BackPage Primers

Evaporative Coolers

As water evaporates, it absorbs heat. Direct and indirect evaporative coolers use this property to cool homes efficiently.
Environmental Building News—May 1, 2008

How the Sun's Path Can Inform Design

Designing a building with the sun in mind can help reduce both heating and cooling loads.
Environmental Building News—April 1, 2008

Shedding Light on Light Quality

Two terms commonly used to refer to light sources—color temperature and color rendering index—tell us about the quality of light, but can at times be counter-intuitive. Lights with a low color temperature, for example, actually feel "warmer" on the color spectrum.
Environmental Building News—March 1, 2008

Good Ozone, Bad Ozone

The same ozone that causes air quality problems near Earth's surface protects the Earth from ultraviolet radiation high in the atmosphere. This protective ozone layer is thinning due to manufactured chemicals.
Environmental Building News—February 1, 2008

Solar Reflectance Index and Cool Roofs

Understanding reflectivity and emissivity of roofing materials is important to evaluating their effect on cooling loads and the urban heat island effect.
Environmental Building News—January 1, 2008

Energy Metrics: Btus, Watts, and Kilowatt-Hours

Mixing units of electric power with those of energy is a common mistake, but distiguishing kilowatts from kilowatt-hours is not that complicated, and is worth getting straight.
Environmental Building News—December 1, 2007

Thermal Mass: What It Is and When It Improves Comfort

Heavy or massive objects like masonry can help improve thermal comfort, if used properly. They often don't insulate well, however.
Environmental Building News—November 1, 2007

Binders in Manufactured Wood Products: Beyond Formaldehyde

Concerned about emissions regulations, the manufactured wood products industry is moving away from glues formulated with urea formaldehyde and phenol formaldehyde.
Environmental Building News—October 1, 2007

Ground-Source Heat Pumps: Tapping the Earth's Mass

Ground-source heat pumps take advantage of stable temperatures just below the Earth's crust for energy-efficient heating and cooling.
Environmental Building News—September 1, 2007

Light-Emitting Diodes: Chasing White Light

LED lighting is becoming more energy-efficient and cost-effective, but it has not yet realized its potential for efficacy, and for wider applicability.
Environmental Building News—August 1, 2007
Member Comments

More Solar Gain, Not R-Value, Better for Heating Climates

Steven Konstantino says, “Thermotech has been manufacturing windows with very low U-Values for years and has always addressed solar orientation in selection of...” More...

pat sapinsley says, “WIndows, solar heat gain and R value Posted by pat sapinsley on May 2, 2008, 06:25 PM The...” More...

pat sapinsley says, “The real solution was discussed in a June 2006 EBN article. Dynamic glazing, which allows solar heat gain to enter...” More...


Boulder County Limits Energy Use for Homes

Kim Calomino says, “The BuildSmart code enacted by Boulder County, Colorado, is unreasonable, impracticable, over reaching, and is going to be very costly...” More...


Universities Gain New Sustainability Reporting Tool

Allyson Wendt says, “A draft of STARS is now available for public comment from AASHE. The public comment period goes through May 9...” More...


How the Sun's Path Can Inform Design

Mark Smith says, “Using the sun instead of roads as the primary organization principle, solar orientation can be applied to production SFD and...” More...


Revolutionary Vacuum Glass Coming from Guardian

Laura Catanzaro says, “What would the R-value be of the frame of such a window?” More...


Incorporate Passive Survivability into Building Codes

Claire Barnett says, “This is a particular strong issue for schools everywhere, since schools are large community facilities often used as shelters in...” More...


LEED Delivers on Predicted Energy Savings

Nadav Malin says, “The complete report based on the data mention in this article is now available for download from New Buildings Institute:...” More...