BackPage Primers

All About Formaldehyde

A naturally occurring organic compound used in binders for composite wood products, among other things, formaldehyde can create serious health problems in those exposed to high concentrations.
Environmental Building News—August 1, 2008

Comparing Fuel Costs

One would think comparing the costs of different heating fuels would be simple, but figuring out the amount heat available in a given quantity of fuel—and the associated cost—can be tricky.
Environmental Building News—July 1, 2008

CO2 and Other Greenhouse Gases

The family of greenhouse gases extends beyond CO2, with each gas contributing to global warming to some degree.
BuildingGreen.com—June 17, 2008

Life-Cycle Assessment: Tracing a Product's Impacts

Life-cycle assessment—accounting for all of the environmental impacts of a product from its manufacture to its disposal—is a simple concept, but using it to compare products in practice can be difficult.
Environmental Building News—June 1, 2008

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
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Ezkote Green

Mark Piepkorn says, “Looks like we were following the same path at the same time. :)” More...

Mark Piepkorn says, “Hi Tom - yeah, this is confusing. It's made by a subsidiary of US Mix, US Spec. Through some convoluted...” More...

Tom Curtin says, “found it at us spec.com” More...

Tom Curtin says, “Does not appear on manufactuer website!!” More...


CBRE Experiments With One-Day Energy Reductions

Allyson Wendt says, “Ethan, I just looked back at their press release, and those savings figures are for the single day (it isn't...” More...

Ethan Goldman says, “It's impressive that they were able to coordinate and move that fast (though I would be shocked if all the...” More...


Green Roof Study Finds Big Variation in Stormwater Retention

David Lanfear says, “I am appreciative of this testing and am very interested in the ongoing findings. As I research and develop living...” More...


Structure as Finish: The Pros and Cons of Leaving Off Layers

David Ottavio says, “Thank you both for your comments. The project that we are looking in to using this type of system is...” More...

Martin Holladay says, “David, While earth tubes were promoted in the late 1990s and early years of this century by Passivhaus Institut founder Wolfgang...” More...

Alex Wilson says, “There was a lot of interest in earth tubes to temper or preheat air for ventilation back in the '80s...” More...

David Ottavio says, “We are looking at incorporating earth ducts into the cooling strategy for a project in the early stage of design. I'd...” More...


2030 E2

Allyson Wendt says, “Hi Bill, I haven't seen anything like that--tools that really measure triple bottom line metrics are just starting to be developed.” More...

William Marston says, “Is anyone aware of someone working on such a tool aimed at the 350ppm target? Of course such a tool must...” More...