EonCoat is a two-part corrosion-resistant, ceramic paint that is highly durable, fireproof, and 100% VOC-free. Photo: EonCoat, LLC. Click on image to enlarge
If heat loss through your roof is going to melt snow and cause ice dams, use a snow rake to clear the snow. Here's my wife raking our roof after last week's snowstorm. Photo: Alex Wilson. Click on image to enlarge
Prototype Greensulate insulation grown from seed hulls and fungal mycellium. Photo: Ecovative Design. Click on image to enlarge.
Significant price fluctuation has been the rule with crude oil and gasoline for the past several years. As the economy picks up, many experts predict higher oil prices during 2011. Graph: Wall Street Cheat Sheet. Click on image to enlarge.

New, improved guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) about how to deal with a broken compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) are intended to take some of the mystery out of the purchase and use of CFLs. But by suggesting a response that borders on Hazmat lockdown, the guidelines may potentially add to consumers' uncertainties.

Knight Wall System's GI-Girt rainscreen supports a variety of cladding option and provides continuous insulation across the exterior of steel framed buildings. Photo: Knight Wall Systems.
In oil refineries crude oil is distilled into fractions that provide our major fuels and other petroleum products. Photo: BP. Click on image on enlarge.
A Minneapolis Blower Door with DG-700 instrumentation kit. Photo: The Energy Conservatory. Click on image to enlarge.

It's certainly a convenience to turn the water on and off without using your hands. But it also saves water.

For the past eight years we've been able to turn our kitchen faucet on and off using a knee- and foot-control valve from the Canadian company Tapmaster. This may seem like a convenience-only product designed for lazy people. I can't argue with all of that--and admit that I probably wouldn't have installed one if I hadn't received it for testing from the manufacturer after we had reviewed a competing product in Environmental Building News. But I gotta say, I love it, and I'm convinced that it does result in significant water and energy savings.

Among the key changes coming down the road for LEED, as I recently wrote about (Your Guide to the New Draft of LEED), is a change to the LEED AP credit, formerly IDc2, now dubbed IPc2 (that's "Integrated Process" credit 2).

UPDATE: This blog post and the GreenSpec product entry have been updated to reflect that BrightShelf is now manufactured by Hunter Douglas Contract.

The Concept SL-100 32 LED Solar Security Light with Motion Detector. Photo: Amazon.com. Click on image to enlarge.