The product line includes 34 different models ranging from 7 watts for the smallest globe lamps to 13 watts for the larger half-spot lamps. The globe lamps are UL-approved for wet locations, and the medium and large globe lamps are rated to –13°F (-25°C) and, therefore, are appropriate for decorative outdoor lighting applications. All NanoLux lamps have a standard threaded base (like incandescent light bulbs).

The NanoLux spot and half-spot allow CFLs to be used in place of high-design halogen lamps in track, spot, and pendant applications (see photo). The smallest 7-watt NanoLux globe lamp, producing 200 lumens, provides equivalent light to a 20-watt incandescent lamp, according to the company, while the 12-watt, large R-20 spot, which produces 1,000 lumens, can replace a 60-watt incandescent lamp. Used eight hours per day, a 12-watt NanoLux CFL should save about $14 per year (with an electricity cost of 10¢/kWh).

The company premiered its new Axis™ underfloor HVAC system at the 2003 Greenbuild conference, and a full launch is scheduled for January 2004.

Carrier is teaming with Haworth, Inc. on an integrated access floor package. (Haworth recently bought InterfaceAR from Interface, Inc.; see

The Calgary, Alberta company Nysan introduced a PVC-free interior shade-screen product line at the Pittsburgh Greenbuild conference.

Until this product introduction, there were about eight manufacturers of shade-screen systems for commercial buildings, including Nysan, all of which used PVC-coated screening—usually either woven polyester or woven fiberglass. (Most such products are 60–75% PVC by weight.) Given demand from the green building community for a PVC-free shade screen product line, a number of manufacturers, including industry-leading Mecho Shade, have been working on PVC alternatives. But Nysan is the first EBN is aware of that has a PVC-free line that can compete with PVC in performance, fire resistance, and price.

Vol. 12, No. 11), we ran a product review of straw-particleboard casework from Case Systems, Inc. of Midland, Michigan. At Greenbuild, we learned of a similar ag-fiber casework product that has been around even longer.

LSI Corporation of America, based in Minneapolis, introduced an option for ag-fiber-based particleboard with its product line of plastic-laminate casework in 1999. This June the company shifted its entire casework production to this particleboard. LSI refers to it as LSI Environments™, and to the core material as LSI EnvironmentCore™.

The challenge in producing a glass-cement composite is dealing with a chemical reaction that occurs in the interface of the glass and cement. This alkali-silica reaction (ASR) can weaken the concrete and cause cracking, and it has slowed the development of cement-glass composites. (Waussau Tile dealt with this ASR problem and introduced a recycled-glass terrazzo tile product several years ago—see

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Well . . . it’s pretty easy in northern Minnesota or Vermont, where the inside of an exterior wall is almost always the warm side. But in

mixed climates, the warm side of a wall in the winter months might become the

The story behind this switch is quite interesting.

Roger Maynard, AIA, of the Maynard/David Partnership, Inc., a Denver design firm specializing in laboratory buildings, can claim credit for this dramatic transition. In May 2002, he was retained by Environmental Resource Associates (ERA), also of Denver, to design a new, 24,000 ft2 (2,230 m2) building to house their headquarters, laboratory, and production facility for manufacturing chemical contaminant standards that are used nationwide for calibrating environmental testing equipment.

The Danish Uridan® line has been introduced to the U.S. market by Uridan-USA (a division of GDK International) of Kissimmee, Florida. Uridan joins two domestic manufacturers of non-water-using urinals—Waterless Company (see

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A number of other manufacturers also produce mineral silicate paints relying on the same basic chemistry. At least four companies are now distributing or manufacturing these paints in North America: Cohalan Company (U.S. distributor of the German Keim Mineral Systems); Silacote (North American distributor of the Latvian product line Hansa Silicat); Edison Coatings, Inc. (manufactured in the U.S.); and Eco-House, Inc. (manufactured in Canada).

Both of the North American manufacturers began production only this year.

Over the past year, three companies have begun marketing a low-density, open-cell polyurethane foam insulation made, in part, from soybeans. By far the best organized and established of these is BioBased Systems of Spring Valley, Illinois. Experienced users tell EBN that BioBase 501 works just as well as its petrochemical-based competitors, and they are even more excited about the fact that it costs less.

Until about 1990, sprayed-in-place polyurethane foam was always a closed-cell product, blown with ozone-depleting CFCs, that hardened to leave a durable surface once it cured. During the 1990s, installers of standard polyurethane switched from using CFC-11 to using the much less damaging HCFC-141b as a blowing agent. Meanwhile, a company called Icynene in Ontario, Canada pioneered a low-density (0.5 lb/ft3 or 8 kg/m3), open-cell polyurethane foam insulation that used water as its blowing agent (see EBN Vol. 4, No. 5). This low-density foam doesn’t cure with as hard a surface as standard polyurethane, and, because it doesn’t have the low-conductivity HCFC gas in its cells, it has a lower R-value—R-3.7 per inch (RSI-0.7) as opposed to about R-6.2 per inch (RSI-1.1) for the high-density foam. But it seals against air infiltration just as well, and it can be installed in thicker layers to make up for the lower R-value. Over time, Icynene and a similar product, Sealection 500 from Demilec (see EBN Vol. 6, No. 5), have slowly been making inroads in the North American insulation industry. But now there’s BioBase 501.