Hearings to settle proposals for the 2015 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC)—the code that serves as the model for states and localities across the country—have ended, finalizing some marked differences from the 2012 version.

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There is a new polypropylene pipe available in North America: Polystar.

Manufactured in Germany by Baenninger, Inc., imported by Watts Water Technologies/Orion, and distributed nationally by ISCO Industries and other companies, Polystar is the first polypropylene pipe to be introduced in North America since Aquatherm (see “Fusiotherm... Read more

In the movie Monsters, Inc., the title characters extract the energy needed to run their city by sneaking out of closets in the night and making human children scream. But the novelty is wearing thin, and as the children become less scared, the community’s power supply is threatened. Our monster heroes, whose true nature is more goofy... Read more

Skirmishes over the validity of major green building rating systems continue, even as the federal government recognizes Green Globes as on par with LEED. A board member of the Green Building... Read more

Maryland may soon authorize an alternative path to its LEED Silver requirement for state-owned buildings.

As Stuart Kaplow reported in the Green Building Law Update,... Read more

I’m just back from Philadelphia, where I spent most of last week at Greenbuild, the... Read more

Corn-based... Read more

I’ve recently worked on revising the... Read more

Recent BuildingGreen resources give a pretty good picture of just what building enclosure commissioning (BECx) is and how its use is on the rise in high-performance buildings. But a logical follow-up question I get asked a lot is: how can I get the necessary education to become proficient in BECx—or actually get credentialed or certified as... Read more

I recently reported that a new mineral wool insulation product from Roxul can be readily used in place of foam-plastic insulation materials like polystyrene in certain applications. As part of our ongoing research into how builders and designers can make better insulation choices (see our full webcast and report on the topic),... Read more

Students from the University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA), have mapped the location of more than 1,200 formal urban agriculture sites and deciphered ordinances and regulations from L.A.’s 88 cities, hoping to... Read more

What do we do with the large number of aging commercial buildings that have been built over the last half-century? These buildings often look dated, and they can be extremely inefficient; occupant comfort can be a problem, as can operating costs; and all these factors make it difficult to keep tenants. Demolishing these buildings is a waste (... Read more

Programs like the Forest... Read more

Switching from a furnace fan with a permanent split capacitor (PSC) motor to one with a constant-torque brushless permanent magnet (BPM) motor would improve efficiency to the level of the standard, according to the Appliance... Read more