waterless urinal that not only saves an average of 45,000 gallons per year (see table, page 6), but also has no valves to clog or break and may actually be more hygienic than conventional urinals.

Here’s how this ingenious system works: urine flows into the EcoTrap®, where it passes through a lighter-weight liquid, which this trademark-happy company calls BlueSeal® (see diagram). The layer of BlueSeal provides the trap, effectively keeping odors from escaping into the room. The toilet is plumbed to a standard drain line (not copper). A water supply line is not needed because this is a non-flushing urinal. In fact, there are no moving parts at all to fail.

The EasyRiser has a triangular piece of 2x6 sandwiched between two trapezoidal-shaped pieces of 3⁄8” (10 mm) oriented-strand board (OSB). The stringers (usually 2x6s, but sometimes 2x8s or larger for large spans) are laid out with a framing square as shown in the photo. The EasyRiser components are slid onto the stringers and screwed or nailed into place from both sides using 15⁄8” (41 mm) drywall screws or comparable fasteners. The risers can be pivoted as needed prior to fastening, depending on stair pitch, riser height, and tread width. Premarked tread measurements range from 9” (230 mm) to 11” (280 mm), but deeper treads can be produced, as long as an enough purchase is provided for screwing the EasyRisers into the 2x6 stringer.

For exterior applications, the company provides EasyRisers made from pressure-treated lumber and marine-grade plywood. For environmental reasons, the company goes to considerable effort to have these components pressure-treated with ACQ Preserve, a less toxic preservative alternative to CCA (see

Concrete pier foundations offer several advantages over full-height frost walls, including greatly reduced concrete use. While most commonly used for decks, outdoor stairs, and the like, pier foundations are also sometimes used for the entire building foundation.

Now pier foundations are easier to install. F&S Manufacturing, Inc. of Nova Scotia, Canada has introduced the Bigfoot System™ for site-forming pier footings. The funnel-shaped form is made of 100% post-consumer recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and replaces boxed-wood footings commonly made on-site.

Roughly four billion pounds (1.8 billion kg) of old carpeting are landfilled each year. Comprised of different materials—nylon, polyester, latex backing, etc.—the stuff is inherently difficult to reprocess back into carpet (see EBN Vol. 6, No. 6). So how ’bout simply shredding the stuff and turning it into a fiber insulation material? That’s exactly what entrepreneur Tom Deem wants to do.

Deem is an inventive sort of guy who works in a plumbing supply store in Philco, Illinois. When he wasn’t cutting pipe or finding the right plumbing fixtures for customers a few years ago, he thought a lot about the huge quantity of old carpet making its way into landfills. In 1993 he came up with the idea of turning old carpet into loose-fill insulation for attic applications. So he bought a used brush chipper and tried shredding samples of carpeting. That worked pretty well—the chipper broke the backing apart and left a fluffy fiber with a density of about 2 lb/ft3 (32 kg/m3). The product was not unlike cellulose insulation, and he found that it could be blown into attics using cellulose-blowing equipment.

Over the years, Deem had the good fortune of getting to know building scientist Bill Rose (with the Small Homes Research Council at the University of Illinois). He gave Rose a sample to carry out some quick thermal testing, and the stuff achieved a respectable R-3.3 per inch (RSI-0.6)—about the same as most fiberglass batt insulation and somewhat better than loose-fill fiberglass, though not quite as high as cellulose.

The halogen torchiere light fixtures that have been sweeping the lighting world over the past few years are bad news. Not only do they have about the lowest usable-light efficacy (lumens per watt) of any common lighting source—their widespread use in recent years has erased all of the energy savings achieved to date through the use of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs)—but they are significant fire hazards that are responsible for hundreds of fires and more than a dozen deaths (see EBN Vol. 6, No. 1). Well, finally there are some alternatives.

Emess Lighting, Inc. of Ellwood City, Pennsylvania and the Energy Federation, Inc. (EFI) of Natick, Massachusetts have recently introduced torchiere-style standing light fixtures with compact fluorescent rather than halogen lamps. We obtained some of the first products to reach the market and have been testing them in the EBN office. While we are extremely pleased to finally see CFL torchieres on the market, we ran into a few problems or concerns with both products.

Geotextiles have long been used for erosion control on construction sites and along new roads and eroded streambanks. An open matting material is laid down, pinned into the ground, and seeded with grass or other vegetation. Many geotextiles in use today are woven polypropylene or polyethylene, which have the disadvantage of being non-biodegradable. From an environmental stand- point, biodegradable fabrics, that will become part of the soil as the slope stabilizes, are generally preferred. There is also evidence that natural fiber fabrics actually do a better job of preventing erosion, because they retain moisture themselves and soften to follow the contours of the soil as they get wet.

There are a number of biodegradable geotextiles on the market. The most common are blanket-like fabrics made from straw and wood fiber. Belton Industries manufactures open-weave fabrics, both from synthetics and from natural jute or coir. Jute is a fiber made from either of two East Indian plants of the linden family,

First they were produced with CFC-11 blowing agents. Then the CFCs were replaced with HCFCs, which are only 5%-10% as damaging to stratospheric ozone. Now several manufacturers of one-part polyurethane foam sealants are using hydrocarbon blowing agents or a mix of hydrocarbons and non-ozone-depleting HFCs.

The biggest drawback to steel framing is the thermal bridging that compromises insulation performance. Wrapping a steel frame with insulating sheathing helps to reduce this problem, but it is expensive and requires a lot of insulation. A new solution from U.S. Building Technology, Inc. addresses this problem by putting the insulation just where it’s most needed: on the studs themselves.

The Snap-Cap™ is available in thicknesses ranging from 1⁄2” to 2”. Friction-fit onto 31⁄2” steel studs, the Snap-Cap increases the thickness of the wall cavity, allowing for more batt or blown-in insulation, while blocking heat flow through the stud itself. USBT is also producing peel-and-stick strips of foam insulation to go onto top and bottom channels, corners, and other locations where the Snap-Cap can’t get a grip.

With all the emphasis on recycling and reusing graywater, it’s easy to forget that hot water going down the drain carries with it most of the energy that was used to heat the water. By using that hot water to preheat incoming cold water, as much as 60% of that energy can be recovered. Under ideal conditions, recovering that heat can actually double the effective efficiency of a water heater. In the past, systems designed to capture this waste heat have been cumbersome and expensive. The new GFX system from Vaughn Manufacturing has greatly simplified wastewater heat recovery, with amazing results.

The GFX (for

States Industries, Inc. of Eugene, Oregon, has just begun offering a line of hardwood-veneer plywood made entirely from certified wood. The plywood cores are produced by laying up white fir veneers supplied by Collins Pine (from their certified timberlands in the Pacific Northwest). Hardwood veneers from various certified forests are then laminated onto the cores. Currently, three different veneers are available: black cherry and red oak from Kane Hardwoods (a timber operation in Pennsylvania owned by Collins Pine), and sugar maple from the Menominee Tribal Enterprises in Wisconsin.