B&Q, the largest retailer of building and household maintenance supplies in the United Kingdom, has an ambitious program for environmental protection. Under the direction of Dr. Alan Knight, B&Q has undertaken to improve the lifecycle impacts of its stores and every product sold in them. To... Read more

An Austrian court has overturned a lower court's ruling and allowed billboards describing PVC as “an environmental poison” to stand. The industry is appealing the case to the Austrian supreme court.

If all goes as planned for Greenwood Cotton Insulation Products, Inc., there may soon be a major new competitor in the fiber insulation market. Greenwood Mills, Inc., of Greenwood, South Carolina has licensed the patent to make and sell cotton insulation from Cotton Unlimited of Post, Texas, makers of Insulcot. Greenwood... Read more

Solarex Corporation has been selected by Misawa Homes Co. Ltd. of Tokyo, Japan to supply photovoltaic (PV) panels for new homes. The custom-made PV modules will be integrated into the south-facing roof of the houses, replacing the usual roofing tiles. Each house will generate a peak level of four kilowatts of... Read more

Greenhomeby Wayne Grady, 1993. Camden House Publishing, Camden East, Ontario. 208 pages, soft cover, $15.95.

Greenhome is a wonderful account of the design and construction of a demonstration house built through Canada’s Advanced Houses program. Through this program, 10 houses were built... Read more

Cooling our homes and commercial buildings is becoming a more and more significant environmental concern. Both the total amount of energy we expend for cooling and the fraction of peak electricity use for cooling are on the rise. At the same time, our ability to reduce cooling loads in buildings is improving. We have new materials and... Read more

The new Wampanoag Tribal Headquarters has implemented a remarkable array of environmentally sound features. The building requires very little operating energy, treats all human waste and wastewater as a resource, utilizes many recycled-content and resource-efficient materials, minimizes site impact and offers a comfortable and healthy indoor... Read more

from The Stafford Architects, 1916 Pike Place #705, Seattle, WA 98101-1056; 206/682-4042, 206/447-1670 (fax). Runs on common spreadsheet or database software on Mac or DOS-based PCs. $45, $69 with semi-annual update. Multi-user licenses slightly higher.

There’s a lot of information on this... Read more

1. Total Harmonic Distortion

2. Osram and Sylvania merged in 1993

3. Reflector style

4. Panasonic lamps have single tube with double fold and are enclosed in white glass bulb. Lamps available in... Read more

We spend more than $1 billion per year in the United States protecting our buildings from termites and repairing termite damage. Until a few years ago, the highly toxic chlordane was the chemical of choice for termite protection. It was effective at killing termites and maintained its potency for several decades.... Read more

with Architects

by John Connell. 1993, Warner Books, New York. 400 pages, hardcover, $35.00.

With

Homing Instinct, Connell has contributed the latest in a tradition of how-to books for owner-builders. Following in the footsteps of old classics like

From the Ground Up and

Building... Read more

InsulCot™ was a recycled cotton and polyester insulation product that was available on a limited basis since 1991. It has been temporarily discontinued but should be available much more widely this May. A major textile manufacturer is now gearing up for large-scale production. The new product (as yet unnamed) is being positioned to... Read more

Preliminary results of side-by-side energy testing of a foam-core panel house and a conventional stick-built house are in. The foam-core panel house won, according to the Structural Insulated Panel Association (SIPA). The foam-core house was found to have 40% less heat loss than the conventional house, and its effective leakage area (a measure... Read more

Building Materials

The Forest Products Laboratory (FPL), largest research lab of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service, has announced a plan to promote increased use of recycled wood fiber in a broad range of housing applications. The project’s stated goal is to develop technologies... Read more

The City of New York has created an Inter-Agency Environmentally Sound Building Task Force to develop, encourage, and coordinate ideas for introducing environmentally sound building into the municipal building program. The City is currently soliciting information from other municipalities, private industry, and other countries on applied... Read more

Your article titled “Should We Phase Out PVC?” was a breath of fresh air. You assumed an impartial role and presented the available information without misrepresentation, innuendo or distortion. The fact that PVC can be hazardous during its manufacture and disposal should be of concern to your readers.

... Read more

Lever Bros. Co. of New York, a long-time promoter of recycled plastic lumber as an end-use for the plastic packaging of its products, has announced a donation to buy plastic lumber for use in national parks. Up to $100,000 will be used to purchase park benches, picnic tables, and boardwalks for 10 national parks, according to a report in

The nonprofit group Urban Ecology Australia has been working to convert a city block in Adelaide, Australia into a progressive ecological community. The plan got the green light from city council members on February 7. The only remaining legal hurdle for the AUS$60 million project is to prove its... Read more

Building Materials in the Context of Sustainable Development, nine research reports available from Forintek Canada Corp., 800 Montreal Road, Ottawa, ON K1G 3Z5, Canada; 613/744-0963, 613/744-0903 (fax). Complete sets: CDN$600 for universities and nonprofits, CDN$900 for... Read more