BuildingGreen Report

Product Review

February 1, 1999
Certified Engineered Wood from Standard Structures

Standard Structures, Inc., of Santa Rosa, California, is the first manufacturer

EBN is aware of to offer third-party-certified engineered wood products.

This past July, the company gained chain-of-custody certification from Smart Wood for glulam beams and is nearly there with... Read more

News Brief

February 1, 1999

The

Boston Society of Architects’ 1999 Sustainable Design Awards program is cosponsored by the New York City Chapter of the AIA. Architects are invited to submit design projects located anywhere in the world. The submission deadline for this biennial competition is May 17. Call the BSA at 617/951-1433 ext. 221 to get a copy of the Call... Read more

Op-Ed

February 1, 1999
Letting Polluters Pay

The recent EPA standard on VOC limits in architectural coatings includes a provision that may represent the wave of the future in environmental policy and regulation. Although limits are established on allowable levels of VOCs in various coatings, the agency has chosen to allow manufacturers to exceed these limits by... Read more

News Analysis

February 1, 1999
Largest Hardwood Plywood Manufacturer Offers Certified Line

Columbia Forest Products, Inc., the nation’s largest producer of hardwood plywood, has just introduced a chain-of-custody certified line of plywood and veneered particleboard.

Following States Industries in 1997 (the first manufacturer to offer certified hardwood plywood—see... Read more

News Analysis

February 1, 1999
Demand Water Heaters Update

There’s good news and bad news in the demand water heater field. . . .

The good news is that the

AquaStar 125-EI (now referred to as the 125-X) demand water heater that we reviewed in the April 1998 issue of

EBN (

Vol. 7, No. 4) is finally being shipped—months after its scheduled debut.... Read more

News Analysis

February 1, 1999
CCA Disposal Problem Worse Than Earlier Believed

The concerns about safe disposal of chromated copper arsenate (CCA)-treated wood coming out of service (see

EBN

Vol. 6, No. 3, March 1997) may be far more immediate than previously believed. A technical paper in the November-December issue of

Forest Products Journal by... Read more

News Brief

February 1, 1999
Newsbriefs

The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. (ASHRAE) is soliciting comments on six Independent Substantive Changes to its

Standard 90.1-1989R: “Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings.” The most extensive sections being modified are those on building... Read more

Product Review

February 1, 1999
A New Twist on CFLs

The evolution of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) has been marked by increasing light output and reductions in size. A new series of CFLs continues that trend. Duro-Test, Sunpark, Link USA, and Lights of America have all introduced new, generally smaller, CFLs in which the fluorescent tube is molded into a spiral.

... Read more

News Brief

February 1, 1999

A

Nursing and Biomedical Sciences classroom building being designed for the

University of Texas at Houston by Vancouver-based Patkau Architects received a 1998 Award of Excellence from

Canadian Architect magazine. Juror Peter Busby lauded the project’s “integration of an environmental design approach with an excellent... Read more

News Brief

February 1, 1999
Efficient Wood Use in Residential Construction

by Ann Edminster and Sami Yassa, 1998. Natural Resources Defense Council, 40 W. 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211; 212/727-2700, www.nrdc.org. Paperback, 112 pages, $15 + $3 shipping

Too often forest conservation activists promote the use of non-wood construction systems without... Read more

Op-Ed

February 1, 1999
Concerns About LEED Program

I read your Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) coverage in

EBN

Vol. 7, No. 10 [November 1998]. My information tells me that LEED won’t work with a self-assessment model. The Colorado self-assessment tool in the residential sector has done a good job at building market share, but the... Read more

News Analysis

February 1, 1999
Certified Hardwood Flooring from PermaGrain

In yet another exciting development in the certified wood industry, PermaGrain Products, Inc., a hardwood flooring manufacturer based in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, has begun offering certified options in its FineWood® and Timeless Series 3 lines of hardwood flooring.

The company received... Read more

News Brief

February 1, 1999
Awards & Competitions

 

With its fourth annual cycle, the EnergyValue Housing Award administered by the National Association of Home Builders Research Center appears to be gaining steam.

Quite a few winners were announced at the January 14 ceremony in Dallas, with some outstanding projects. A number of the winning entries... Read more

Feature

What’s in a Paint?

February 1, 1999

Psychologists have long known that the colors with which we surround ourselves can affect our energy and our moods. Unfortunately, too few professionals of any type realize how the medium we use to create those colors can affect our health and the health of the planet. This article looks at new developments with interior paints and explores the... Read more

News Brief

January 1, 1999
Professional Builder magazine awarded a

1998 Professional Achievement Award to developer

John Kurowski, owner of Kurowski Development Co. of Littleton, Colorado, for his leadership in the creation of the Green Builder Program of Colorado. As president of the Home Builders Association of Metro Denver, Kurowski helped launch a $1 million... Read more

News Analysis

January 1, 1999
1998 Warmest Year on Record

Preliminary results are in, and 1998 looks like the warmest ever. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced on December 17 that global temperatures in 1998 would be the warmest since recordkeeping began in 1860. The global mean surface temperature for 1998 is estimated to be 1.4°F (0.58°C) above the... Read more

Op-Ed

January 1, 1999
More on PVC Roofing

We read your article entitled “Low Slope Roofing: Prospects Looking Up” (EBN

Vol. 7, No. 10 – November 1998) with interest. We would like to bring some items to your attention.

•Fire resistant EPDM (needed to obtain Factory Mutual and U.L. fire ratings for adhered and mechanically fastened systems) contains... Read more

News Analysis

January 1, 1999
River Salvage Legalized in Florida

The practice of salvaging sinker logs from river bottoms in Florida is legal again—for the first time since 1974. Governor Childs of Florida and his cabinet approved an interim policy that allows and regulates this form of salvage on December 7, 1998. After one year, the program will be carefully... Read more

News Brief

January 1, 1999
Architecture and the Environment

by David Lloyd Jones. The Overlook Press, Woodstock, N.Y., 1998 (distributed by Penguin Putnam, Inc.). Hardcover, 250 pages, $65. Note: Sometimes listed with the sub-title “Contemporary Green Buildings”

Several books published in the past decade have claimed to provide an overview of ecologically... Read more

News Brief

January 1, 1999
Newsbriefs

Maureen McIntyre, longtime editor of the acclaimed

Solar Today magazine (the publication of the

American Solar Energy Society—ASES), has been hired by the Society to organize renewable energy policy activities at the state level. As coordinator of ASES’s “Empowering the States” program, McIntyre will help renewable... Read more