Championing the
Changemakers

In the wake of the pictures of that 13-story apartment building that fell over, here's video of a multistory factory building rolling over and coming to rest upside-down, largely intact.

Success and failure are often matters of perspective.

Chart from the feature (requires login):Human Health and Environmental Concerns with Polystyrene Constituents

(click image to enlarge)

The August EBN feature article, "Polystyrene Insulation: Does it Belong in a Green Building?" (requires BuildingGreen Suite membership) and an accompanying editorial "Rethinking Polystyrene Insulation" (... Read more

The hazards of a poorly sealed crawl space: 1) Roof runoff and improper grading allow water to collect, where it can enter the crawlspace through cracks in the foundation walls. 2) Humid summer air enters the crawlspace through foundation vents and condenses. 3) Radon rises through the soil, into the crawlspace and ultimately into the living... Read more

Any college student writing a term paper on the history of the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) LEED rating system, and criticisms of LEED over its history, now has a cheat sheet. The motherlode of research comes courtesy of Pat Murphy of Community Solutions, according to its website, "founded in 1940 as a ... non-profit organization that... Read more

Installation of Cedar Breather rainscreen material on house in Yarmouth, Maine.

Last week I wrote about "deep-energy retrofits"--strategies for dramatically reducing the energy consumption of an existing house. In northern climates, such retrofits often involve adding a layer of rigid insulation to the exterior of a house. If you're removing... Read more

Twice each month, BuildingGreen publishes an email news bulletin with current news and product information briefs. Sign up here — it's free. We will never share or sell your email address, and you may unsubscribe at any time. Here's an unformatted, text-only version of the current bulletin: BuildingGreen Email News Bulletin— an overview of... Read more

The U.S. Green Building Council just sent out information from a report written by McKinsey and Company about energy efficiency and its role in U.S. mitigation of climate change. Here's what they found:

Energy-efficiency of buildings (along with other non-transportation efforts) could reduce U.S. energy consumption by 23% by 2020. Such... Read more

12/1/09 Update: If you're looking to keep up to date on LEED 2009, I recommend checking out our own LEEDuser.com, which was recently launched Editor's Note: When Matt Macko, a principal at Environmental Building Strategies, told me that he was the only energy expert in the room when the new LEED AP BD+C exam was written, I asked him to write the... Read more

A variety of insulation types were used on this retrofit including blown-in celluose, rigid foam, and cotton batts.

Starting in the 1970s, following the first energy crisis, major weatherization programs were launched to tighten up American homes. The Weatherization Assistance Program of the U.S. Department of Energy, which focuses on low-... Read more

Home on the Range is an office building shared by two nonprofit organizations: Northern Plains Resource Council and Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC). Formerly an uninsulated concrete block grocery store with few windows, the building was renovated to house energy-efficient, daylit offices. Northern Plains organizes Montana... Read more

Sucking air out is one way to clean up indoor air With an exhaust-only system, make-up air comes from air leaks in the building envelope. This drawing also shows passive air inlets in the walls.

As houses get tighter, they becaome less able to 'breathe' on their own -- they need mechanical ventilation. Put another way, energy efficient houses... Read more

Link to video(No relation to the post B'eau-Pal Bottled Water - Dichlormethane, Carbon Tetrachloride, Chloroform... and kudos to our prescient commenter Matthew, who last September predicted the 2020 headline, "Bottled Water Outlawed Worldwide.")

Ah, if only it were possible to be a fly-on-the-wall in every committee for every standard... I know this is a fantasy only a standards-geek could have, and is one of those fantasies you don't really want to actualize, but there's no doubt much of the real work defining the rules of the game is done in committee meetings that most of us never hear... Read more

Twice each month, BuildingGreen publishes an email news bulletin with current news and product information briefs. Sign up here — it's free. We will never share or sell your email address, and you may unsubscribe at any time. Here's an unformatted, text-only version of the current bulletin: Free BuildingGreen Email News BulletinBecome a member... Read more

We recently learned that the Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI) is losing its Massachusetts state funding. This strikes particularly close to home for me as I worked briefly with TURI after grad school and was quite impressed with the caliber of their work (and yes, full disclosure, I still have friends there). TURI is one of a select few... Read more

The label says:Bottled at Source — Hand Pump #1, Atal Ayub Nagar, Bhopal, Madya Pradesh, India. And in tiny print:Not suitable for human consumption.The nutrition label says: Total Fat 0g

Cholesterol 0g

Sodium 22mg

Dichlormethane

Carbon Tetrachloride

Chloroform

0%

0%

1%

-400%

-200,000%... Read more

Standard residential construction in much of the country is 2x4 framing with fiberglass insulation, achieving a paltry R-10 or so in the walls. If insulation is installed at all on the foundation walls, it's rarely more than an inch thick, and insulation is almost never put under slabs. In Vermont, we typically do a lot better. Act 250,... Read more

I'm starting a fun new weekly feature on Twitter, #fridayrefresh. Every Friday I will suggest a topic that needs a better solution than the current status quo such as, "building codes don't keep up with green building #fridayrefresh" and "k-cups go straight in the trash #fridayrefresh". In response, please share your thoughts, ideas, solutions,... Read more

One of the biggest hurtles in designing to Living Building Challenge standards is finding local materials, as we discuss here. The folks at Cascadia Green Building Council have found a website that may help: www.stillmadeinusa.com. It's not perfect, but it's a start. Now, if only we could figure out how to incorporate manufacturing locating... Read more

But summer has hardly started!

As we fire up the grill and hope that the rain will let up enough for us to enjoy summer, we should also remember that the days are now getting shorter, and in just a few months we'll be firing up our heating systems again.

Now's the time to think about how we can keep our heating costs down next... Read more