Championing the
Changemakers

I had the good fortune last week to spend a few hours touring the Bensonwood offices and factory in Walpole, New Hampshire. I've known Tedd Benson for perhaps 20 years, and... Read more

As I always do when I fly, I bring my own stainless-steel water bottle, finishing the contents before going through security, then filling it so that I don't need a plastic water bottle... Read more

Last week, after reviewing a little physics regarding condensation and latent heat, I described how air conditioners remove unwanted humidity.... Read more

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has now released several sets of LEED addenda for LEED-EBOM 2009—corrections and changes to the rating system since its official release. The earliest of these start in November 2009, and the latest batch came out in July 2010.

Following is a summary of the more useful LEED-EBOM addenda... Read more

Wasco Products of Sanford, Maine, has raised the bar on energy-conserving skylights with its high-performance "Triple Glazed 30/30" option. In a fixed skylight... Read more

Last week, I addressed strategies for controlling moisture sources in homes during the summer--one of the contributors to discomfort during hot humid summers. This week, I'll examine how to remove unwanted humidity using air conditioning equipment, starting with some fundamentals. To understand moisture removal, it's important to brush up on... Read more

In commercial buildings where cast-in-place, reinforced-concrete balconies extend through the insulated building envelope, tremendous heat loss occurs, and this thermal bridging often leads to condensation and associated mold problems. The German... Read more

High relative humidity is a significant problem in many regions of the country during the summer months. In hot weather, the higher the humidity, the less comfortable we are--partly... Read more

A new gas-filled panel insulation material that consists of pockets of low-conductivity gas in a honeycomb foil substrate provides insulation levels as high at R-11 for inch-and-a-half-thick panels.

About gas-filled panels... Read more

You would think that establishing a definition for “showerhead” would be simple. But, as the Department of Energy (DOE) is discovering after issuing a draft interpretive rule on the matter, nothing is simple when it comes to getting people wet.

Back in early 1994, under the Energy Policy and... Read more

We're into those hot days of summer--really hot--with temperatures predicted in the mid- to upper-90s, even in Vermont, this week... Read more

The July 2010 issue of Environmental Building News asks whether we should end our love affair with all-glass buildings. The short answer is "yes." With most large commercial... Read more

One of Vermont's longest and most treasured covered bridges now has the newest, most environmentally responsible lighting. This past weekend, the 267-foot West Dummerston Covered Bridge (the... Read more

North America's largest water heater manufacturer, A.O. Smith, is shaking up the water heating industry with its NEXT Hybrid gas-fired water heater that combines key features of both tankless and storage water heating technology.

About storage water heaters

As a refresher, storage water heaters have relatively small... Read more

Pressure-reducing valves, an element of EPA’s WaterSense® new homes specification, are green: they can save water, increase the service life of plumbing system components, and reduce risks of water leaks.What is a Pressure Reducing Valve (PRV)?PRVs have spring-loaded diaphragms that resist the incoming pressure of the water supply to a... Read more

While our homes and cars get most of the attention relative to energy savings, our materials stream also has a huge impact on energy use. Nationally, the U.S. generates about 236 million tons of municipal solid waste each year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That works out to about 4 pounds of waste for every American... Read more

GlassX, a new high-tech glazing from Europe with heat-storing phase-change material (PCM) has just been introduced in North America. This remarkable glazing was developed by the Swiss company GlassX AG over the past 15 years and is licensed to the international building products company Saint-Gobain (parent company to CertainTeed),... Read more

This summer is a great time to get a good deal on a solar water heating or solar-electric (photovoltaic) system for your home. While I argued a few months ago in this column that the 30% federal solar tax credit has some flaws--key among them being that it's based on the dollar value rather than performance and that there's no cap on the cost... Read more

There's an exciting new hybrid solar collector from Turkey that combines photovoltaic (PV) power generation with solar water heating. The idea of combining PV and solar-thermal isn't new, but Solimpeks Solar Energy Corp. has taken the idea to a new level of sophistication with their Volther hybrid solar collector.

The beauty of... Read more

I'm sorry, but the irony is just too thick these days. We Americans are rightly upset with BP for the devastating spill in the Gulf that is wreaking ecological devastation on a mammoth scale. But as I watch the television news and read the daily coverage, I'm not hearing enough outrage at our petroleum-dependent lifestyles and the gas-guzzling... Read more