BuildingGreen Report

News Brief

April 1, 2005
Peter Yost,

EBN senior editor during 2000 and 2001, has banded with Nathan Yost and Steven Baczek to form 3-D Building Solutions, LLC, a building-science consulting firm specializing in building investigation, architectural design review, and training for both the residential and commercial building industries. The three worked together at... Read more

News Analysis

April 1, 2005

At press time, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire was expected within days to sign into law a bill passed on March 30, 2005, by the Washington State legislature requiring Silver-level certification through the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® Rating System for all major construction projects built with public funds. Executive orders and... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2005

by David Johnston and Kim Master. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada, 2004. Paperback, 400 pages, $29.95.

Remodelers are the unsung heroes of the building industry—adding functionality and beauty to extend the lives of existing buildings. Their work is much trickier than new construction because the rooms... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2005
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) announced the winners of its 2005 National Green Building Awards in March during its Green Building Conference in Atlanta. “Green building is a way of life for these award winners,” said Ray Tonjes, homebuilder and chairman of NAHB’s Green Building Subcommittee.

• Cannon Beach Cottage, a 2,268 ft2... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2005
Decreased intelligence caused by fetal exposure to mercury costs the U.S. economy $8.7 billion each year in lost productivity, according to a study published in

Environmental Health Perspectives. About 15% of that cost burden can be attributed to the emissions of coal-fired power plants, according to the study, which was performed by... Read more

Product Review

April 1, 2005
In the 1800s heyday of commercial forestry in the U.S., huge numbers of logs were floated on rivers to downstream sawmills. Some of that old-growth timber became saturated and sank—and many of these “sinker logs,” protected by cold water and a lack of exposure to oxygen and light, are still in excellent condition after a century or more on river-... Read more

Feature

April 1, 2005
To those of us entrenched in the green building world the benefits seem obvious. Why would anyone choose to build in a way that isn’t comfortable, healthy, and energy efficient? In the process of designing and building green, however, we keep running into others who are not yet as convinced. For those situations, it’s useful to be able to spell... Read more

News Analysis

April 1, 2005
The National Architectural Accrediting Board, Inc., (NAAB) is responsible for ensuring that architectural degrees granted in the United States are provided by programs that meet accepted standards. In this mission, it represents the interests of the general public and four organizations that serve the architectural profession:

•The Association... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 2005
The Sherwin-Williams Company, the nation’s largest paint manufacturer, has dropped its challenges of Pennsylvania’s new air-quality regulations. The state’s new coating standards set limits for emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in 48 distinct categories, including paints, primers, and stains. The regulations are anticipated to reduce... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 2005

Just one month after Arizona’s requirement that all new state-funded buildings use nonflushing urinals took effect on January 1, 2005, Governor Janet Napolitano signed an executive order in February requiring all new state buildings to derive at least 10% of their energy from renewable sources—defined as solar, wind, and biomass—and to meet a... Read more

Op-Ed

March 1, 2005

Green interiors expert Penny Bonda and BuildingGreen’s Nadav Malin have teamed up to offer the

Green Guru Tour of NeoCon. On this tour, a group of dedicated design professionals will join Bonda and Malin as they visit the showrooms of leading furniture and furnishing manufacturers. They will sit down for in-depth conversations with top... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 2005
Organic Style

magazine seeks entries for its first Green House Contest. The magazine will feature one new home and one renovation in the magazine. Each winner will also receive a $1,000 gift certificate from Designtex. The deadline for entries is March 31. More information and entry forms are online at www.organicstyle.com.

News Brief

March 1, 2005
Home to the J. Paul Getty Museum and other programs of the J. Paul Getty Foundation, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, (see photo) is the first facility to gain certification through the official and balloted version of the LEED for Existing Buildings® (LEED-EB) Rating System. The certification was presented during the International... Read more

Op-Ed

March 1, 2005

“Insulation: Thermal Performance is Just the Beginning” [

EBN

Vol. 14, No. 1] was another very informative article. Some specific comments:

1) Regarding polysio insulation, if the conductivity of the hydrocarbon blowing agent is indeed lower than HCFC-141b, then the insulation performance should be better, not worse.

... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 2005

Pollution Prevention software from the U.S. EPA, www.pbtprofiler.netMany are unaware that only a small fraction of the roughly 85,000 industrial chemicals currently in use in the United States—everything from flame retardants to adhesives—has undergone toxicity testing. Only two categories of chemicals require specific testing prior to... Read more

Product Review

March 1, 2005
Like VOCs and mold, unwanted noise can cause indoor environmental quality (IEQ) problems in our buildings. Along with the direct impacts of noise, such as hearing impairment, a host of other health effects are increasingly attributed to noise. These include elevated blood pressure and heart rate, cardiovascular constriction, sleep loss, labored... Read more

News Analysis

March 1, 2005
A Web-based green building performance tool from Canada, Green GlobesTM, is being introduced to the U.S. market as an alternative to the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® Rating System. The Green Building Initiative (GBI), established to promote the use of the National Association of Homebuilders’ (NAHB) Model Green Home Building Guidelines (see... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 2005
The City of Chicago has adopted new regulations aimed at reducing the amount of construction and demolition (C&D) waste sent to landfills. All contractors will be required to recycle at least 25%, by weight, of all C&D waste in the city by January 1, 2006, according to Chicago’s Department of Streets and Sanitation. On January 1, 2007, the... Read more

Op-Ed

March 1, 2005
Seattle’s Traugott Terrace transitional and low-income housing project became the 100th in-depth green project case study available in the

BuildingGreen Suite. Case studies are published through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) High Performance Buildings Database. Selected projects in the database are also featured on:

•DOE High... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 2005

A bill being considered by the Oregon legislature could be the first in the U.S. to ban the deca form of the polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) class of flame retardants. If passed and signed into law, the ban of decaBDE would take place by 2008. The proposed law would also ban by 2006 the penta and octa forms of PBDE, two chemicals that have... Read more