Virtually all of the chemicals used in pressure-treated wood—CCA (chromated copper arsenate), ACQ (ammonium copper quaternary), copper azole, and even borates—are formulated to do one thing: kill organisms that decay or eat wood. It stands to reason that chemicals selected for their toxicity might also affect humans and ecosystems. Most uses of CCA have been phased out due to toxicity concerns (see EBN Vol. 11, No. 2). Both ACQ and copper azole can leach copper, which is highly toxic to many aquatic organisms. Borates are appealing because of their very low mammalian toxicity, but they are still toxic to some organisms, and we may someday discover that they are harmful in ways that haven’t been considered.

Thus, we were excited at EBN to learn about a new wood preservative that functions through an entirely different mechanism. TimberSIL™, produced by Timber Treatment Technologies, LLC (TTT), relies not on toxicity but on an inorganic mineralization process that renders wood unrecognizable as a food source. “We shut the food source off,” says Bill Beard, TTT’s executive vice president for sales and marketing.

Following six years of development, MechoShade Systems, Inc., the shade screen industry leader, has introduced a new product aimed directly at the green market. Their PVC-free EcoVeil™—made of a new thermoplastic olefin (TPO) yarn called EarthTex™, developed by MechoShade’s textile partner, the Twitchell™ Corporation—is the first solar shade screen to earn a stamp of approval from McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, LLC (MBDC). “We intend for EcoVeil to be safe for people, safe for the environment, and to never end up in a landfill,” explained Jan Berman, president of MechoShade.

MBDC assisted in the development of EcoVeil, and the end result is, in MBDC argot, a “technical nutrient” that can be recycled ad infinitum into more of the original material. “I think it’s a very cool product,” said Jay Bolus, MBDC’s director of science and operations, “and it represents a big step by both Twitchell and MechoShade.” EcoVeil is currently rated at level three out of five on MBDC’s scale of eco-effectiveness and is undergoing continuous evaluation to determine its impact on the health of humans and the environment. “I think what differentiates us from the rest of the market is that we embraced this comprehensive protocol,” Berman told EBN. “Instead of stopping at what it doesn’t have, we wanted to know what it does have.”

There’s a new option for potable-water, hydronic-heating, and other pressurized piping applications: polypropylene from the German company Aquatherm, GmbH. Aquatherm has been producing high-quality Fusiotherm® polypropylene (PP) piping for 30 years with tremendous success—never having paid a claim for damage due to failure of the piping, despite a well-financed guarantee. Now this piping is available in the U.S. from Aquatherm Piping Systems, LLC, the product’s exclusive importer and distributor.

What is immediately apparent when looking at Fusiotherm pipe is the wall thickness. It is thicker than copper and most plastic piping products available here, including cross-linked polyethylene (PEX) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). This gives it tremendous strength and durability, but also makes it less flexible than most PEX piping. The other big difference is the system for fusing joints and connections. A fusing gun, available from Aquatherm, is used to heat both the end of a pipe and the fitting into which it will be secured. After heating for about 10 seconds, the pipe is secured into the fitting, and within about 30 seconds the joint becomes one piece of monolithic polymer. After ten minutes the pipe can be fully pressurized. “You can’t screw it up,” an Aquatherm representative told EBN.

® cushioned backings—the company’s ER3™ recycled-content backing is standard on its

noncushioned products. C&A makes carpet tile and 6-foot (1.8 m) roll goods exclusively, while the other two Tandus companies, Crossley and Monterey, produce broadloom products.

more heat as outside conditions become colder, giving it an overall performance that rivals many geothermal heat pumps. “The efficiency of air-source heat pumps has always been there; it’s the capacity that has been missing,” Duane Hallowell, general manager of Nyle Special Products, told

EBN. “Our system maintains capacity where other systems lose it. We’re not a new technology—we’re a new concept.”

As with the

Toto EcoPower faucet introduced in 2003, which relies on a tiny hydropower generator (see

A simple adjustment on the Cimarron toilet allows the flush volume to be adjusted down to 1.4 gpf (5.3 lpf), which the company projects will save approximately 2,000 gallons (7,600 l) per year. An etched line on the pilot valve float stem shows the 1.6 and 1.4 gpf levels, though the toilet can also be set to use even less—or more—water. Mike Chandler, marketing director of sanitary products for Kohler, told

EBN that while the toilet works very well with 1.4 gallons, they opted to provide the higher-flush option because of lingering concerns among plumbers and the public about flush effectiveness with low-flush toilets.

Power Generation

The Power Generation Division of Solargenix is picking up where the Luz Company left off when it went bankrupt in 1991. Luz built nine solar electric generating system (SEGS) power plants using high-temperature, solar-trough collectors in the Mohave Desert in the 1980s and early ‘90s, with a total generating capacity of 354 megawatts (MW)—see

EBN.

The Enviro-Lum produces approximately 300 lumens of light with an expected 75% lumen maintenance (25% lumen depreciation) after 60,000 hours. Although 300 lumens isn’t much light (somewhat less than a 25-watt incandescent bulb produces), LEDs typically focus light precisely, so the light

The Japanese company Toyotomi introduced its OM-22 oil-fired, pilotless, wall-mount space heater in the U.S. in 2001. It is designed to operate on No. 2 fuel oil or kerosene (No. 1 fuel oil) and relies on an external fuel tank (typically installed in a basement). Like Rinnai wall-mount space heaters, this is a through-the-wall-venting product with sealed combustion. The OM-22 has three output levels: 8,000, 15,000, and 22,000 Btu/hour. The efficiency, at 90%, is high for oil-fired heating equipment, and the combustion is relatively clean. According to Patrick Miller, of Nelson & Small, Inc., the distributor of Toyotomi products for the Northeast, the OM-22 vaporizes the fuel and burns the vapor, rather than directly burning the liquid fuel. A porcelain rod is heated electrically to initiate that vaporization. The unit uses 275 watts of electricity in the preheat mode and 46 watts during operation (primarily for the fan).

Researcher Dr. C. R. Krishna of Brookhaven National Laboratory, who studies fuel oil combustion, calls vaporization the “holy grail” of oil heating. If it’s done right, vaporization results in very low emissions of nitrogen oxides (NO