1. Total Harmonic Distortion

2. Osram and Sylvania merged in 1993

3. Reflector style

4. Panasonic lamps have single tube with double fold and are enclosed in white glass bulb. Lamps available in... Read more

The article “Should We Phase Out PVC?” [EBN

Vol. 3, No. 1] provided one of the most complete summaries of the various environmental, health, and safety aspects of PVC manufacture and use in buildings I’ve seen. If your readers want to get even more details about plastics in building fires, they may want to read my... Read more

The City of New York has created an Inter-Agency Environmentally Sound Building Task Force to develop, encourage, and coordinate ideas for introducing environmentally sound building into the municipal building program. The City is currently soliciting information from other municipalities, private industry, and other countries on applied... Read more

Foamed insulation from coal fly-ash, being developed by Henry Sperber of Abiff Manufacturing, recently got a boost in the form of a DOE grant. Sperber is the inventor of the Blow-in-Blanket and Fiberiffic insulation systems. The product has interesting possibilities as a low-cost, foamed-in-place insulation made from industrial waste. It is... Read more

Our lead article in this issue takes a look at on-site wastewater treatment. Several alternative approaches that provide better groundwater protection are discussed. But our quest for improved wastewater treatment, especially on sites with poor soils, raises an important concern. If we can design self-contained wastewater treatment... Read more

from The Stafford Architects, 1916 Pike Place #705, Seattle, WA 98101-1056; 206/682-4042, 206/447-1670 (fax). Runs on common spreadsheet or database software on Mac or DOS-based PCs. $45, $69 with semi-annual update. Multi-user licenses slightly higher.

There’s a lot of information on this... Read more

Building Materials

The Forest Products Laboratory (FPL), largest research lab of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service, has announced a plan to promote increased use of recycled wood fiber in a broad range of housing applications. The project’s stated goal is to develop technologies... Read more

with Architects

by John Connell. 1993, Warner Books, New York. 400 pages, hardcover, $35.00.

With

Homing Instinct, Connell has contributed the latest in a tradition of how-to books for owner-builders. Following in the footsteps of old classics like

From the Ground Up and

Building... Read more

Green Builder Program, City of Austin, Environmental & Conservation Services Dept., 206 E. 9th Street, Suite 17.102, Austin, TX 78701; 512/499-3500; 512/499-2859 (fax). Three-ring binder format, 440 pages, $25 postpaid.

The Sustainable Building Sourcebook was written to provide background information for... Read more

As an architect I see an interesting relationship between the issue of sustainability in architecture, which has the potential to help our planet, and the issue of contextualism, which, if expanded to include “nature,” has the potential to cause enormous growth in the art of architecture.

Contextualism, which... Read more

The CNN Environment Unit is preparing a half-hour show on environmental home renovation featuring EBN Advisory Board members Steve Loken and Marc Rosenbaum. EBN subscribers are invited to suggest renovation ideas, materials, or techniques (for either contractors or do-it- yourselfers) for inclusion in the show, which will air in late May or... Read more

The Alcyone Light Centre is offering a three-month course in green architecture in the spring of 1994, and another in sustainable building construction in the summer. Contact Architectural Internship Director, Alcyone Light Centre, 1965 Hilt Rd., Hornbrook, CA 96044; 916/475-3310.

Extruded polystyrene (XPS) is the insulation material of choice for many builders when it comes to below-grade applications and is used in many other ways as well. Commonly referred to by Dow Chemical Company’s tradename Styrofoam®, standard XPS insulation is manufactured in the U.S. by four... Read more

A lot of what we do in our research at EBN is listen to claims. We hear from one group that a particular material is great for the environment, while another group tells us just the opposite. Very often, both interest groups are right …and both are wrong. How can that be? The apparent contradiction lies in selective use of... Read more

The

Environmental Resource Guide from the American Institute of Architects (reviewed in EBN

Vol. 1, No. 3) is now available at a lower subscription rate. The new price for one year of quarterly installments is $98 for AIA members and $165 for non-members. Call 800/365-ARCH to order.

by Paul Hawken. HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. Hardcover, 250 pages, $23.

The Ecology of Commerce argues eloquently for radical change in how business works. Hawken compares our present economic system to immature, opportunistic natural environments that grow and spread rapidly but do not last. A mature system of... Read more

In 1992 The Glidden Company surprised the interior paint world by offering a latex paint without any volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs in paints have been implicated in indoor air quality (IAQ) problems and environmental illness cases. There has been a strong trend toward lower VOC formulations, spurred in part... Read more

I appreciated reading your fairly comprehensive article on environmental impacts of various heating fuel options (“Heating Fuel Choices: Weighing the Alternatives”, EBN,

Vol. 2, No. 6). You uncovered several of the complexities inherent to evaluating the costs and benefits of fuel options as determined by... Read more

Most builders have vaguely heard of those little metal drywall stops that can be used for supporting drywall corners, but remarkably few have ever tried them. More builders we’ve spoken with are familiar with drywall

clips, which are fitted onto the edge of the drywall as it is being installed. Many drywall crews... Read more