Championing the
Changemakers

Integrated into a drainage canal, a new skateboard park can provide stormwater detention in flood conditions.

The site of an old concrete factory in Roskilde, Denmark, is now set to double as a recreational skateboard park and emergency flood reservoir, creatively addressing the area’s complex challenges of redevelopment and climate... Read more

Editor’s note: We updated this 2013 blog post on April 15, 2024, to reflect more recent advancements in CO2-based heat-pump water heaters. To learn more about another such product, see the April 2024 article by Brent Ehrlich “On-demand Water Heat Goes All Electric with Heat Pumps, CO₂.”

In researching... Read more

Paying attention to the various layers in a building envelope is critically important for ensuring air tightness and moisture management—and can be attractive, too. Ducting for our HRV, electrical wiring, recessed lights, and plumbing fit into this access ceiling. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

 

Air... Read more

Product selection clarified

Green products are easy to find these days. Maybe a little too easy: how do you separate the green from the greenwash?

Product manufacturers have caught the green wave and found an angle that can make even the most run-of-the-mill product sound right for your high-performance project. But which products... Read more

Are you wasting money on energy models?

Thanks in part to green building programs and codes, whole-building energy simulation has become more common over the last two decades — but all too frequently, modeling is only used late in design, when it has little value beyond keeping score.

If you're not using modeling to make design... Read more

Surveying residents to assess resilience in the town of Dummerston, Vermont The solar-electric system on our restored barn will contribute to community resilience in our part of Dummerston, Vermont.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

The Dummerston Energy Committee, on which I serve in my home town, is conducting an energy... Read more

A new inverter from SMA allows us to draw some daytime power from our PV system when the grid is down, even without batteries The 18 kW PV array on our barn is a group-net-metered system with some of the output going to other houses. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

One of the biggest complaints I hear about... Read more

Forests destroyed by mountain pine beetles can be made into valuable engineered wood products. The mountain pine beetle has killed millions of acres of forest across the western U.S., including most of the western slope of Rocky Mountain National Park.Photo Credit: USDA Forest Service

Balancing our need for timber along with the other... Read more

New smart vapor retarders block most vapor diffusion when you want to eliminate risk of condensation, but allow vapor flow when you want drying potential Our Pro Clima DB+ smart vapor retarder on the insulated roof. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

Nowhere in building design has there been more confusion or... Read more

The president’s new climate plan addresses power plants, efficiency regulations, and risk from floods, droughts, and wildfires.

President Obama Tuesday announced a sweeping plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—and prepare for the effects of climate change—using executive powers rather than legislation.

Expressing disappointment with... Read more

Net-zero homes need clear labeling to attract homebuyers and an instruction manual for when they are sold, according to NIST.

Keeping size in check, incorporating passive solar techniques, and building a tight, well-insulated envelope are listed as high-priority design strategies for net-zero-energy homes, according to a new report from the... Read more

NRDC warns Europe’s appetite for wood pellets threatens America’s Southeastern forests. Wood pellets, a fuel source for domestic heating and increasingly for commercial- and utility-scale heat and power, are often hailed as carbon neutral. Wood releases as much carbon when burned as it would naturally decaying in the forest, goes the argument, and... Read more

Nanosolar joins the list of failed thin-film solar firms despite $70 million in investment just last year. In its heyday 11 years ago, the thin-film solar startup Nanosolar was valued at $2 billion and attracted investors like Energy Capital Partners and Benchmark Capital. Now, following layoffs and lawsuits, it has sold its assembly factory to an... Read more

Two small California companies nab the first domestic window certifications from Germany’s Passive House Institute. Casagrande Woodworks and Wooden Window, two small California manufacturers, have become the first U.S. companies to certify windows through the Passive House Institute (PHI), based in Germany.

Casagrande will reportedly begin... Read more

EPA raises efficiency standards and paves the way for demand-response technologies through the Energy Star program. Residential refrigerators and freezers will have to meet higher efficiency standards to qualify for an Energy Star label, effective September 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced.

Current Energy Star... Read more

Japanese manufacturer Mayekawa is leading the charge with three CO2-based products for commercial buildings.

Over the past 25 years, refrigerants used in air conditioners and heat pumps have come under fire—first for their impact on the Earth’s protective ozone layer and then for their global warming potential. Now, some manufacturers are... Read more

Efficiency advocates and fossil-fuel lobbyists have teamed up to kill a key energy provision. What’s behind this uneasy alliance? The historic Shaheen-Portman energy bill making its way through the U.S. Senate enjoys rare and broad bipartisan backing, with the likes of Earthjustice and the Vinyl Siding Institute both announcing full-throated... Read more

The former developer has been tasked with making building product transparency the industry standard.

The Health Product Declaration Collaborative (HPDC), an organization that launched in 2012 to help manufacturers report health-related information for building products, has hired urban redevelopment expert John Knott Jr. as its first... Read more

Citing the Chamber’s alliance with the chemical industry against LEED, Skanska resigns in protest.

At issue is the U.S. Chamber’s membership in the American High-Performance Building Coalition (AHPBC), an advocacy group formed by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and other trade organizations to support green building standards developed... Read more

The Department of Energy is requiring new efficiency standards for federal buildings that it predicts will save 18% more energy. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently updated energy-efficiency standards for new federal commercial and multifamily high-rise buildings to use ASHRAE 90.1-2010 as a minimum design standard—an upgrade from ASHRAE... Read more