This issue has a heavy focus on products, inspired by a rather grueling three-day traverse of the NAHB Builder’s Show this past January in Dallas. Some of the products reviewed are items that caught our attention at this massive show—some 11⁄2 acres of exhibit space. Others, such as the Waterless Urinal® (see Big Savings from Waterless Urinal... Read more

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... Read more

Following its Winter Meeting in San Francisco, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) announced that its energy performance guide, Standard 90.1, will follow in the footsteps of the indoor air quality document (Standard 62) by going onto “continuous maintenance” instead of the current “periodic... Read more

After seeing the torchiere review in your November issue (EBN

Vol. 6, No. 10), I confess to cringing slightly when I saw the problems you had with the torchiere [from Energy Federation Inc.]. You were shipped one of the first production units, before we had even assembled some demo units for our lobby.

We saw several new developments with

horizontal-axis clothes washers at the NAHB Builders Show in Dallas this January. Maytag displayed its Neptune stacking washer, which actually won’t be available until mid-year. Linda Eggers told

EBN that the company is having trouble keeping up with the tremendous demand for their non-... Read more

a quarterly newsletter published by the Institute for Local Self Reliance, 1313 5th Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414; 612/379-3815, 612/379-3920 (fax), www.ilsr.org; $35 per year

Through highly effective network marketing, Alpine Industries has created an army of poorly informed distributors, some of whom show up at various green building shows around the country displaying their so-called air-purification machines. These machines reputedly remove indoor pollutants by generating ions and ozone. In 1995 the Federal Trade... Read more

Vol. 6, No. 10), we reported that K&M Bamboo Products, Inc. refused to provide details about their products. We have since received this communication from them, with documentation indicating that their products are indeed similar to most of the others in performance.Like the... Read more

by the Rocky Mountain Institute, produced by CREST. Version 1.0, November 1997, Windows™ and Macintosh™ compatible. Available for $7 plus $3 shipping and handling from: Rocky Mountain Institute, 1739 Snowmass Creek Road, Snowmass, CO 81654-9199; 970/927-3851, 970/927-4178 (fax), www.rmi.org.

Green Development:... Read more

This house may not win any architectural design awards—its boxy, utilitarian design echoes the Yankee values personified by its designer—but the “Hanover House” is indeed ground-breaking. Designed for a middle-aged couple without children by mechanical engineer Marc Rosenbaum, P.E., of Meriden, New Hampshire, this residence has about the lowest... Read more

The first load-bearing straw-bale home in the State of Washington is now offered as the prize of an essay contest by Michael and Spring Thomas of the IronStraw Group. The home, which has been monitored by Habitat for Humanity International for their research on affordable, straw-bale houses, consists of two structures situated on a seven-acre... Read more

New York and California have recently passed legislation allowing the use of unvented gas appliances, according to the November 1997 issue of

Energy Design Update (EDU). The legislation in both states has been signed by the governors, but will not go into effect until after review by the state health agencies. New York passed similar... Read more

Thank you for recognizing the GFX drain water heat recovery system in “Recovering Heat from Wastewater” (EBN

Vol. 6, No. 8). As stated in your article, this exciting new product has the potential to improve the hot water delivery performance of domestic water heaters while reducing costs and energy use. This potential has been confirmed... Read more

Cellulose insulation should now be easier to specify in wall cavities with the release of a new “Standard Practice for the Installation of Sprayed Cellulosic Wall Cavity Insulation” from the Cellulose Industry Manufacturers Association. Until now each manufacturer had its own guidelines, varying in length and quality, according to the December... Read more

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... Read more

Interface, Inc., Atlanta, GA, November 1997. Copies available at no cost by contacting the company at 770/437-6810. Oversized paperback with the cover printed on a distinctive recycled banana fiber stock, 34 pages.

Interface Sustainability Report is a different type of corporate report. Much more than an environmental progress report... Read more

The widely used plasticizer DEHP (di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate) might be causing asthma, according to a recent study by Norwegian and Danish scientists published in the September 1997 issue of

Environmental Health Perspectives. DEHP is used extensively as a plasticizer in PVC building products. Vinyl sheet flooring, for example, contains... Read more