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

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

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

Soy-based adhesives are here. Adhesives made from soybean oil have been approved by the Western Wood Products Association for use in finger-jointing operations at the Willamina Lumber Company in Willamina, Oregon. In the Willamina finger-jointing process, hydrolyzed soy protein is applied to one side of the joint and conventional phenol... Read more

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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

A late January meeting in Hesparia, California brought together a large and diverse group of building professionals working to remove regulatory barriers to more sustainable buildings. The “Planning Summit for Sustainable Building Codes” is an important milestone in an ongoing effort spearheaded by contractor and activist David Eisenberg,... 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

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

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

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

Long used in computer rooms, access floors are now finding their way into office buildings and other commercial space, where they can dramatically reduce renovation costs while saving energy and improving indoor air quality—especially when providing an underfloor plenum for conditioned air distribution.... 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

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

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), a recent

New York Times poll found that a majority of Americans believe that measures to alleviate climate change will actually help the economy and save money. This is in marked contrast to the message being delivered “by polluting energy industries and their puppets in... 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 material? That’s... Read more