Predicting performance and rationally selecting window coverings—from awnings to films to cellular shades—is incredibly challenging, but real help is on the way.

There is a lot of interest in just how much (and at how low a price point) window coverings can improve building thermal performance.

Zehnder’s state-of-the-art HRV will provide years of service in providing fresh air with very low energy consumption.

How a green home really “breathes.”

One of the features in our new house that I’m most excited about barely raises an eyebrow with some of our visitors: the ventilation system. I believe we have the highest-efficiency heat-recovery ventilator (HRV) on the market—or at least it’s right up there near the top.

Why ventilate?

Testing the limits of the air-source heat pump in our new house with this cold weather The interior unit of our Mitubishi air-source heat pump. Click photos to enlarge.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

 

With a new group of online BAC courses starting this week, I’m reminded of the benefits of learning—and teaching—from home. San Francisco Bay Area traffic. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: Getty Images

Storing high-level nuclear waste in a mountain or salt bed will always face an uphill battle.

Workers entering the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility in 2006.Photo Credit: Isaac Breekken, AP

 

Cold weather, when wood stoves are cranked up and portable electric space heaters are brought out of the basement and plugged in, is when most house fires occur Enjoying a wood stove on a cold winter day.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

Six items on my policy wish-list for 2014 and beyond. Safe bicycle commuting and walking is high on my wish list for 2014.Photo Credit: Yuba Cargo Bikes

Here are some green product developments I’d like to see in the New Year

I spend a lot of time writing about innovations in the building industry—the cool stuff that’s coming out all the time. But I also like to think about what’s needed: stuff that’s not (yet) on the market or performance levels not yet available.

1) Rigid insulation with no flame retardants and insignificant global warming potential

Can we replace foam insulation? What does energy modeling really tell us? Find out what you, our readers, have picked as this year’s top 10 stories!

Our resident number-crunchers have spent hours slaving over metrics to bring you … your own most-read BuildingGreen stories of the year. Ta-da!

Are we going to find the same NIMBY opposition to larger solar systems that we’re experiencing today with wind farms? 
Beacon Power pushing the envelope and creating a more resilient utility grid with large-scale flywheel power storage Schematic of Beacon Power's Energy Smart 25 flywheel.Photo Credit: Beacon Power

A recent memo hints that the Department of Defense will accept Green Globes certification for buildings—but that was already the case.

Biophilia is supposed to be about our innate connection to nature. So where do TV windows and artificial breezes enter in?

I should have known I was in for something unexpected when I walked into this year’s Greenbuild session on “biophilia”—humans’ love of living things—in a dark, windowless auditorium.

Solar Grid Storage is at the forefront of efforts to use renewable energy to create a more resilient utility grid