BuildingGreen Report

Blog Post

October 18, 2012
Squeezing big box stores (and more people) into cities, living in a CO2 fog, and tallying up the value of green homes. The "Värm" home from Bensonwood's Unity Homes offshoot is inspired by Swedish design.Photo Credit: Unity Homes How much more dense can you get?

It turns out you can get pretty darn dense even without building mile-high... Read more

Blog Post

October 17, 2012
Understanding wood stoves and wood heat so that you can educate your clients. Vermont Castings Encore-NC wood stove with an EPA emissions rating of 0.7 grams per hour. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: Vermont Castings

I’ve been heating primarily with wood since I bought our house 31 years ago, though there were a few... Read more

Blog Post

October 16, 2012
Our friend and mentor, Malcolm Lewis, has passed away Malcolm Lewis will be sorely missed.Photo Credit: Harvey Mudd College

Malcolm Lewis, Ph.D., the founder of Constructive Technologies Group, a member of the EBN Advisory Board, and long a quiet leader in the green building movement, died on October 13th of bladder... Read more

Blog Post

October 11, 2012
The Third World in U.S. cities, the greenest mile ever built in Chicago, and transplanting a really big tree in Texas. This historic oak tree is thriving in its new location after a Texas city moved it four months ago.Photo Credit: City of League City, Texas

More imagery from the war on waste

Lloyd Alter returns this week with more... Read more

Blog Post

How China is affecting the world’s photovoltaic industry

October 10, 2012
Workers at a Suntech factory in China. Due to the glut in PV, Suntech has closed a quarter of it's manufacturing capacity.Photo Credit: Peter Parks, Getty Images for the New York Times

When China dives into a technology, it does so in a big way. Nowhere is this more the case than in photovoltaic (PV) panel manufacturing, where dramatic growth... Read more

Blog Post

October 4, 2012
The new Declare "nutrition label" and database will streamline the ardous task of finding Living Building Challenge-compliant products. The Declare label lists ingredients with color coding, making it really easy to see which ingredients might be a concern. Click to enlarge.

Photo Credit: International Living Future Institute

... Read more

Blog Post

October 4, 2012
Healthy purchasing in Oregon, why unfixable windows are a waste of money, when driving was a war crime, and more. Can we bring back the days when car pooling was patriotic?Photo Credit: American Legion

Does your state make the energy-efficiency grade?

Some people look forward to the Oscars, but for us it’s green building awards season... Read more

Blog Post

October 4, 2012
Did you miss the live webcast? Get it here for free—and take a quiz for continuing education credits too. Guinea pigs everywhere want to know: do you know as much about toxic chemicals as a building professional should?

Nadav Malin and I had a great time presenting our webcast featuring BuildingGreen's new handbook, “Toxic Chemicals in... Read more

Blog Post

October 3, 2012
Wood smoke is still a guilty pleasure in the northern U.S. and Canada. But newer wood stove technologies produce less smoke—and less guilt. This gravity-fed pellet stove from Wiseway produces few emissions and uses no electricity.Photo Credit: Wiseway Pellet Stoves

I love fall and the start of heating season here in Vermont: the... Read more

Blog Post

October 2, 2012
Introducing the Resilient Design Institute: a new nonprofit organization that has been created in Brattleboro. A massive ice storm, in which up to four inches of ice were deposited in early January, 1998, destroyed over 100 power distribution towers and tens of thousands of wooden utility poles, leaving millions without power for up to three... Read more

Blog Post

September 28, 2012
Watch the plants! There are limits to their growth, and ours. Also: data center showdown, cargo bikes, and satellite photos of economic injustice. A coal industry "documentary" from the early '90s painted a lush picture of plant life in a carbon-rich atmosphere. Empirical evidence of stunted growth is showing us just how wrong their science was.... Read more

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This simple system for recovering heat from wastewater makes a lot of sense—especially for families and commercial buildings that produce a lot of hot water.

September 26, 2012

Over the past few weeks I’ve written about various strategies to produce hot water efficiently. We’ve seen that tankless water heaters are more efficient than storage water heaters (though are not without their drawbacks), and we’ve learned that heat-pump water heaters produce two to three times as much heat per unit of... Read more

Blog Post

September 21, 2012
Sustainability might not come naturally to us, but maybe we’ll get past that if we can teach our children well. Minecraft helps kids in Kenya show how real places could be transformed.Photo Credit: FyreUK Sustainable design: the next generation

Apparently my kids are not the only kids on earth obsessed with Minecraft. And unlike my children... Read more

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September 19, 2012
New federal regulations beginning in mid-April 2015 will require that larger electric water heaters be heat-pump models. It’s time to pay attention to this option. The GE GeoSpring heat-pump water heater is the quietest model I could find and the only one that's made in America.Photo Credit: GE Appliances

Last week I... Read more

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September 14, 2012
Public facilities don’t have to be ugly, we can now hear air pollution, and the sports industry is going for the gold with green initiatives. What made the Katrina Cottages so popular? It's the Teddy Bear Principle, says Steve Mouzon, and it's useless to resist it.Photo Credit: Kent Griswold

Want greener homes? Embrace the cute

Wake... Read more

Blog Post

September 13, 2012
A relatively new type of water heater combines features of both tankless and storage water heaters. A.O. Smith's NEXT Hybrid water heater.Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: A.O. Smith

 

In last week’s blog I compared tankless and storage water heaters and explained why tankless water heaters often don’t make that much... Read more

Blog Post

September 12, 2012

Phobia or fatigue? When it comes to toxic chemicals, we all have our own way of coping with information overload. A free webcast helps you sort it all out.

Do you know where the most toxic chemicals are in building products? Vinyl sheet flooring is a top hazard, but far from the only one.Photo Credit: DIYadvice.com

Even if we try to... Read more

Blog Post

September 7, 2012
Droughts are cracking foundations and cars are blocking crosswalks. Meanwhile, Martin Holladay debunks “greenest home on earth” claims. Sam Martin's "SkyCycle" concept would elevate bike lanes to new heights in London.Photo Credit: SkyCycle screen capture

Here it comes…the greenest home in America

We all see “greenest building on... Read more

Blog Post

September 6, 2012
NYC made history this week by releasing a huge dataset of actual building performance—including some blank spots for buildings that didn't comply with the law. NYC is making history, but other cities are soon to follow.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

This week New York City posted 2011 energy use data (PDF) for more than 2,000 large,... Read more

Blog Post

While they have higher efficiency, for most applications tankless water heaters don’t make sense.

September 6, 2012

There are two primary types of water heaters: storage and tankless. In this column I’ll try to explain the differences between these two approaches and offer some guidance on choosing between them. (There are also “hybrid” water heaters with features of both that I’ll cover in a future blog post.)

Storage water heaters... Read more