Championing the
Changemakers

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.

Read the current bulletin

Occasionally I wonder if I have some sort of masochistic streak--somehow enjoying the grief I get when bursting people's favorite bubbles. I'll brace myself for such a response to this column, when I point out why radiant-floor heating systems don't make sense for new, energy-efficient houses.

Radiant-floor heating is a way of... Read more

Randolph Place is a 50-unit senior housing community in the heart of Randolph, a historic Richmond neighborhood. The building, constructed in 1896 and added onto in 1946, was originally a neighborhood public school. Several current residents attended school in the building where they now live. After several years of vacancy the building was... Read more

I recently went through the scoring tool on the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) green building website www.nahbgreen.org. The tool lets you get a good idea how your project would rate according to the National Green Building Standard (EBN, March 2009), and to plan adjustments in the design and construction process to do better.... Read more

I get a lot of questions about energy--from relatives, friends, neighbors, and colleagues. I think the most common question is about thermostats and whether it makes sense to lower the temperature of your house at night or when you aren't home.

"Doesn't it take more energy to warm the house back up," some ask?

"Do setback or... Read more

Boston.com's regular feature, The Big Picture, presents "news stories in photographs." The March 18th edition is prefaced:

The state of our global economy: foreclosures, evictions, bankruptcies, layoffs, abandoned projects, and the people and industries caught in the middle. It can be difficult to capture financial pressures in... Read more

The Cannon Beach Residence is located along the northern Oregon coast, with excellent orientation to the south for daylighting and views of the ocean. The home was designed to generate as much energy as it consumes annually. Strategies that contribute to the project's efficiency include natural ventilation and daylighting, a high-performance... 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.

Read the current bulletin

On the heels of 100 Abandoned Houses, more like it... but bigger. The website of Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre Photography presents a gallery titled The ruins of Detroit:

At the beginning of the 20th Century, the city of Detroit developed rapidly thanks to the automobile industry and until the 50's, its population rose to almost 2... Read more

Sea Change Radio recently had a great discussion with Alex Wilson. From their website: Alex Wilson founded BuildingGreen in 1985, when the green building movement was in its infancy. As executive editor of Environmental Building News, the bible of green building, Wilson has provided the information that has formed the building blocks of the... Read more

I resisted buying a pellet stove for a long time for a number of reasons. First, I would be tied to a fuel source that I don't have control over--and whose price might go up if demand exceeds supply.

Second, pellet stoves don't work without electricity, and I didn't want to risk freezing pipes in the event of a power outage. Third, I... Read more

I wasn't able to attend last week's BuildingEnergy conference, sadly. Most particularly, I wasn't able to get to Tuesday night's public forum, "What's Right and What's Wrong With LEED," featuring panelists Henry Gifford, USGBC's LEED Technical VP Brendan Owens, Steven Winter Associates' Maureen Mahle, IBACOS' Duncan Prahl, and energy modeler Maria... Read more

They found Greg, and his car, yesterday — a month after he mysteriously disappeared. According to the Denver Post, he had slipped off the road and rolled into a ravine. Daily Camera has a more detailed article.

I was hoping that when we found out what happened to Greg, even if the news was bad, there would be relief in the closure.... Read more

From photographer Kevin Bauman's website. See them all.

The toilet from St. Thomas Creations in the video below doesn't qualify for GreenSpec — it's a 1.6gpf toilet (the federal minimum), and GreenSpec requires 1.28gpf or less — but it sure is fun to watch it flush stuff. (More fun than miso in condoms, anyway.) What do I mean by "flush stuff"?

2.5 pounds of carrots 4 complete sets of... Read more

Outdoor wood boilers typically look like a small utility building with a smoke stack.

Over the past few weeks, we've been looking at wood burning--a popular and affordable heating option in rural New England. Ten or 15 years ago, a new option started showing up. Driving along country roads, we began to see shed-like structures with smoke... 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.

Read the current bulletin

Greening our existing building stock has taken new prominence recently, both as the green building community grapples with the general economic slowdown along with the new construction slowdown, and as we get more real about what it will take for the building sector to slash our carbon emissions. If you're coming to the AIA convention in San... Read more

A CENTRALLY LOCATED WOOD STOVE and an open floor plan work together to heat this well insulated home. Tending a stove is not as convenient as turning up the thermostat, so homeowners have to be willing to do the extra work. On the right site, a well managed woodlot could provide a perpetual source of fuel that costs no more than the labor to cut... Read more

About three weeks ago I posted here about a product that decreases heat loss, decreases installation time, provides a termite shield, prevents damage, is cost-competitive, and is partly made with PVC. We ended up listing this product in GreenSpec, and to our members' credit, we got some pushback. I cross-posted a response from the members-only... Read more