermal – the alchemy of mass & energy flow
10.    Capping it All Off – hat & boots and a good sturdy coat