BuildingGreen Report

News Brief

April 1, 1999
Trex Co. Inc.

(formerly Trex LLC), maker of wood-plastic composite lumber for decking and other outdoor applications, went public on March 29, 1999 with an offering of 3.35 million shares. The company’s stock is being traded on the New York Stock Exchange with the symbol TWP. Trex is using the capital from the public offering to repay $26.3... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 1999
Awards & Competitions

Judith Kincaid of the Triangle J Council of Governments received the “

Greenbuilder of the Year” award from the Carolina Recycling Association at the Association’s annual conference. Kincaid is lead author of the

WasteSpec, a popular document on recycling of job-site waste from construction sites.

... Read more

Product Review

April 1, 1999
Dow High Performance Underlayment: The First Ozone-Safe XPS

The first extruded polystyrene (XPS) product for the U.S. insulation market with zero ozone-depletion potential was introduced late last year: High Performance Underlayment from Dow Chemical. Instead of the industry-standard HCFC-142b blowing agent, this XPS product is blown with HFC-... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 1999

by Nelda Matheny and James R. Clark, 1998. International Society of Arboriculture, P.O. Box 3129, Champaign, IL 61826; 217/355-9411,

www.ag.uiuc.edu/~isa. Paperback, 184 pages, $45 plus $7 shipping & handling

Though written primarily for arborists (tree specialists),

Trees and Development is an important reference book for... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 1999
Newsbriefs

For more than 30 years, the

Yale School of Architecture has required first-year students to design and actually construct a building. Working in teams, students come up with designs and submit them to a design competition, which is judged by the School of Architecture faculty. The entire class then refines the winning design... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 1999

by The American Institute of Architects, 1999. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CD-ROM for Windows, Macintosh, or Unix computers, $125

The American Institute of Architect’s

Environmental Resource Guide (ERG) has been, since its inception in 1992, a leading resource on the environmental impacts of building materials (see

EBN

Vol... Read more

News Analysis

April 1, 1999
Christine Ervin Leads

U.S. Green Building Council

On April 9, Christine Ervin became the first president/CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council. Ervin served as Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (the number-two position in the Agency) from November 1993 until May 1997. She... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 1999
Car sharing

has arrived at the University of California Riverside. Two hundred students and faculty members at UC Riverside have begun sharing 15 Honda EV PLUS electric vehicles as part of an international experiment Honda is conducting on car sharing. Through this IntelliShare program, which is part of Honda’s Intelligent Community Vehicle... Read more

Op-Ed

April 1, 1999
More on Paint and Chemical Sensitivity

At the risk of getting into an extended discussion, I’d like to comment briefly on the quote of mine in “Paint the Room Green”(EBN

Vol. 8, No. 2, February 1999), in which I said that I had painted my own house with Livos paint and my wife couldn’t move in for 3 months. That was back in 1986, when... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 1999

Proposals are due by June 28, 1999 for grants from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to cover up to 50% of the cost of installing

grid-connected photovoltaics at New York State residences. A total of $1 million will be awarded, with a maximum of $500,000 for any one project. Look up PON 448-98 in the... Read more

Product Review

April 1, 1999
No Stress Panel System for Timber Framing

The issue of how to enclose and insulate timber frame buildings has long been a difficult one. In-fill framing (between the timbers) is time-consuming, and there is a risk of trapping moisture inside the wall cavity. Structural insulated panels (SIPs) or non-structural stress-skin panels are... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 1999

The

Coastal Living Awards program from

Coastal Living magazine recognizes the preservation and enhancement of environmental and cultural resources along the U.S. shorelines with awards in six different categories. The winners for 1999 are:

Responsible Development/Community:

Dewees Island, South Carolina (see... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 1999

Public concern about the environment continues to grow. On December 9, 1998, the National Environmental Education & Training Foundation and Roper Starch Worldwide released the results of their seventh annual National Report Card on Environmental Attitudes, Knowledge and Behaviors. Two highlights, as reported in the Winter 1999 issue of... Read more

News Analysis

April 1, 1999
New Energy Star Label for Buildings Available

A new addition to the Energy Star™ family of programs from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is the Energy Star Label for Buildings. Unlike the Energy Star Buildings Partnership Program, in which an entire company or organization signs up,... Read more

Feature

Understanding Fuel Cells

April 1, 1999
When the much-heralded Four Times Square skyscraper is occupied this summer, its 400-kilowatt base load will be generated on the fourth floor, using natural gas to offset a significant portion of the building’s electric bill. The building’s internal power source is in the form of two fuel cells from ONSI Corporation, which will operate day and... Read more

News Brief

April 1, 1999

The Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Warren, Vermont, which offers a wide range of courses and workshops on sustainable design and building, is looking for an assistant director. For information, contact executive director Peter Walcott at 888/496-5541 or designbuild@yestermorrow.org. For more about the school, visit their Web site:

... Read more

Op-Ed

March 1, 1999
Cohouses Are Smaller

In your recent feature on house size (“Small is Beautiful”,

Vol. 8, No. 1), you trace the average size of single-family housing from approximately 1,100 ft2 (102 m2) in the 1940s–1950s to an average of 2,150 ft2 (200 m2) today. Over the past 10 years, the concept of Cohousing—the creation of small communities of... Read more

Product Review

March 1, 1999
Less Wasteful Flushing

A little plastic device called the “AquaSaver” is saving the Marriott Corporation about $3.4 million per year in water bills, with an estimated three-month payback. Tests have consistently found savings of

1⁄2 to 1 gallon (2 to 4 liters) per flush, with remarkably few problems, and no change in the dynamics of the... Read more

News Brief

March 1, 1999

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs has just launched a $3.9 million

Renewable Energy Resources Program to provide rebates of up to $5,000 for solar thermal energy and PV systems, and cost-sharing grants for eligible larger projects. Contact the Bureau of Energy and Recycling at 217/785-2800.

News Analysis

March 1, 1999
High Drama Over Headwaters Purchase

In the end, it came down to the wire. After 12 years of protests, negotiations, offers, government appropriations, and a last-minute collapse of the deal, the agreement to purchase 10,000 acres (4,050 ha) of old-growth redwood forest belonging to the Pacific Lumber Company (PalCo) was finally concluded... Read more