Championing the
Changemakers

While India stands on the brink of modernizing its grid, angry Texans take up the charge against smart meters, citing privacy concerns. Some residents have taken to locking up their analog meters in cages, but anti-smart meter groups warn, "some installers have no scruples about cutting locks."Photo Credit: StopSmartMeters.org Holding up smart... Read more

This is part of an ongoing series. Read all the Sticky Business posts here.

Performance testing of adhesives and sealants used in our weather barriers is improving due to new field-testing research, as we’ve written about before. However, the improvements in testing haven’t reached a critical... Read more

Those ubiquitous exit signs use a huge amount of electricity; a little-known alternative to conventional LED products offers surprising savings. An exit sign at Yale's LEED-Platinum Kroon Hall. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

In the years that I’ve been writing about energy and energy conservation (longer... Read more

Big wind is getting bigger, but can we save the tax credits that help it grow? Also, how to read palms skylines, and new Passive House partnerships. Remind yourself why you want to save the planet by looking at Lloyd Alter's vacation pictures.Photo Credit: Lloyd Alter

By Paula Melton

This is what a treehugger looks like

Ever... Read more

An update on getting the global warming potential (GWP) out of insulation materials. Today's closed-cell SPF has a global warming potential of 1,430, but if producers adopt new HFO blowing agents, it will drop to close to zero. Click to enlarge.

Photo Credit: John Straube

I’ve been pretty vocal about a big... Read more

This is part of an ongoing series. Read all the Sticky Business posts here.

The silicone found in many window caulks is not much of a health risk to onsite workers, but the chemicals used to produce silicon are coming under greater scrutiny. Photo: ArmaCo Construction

As discussed throughout... Read more

Will we wake up about climate change when the blackouts begin? Also, what does historic preservation mean in a city without any history? Hot, dry summers are a recipe for (power) failure.Photo Credit: Union of Concerned Scientists

Power, power everywhere (but then what will we drink?)

Our power grid is a voracious water hog, as... Read more

With new oil discoveries and more effective extraction methods, the world is probably many decades away from peak oil. A "Hubbert Curve" of world oil production, showing the peak in this decade, which was widely predicted just a few years ago. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: Energy Watch Group, UK.

I first wrote about... Read more

This is part of an ongoing series. Read all the Sticky Business posts here.

In the U.S., we tend to put a lot of faith in caulks, tapes, and wet-applied sealants. But in Europe it’s a different story.

Some Gaskets can be used in place of tapes or liquid sealants, mainly as part of... Read more

A beautiful map of amazing places, why FSC is still best wood certification, and the scary story of why you should still make your own file backups. My kids scrambled up the granite hill known as the South Bubble for the fourth or fifth time last week in Acadia National Park. Acadia is the only National Park we've been to, but after seeing the... Read more

When I bought the house in West Dummerston, Vermont, where my wife and I have lived for the past thirty years, one of the first things I did was fix the drainage problems that were dumping water into our basement….

Or so I thought. Let me explain.

When I moved into the 1780s house there was a hill on... Read more

This is part of an ongoing series. Read all the Sticky Business posts here.

Mounted on the roof at NIST, this "weathering engine" tests sealant durability Photo: National Institute of Standards and Technology

Durability, or service life, is critical to the overall performance of liquid caulk... Read more

Introducing all-natural expanded cork boardstock insulation to the North American market. Expanded cork insulation is available up to 12 inches thick and can be used much like polyiso. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: Amorim Isolamentos

I’m always on the hunt for the latest, most interesting, and most environmentally... Read more

Oregon-based Viridian upcycles shipping waste to make stylish flooring, tabletops, veneers, and other products Once destined for the landfill, this wood was taken from shipping materials and upcycled into Viridian's Jakarta Market Blend flooring.Photo Credit: Viridian Reclaimed Wood

Over the years, the GreenSpec team has looked at a... Read more

Illustration: Tristan Roberts

“Anyone else finding a trend of clients wanting LEED-certifiable projects but not wanting to commit to certification? I have three projects just this week toying with going this route.”

That was the opening salvo in a recent email discussion I was involved in among a group of architects. With the... Read more

Can top energy performance be achieved by combining fairly standard windows with really good storm windows or even a second set of prime windows? A low-e storm window at my colleague Peter Yost's house in Brattleboro. Click on image to enlarge.Photo Credit: Peter Yost

I’ve done a lot of digging into window options in... Read more

We’ve run the numbers from our quiz on toxic chemicals in building products, and we all have some explaining to do. Put down your #2 pencils and listen up!

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t yet taken the GreenSpec toxic chemical quiz, head over and do it now—yes, before you read the answers.

Find out how you did

Find out below how well you... Read more

LED lighting keeps on improving as yet another record efficacy is announced. Cree's new XLamp XP-G2 LED chip delivers up to 165 lumens per watt. Click on image to enlarge.Photo Credit: Cree

A few days ago I got yet another press release about a new efficiency record with LED lighting. These are almost commonplace as we ride... Read more

Understanding the options with room air conditioners, central air conditioners, and heat pumps. The outdoor unit of a Daikin mini-split air-source heat pump in Putney, Vermont. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

I have never owned an air conditioner, and I don’t have any immediate plans to change that. But if... Read more

Green Globes may have come out slightly ahead in a recent “alignment” report, but support for LEED is strong in the building industry. Atlantic Wharf, a huge mixed-use building on Boston's waterfront, is pre-certified LEED Gold and features a rain harvesting system to re-use rainwater in building systems and a green roof on the Waterfront... Read more