Championing the
Changemakers

An early-morning photo on the West River Trail in Brattleboro. With planned improvements, this will become a great commuting route for bicyclists. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

A carbon tax, increased awareness of resilience, and more of us leaving the car at home are among my wishes for 2013.

With snow... Read more

Turn off the lights, turn down the thermostat, and take shorter showers. Remembering to turn off the lights is easy and it saves a lot of energy.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

We live in a world of gadgets and stuff. When it comes to saving energy, we look to high-efficiency light bulbs or dishwashers. Or we use the... Read more

A few shopping ideas for the holiday season. A Yuba cargo bike with precious cargo.Photo Credit: Yuba

I’m not a big shopper. I don’t even particularly like getting presents. Our society is just too much about consumption. Nonetheless, as I’ve done on occasion in the past, I’m providing below some Christmas shopping ideas.... Read more

Open-web, parallel-chord joists with solid-wood diagonal struts for use as superinsulated roof rafters. Open Joist Triforce rafters being installed on our house. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

Last week I wrote about an innovative foundation insulation material, Foamglas, that we used in our new house in... Read more

From high-tech BIPV to smarter plugs for the home, we found lots of great new products at Greenbuild this year. Lutron's Serena remote-controlled shades install easily and are inexpensive compared to most automated shades.Photo Credit: Lutron

Greenbuild is always a great time to find new products and reconnect with friends and colleagues.... Read more

Using Foamglas instead of polystyrene to insulate beneath our basement slab and on the foundation walls. Eli Gould cutting Foamglas for use under our basement slab. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

 

In my role with Environmental Building News and our GreenSpec Product Database, I get plenty of opportunity... Read more

The Forest Stewardship Council honors four stunning projects at Greenbuild for their use of sustainable timber. This rendering shows the Bullitt Center as envisioned.Photo Credit: Miller Hull Partnership

We’ve been hearing more and more lately about wood framing for midsize (and even some high-rise) commercial buildings, and this year... Read more

The Greenbuild conference, as usual, was the place to find out about innovations in green building products. Agepan THD wood-fiber insulative sheathing is now being sold by the Small Planet Workshop. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: Small Planet Workshop

I attended the Greenbuild Conference and related meetings in San... Read more

An easy-to-use online Fuel Cost Calculators lets you compare different fuels in terms of today’s energy costs. BuildingGreen's online Fuel Cost Calculator—shown here with current Vermont costs for heating oil and electricity and assumptions on how those energy sources are used. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: BuildingGreen, Inc.

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Resilience and building science are the focus for our eleventh annual BuildingGreen Top-10 product awards.

Last year's BuildingGreen Top-10 product awards were the first to emphasize resilient design. This year, in the wake of more droughts, wildfires, and the last straw—SuperStorm Sandy—our need to focus on resilience is ever more urgent. Hand... Read more

There’s a lot to talk about after Tuesday’s elections: urban planning, Keystone XL, and whether America is in a death spiral. German magazine Der Spiegel holds up a mirror to the U.S. as it lies on its purported death bed.Photo Credit: Der Spiegel

Der Spiegel doesn’t mince any Wörter

In a four-part analysis titled “Divided States of... Read more

Hurricane Sandy demonstrated the vulnerability of our dependence on automobiles; we need to become a lot more resilient. Gas line in Woodbridge, New Jersey on November 1st. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: AP

By now we’ve all seen the photos of houses buried in sand along the Jersey Shore, burned-out homes in Queens, and... Read more

One of the cleanest and most efficient ways to burn wood is provided by high-mass masonry heaters. A Tulikivi masonry heater made of soapstone with an integral bake oven and bench.Photo Credit: Tulikivi

Over the past two weeks I’ve written about wood stoves and pellet heating. This week I’ll focus on another way to burn wood... Read more

From the most shocking photos to the most piercing analysis, we look at some of the best Sandy coverage this week. The Washington Post shows us before-and-after shots that somehow make the damage seem even worse.Photo Credit: Richard Drew/AP

Before and after pix

Fahima Haque at the Washington Post brings us eleven stomach-twisting... Read more

Expensive callbacks and lawsuits can result when you don’t attend to the assembly details. Directional drying is designed into high-performance buildings, and all three control layers must continuously manage water, air, and heat. Note how the air barrier is primarily accomplished at the interior and how difficult it is to prevent thermal... Read more

Since when are coal-burning power plants “consumers”? A look at NSF’s dubious recycling definitions. BioCel carpet backing replaces petroleum-based polymers with those made from soybeans and contains Celceram fly ash as recycled content.Photo Credit: United Textile

Fly ash, a by-product of coal combustion, is considered “post-... Read more

A flying saucer lands on Grand Central Station, buildings are reclaimed after heinous murders, and we gape in horror at global warming skepticism. Close encounters of the baffling kind.Photo Credit: SOM Historic preservation abducted by aliens

We love to talk about retrofits and building reuse around here, but the flying saucer of... Read more

What to like and what not to like about pellet stoves and pellet boilers. Our Quadrafire pellet stove, which we can operate even during a power outage. Click to enlarge.Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

We have a sort-of love-hate relationship with our pellet stove. My wife leans more toward the latter, while I see the... Read more

Sometimes bikers have to improvise where to leave their bikes, but many common bike racks may be worse than nothing. Bikers need wheel benders like a fish needs a bike lock.Photo Credit: forkergirl, October 28, 2002 via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution.

Biking cross-country from San Francisco to Boston with a friend in 2010, I saw few... Read more

LED replacement lamps look super-efficient on payback charts and utility bills, but they may be sucking more power than you realize. LED replacement lamps like this one from Cree  have a high power factor; those intended for residential use often don't. Photo Credit: Cree, Inc.

GreenSpec and EBN have reviewed a number of LED... Read more