Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what's the greenest product of all? You can find lists of the best green building products all over the web, and many sites update them annually. When looking for hot green building products, you have…
ENERGY STAR. LEED for Homes. Builders Challenge. HERS. It's easy to fall into the wrong line of thinking about this. I did it myself when I was new to the HERS rating industry. It's even easier now that RESNET is…
New houses certified in the LEED for Homes program will be required to have 100% windows in all above-grade walls once the new 2012 update is approved by US Green Building Council (USGBC) members this summer. The LEED certification program…
Ten years ago, I was in the throes of building a green home an hour outside Atlanta, Georgia. (Well, truthfully, I was in the throes of depression because my dad had just died, but that's another story.) In the process…
Ten years ago I was building a green home. It had passive solar features, was built out of structural insulated panels, sent all the greywater out to the back yard to water fruit trees, and was going to be super…
Ten years ago, I was at the front end of building a green, high performance home. (That's me on the ladder connecting the two LVL ridge beams that support the structural insulated panel roof.) It was going to take only…
Back in the summer of 2003, I was finishing up the green home I'd started building in 2001. One of the last pieces we had to complete was the greywater system, and we'd already put a lot of work into…
I like the Sun! It's what got me interested in building science, actually. Growing up in the '70s, I heard a lot of talk about the environment, our energy problems, and solar energy. I didn't really do much with that…
Yesterday, I heard a law student tell a story about some advice she gave to her friend about a recent break up. Her friend was having trouble letting go, and instead of saying something simple like, "you need to move…
Over the past decade, I've immersed myself in the world of building science and green building. I've absorbed a lot of knowledge and have learned the even more important lesson of how to find answers to questions that arise in…