When heavy products are unloaded from ships at the Port of Portland, OR, the rough wood 4x4s used in packing the goods are discarded in a landfill. Joe Michoff and Pierce Henley saw opportunity in the waste and their company, Viridian Wood Products, now reclaims and markets the wood to build beautiful decks, flooring, and […]
Edible Landscape Epitomizes Green Living
Landscape architect Anna Peltier brings her passion for living sustainably into her own yard by creating an edible oasis. Fruit trees bloom in the backyard. Grape vines provide fruit, and provide shade for an outdoor dining area. Peltier celebrates the local plants that have nourished humans for centuries. Native edibles from the surrounding desert include […]
LED Lights Are Bright in Many Ways
LED lights are significantly more energy efficient than conventional incandescent bulbs, and last 25 to 50 times longer. LEDs match spiral CFL bulbs’ efficiency without the hazardous mercury used in CFLs, and last two to three times longer. Those assets, plus the fast-paced innovation in LED fixtures, convinced BoulderGreen founder Alex Wilson to install only […]
NAHB Lowers Estimate for Single Family Starts
The housing market shrank to only 27% of normal construction on average only a few years ago. Four years later, the market has come a long way and, despite the revised estimate for 2013 actually falling, economists at the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) believe that 2014 will show a strong recovery and 2015 […]
Sustainable Building Can Increase Worker Productivity
The Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel in San Diego hosted the Commercial Real Estate Development Association’s (NAIOP) Development ‘13 conference in early October, where an expert panel discussed sustainable buildings and the return on investment possible from them. Included among the things discussed during the panel, was the fact that sustainable buildings mean more than just […]
Five Building Trends in New Homes
Building codes are constantly being updated and revised, so Residential Science Resources (RSR) are visiting new homes several times before, during, and even after construction, to make sure the home is as efficient as possible. RSR and other RESNET providers are gaining in popularity so that the owners and builders both can verify the expected […]
Vinyl is the Most Common Siding on New Homes
The latest Survey of Construction (SOC) performed by the Census Bureau showed that vinyl was, in fact, the most common siding put on new homes in 2012, being used on 32 percent of the new homes built in that year. Brick was the number two most used siding at 25 percent, and stucco took third […]
The Ripple Effect of Home Buying
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Economics used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Consumer Expenditure Survey to determine that a home purchase reliably causes additional spending in areas such as appliances, furnishings, and home remodeling. They also determined that the spending in this area by new home owners typically outpaces the […]
When You’re Financing a Green Home, Payback is Irrelevant
This article from GreenBuildingAdvisor.com shows why calculating the payback cost on a green home does not give you a complete or reliable picture on the benefits of green appliances and technology. The first reason why payback is distracting is the fact that it tends to take the total cost of the item divided over how […]
FluxHome: An Easy to Monitor Smart Home
The FluxHome marks another entry into the Solar Decathlon competition, this entry by a group of students from the University of Southern California. The FluxHome is a 1,000 square foot house that takes advantage of the California climate to run on solar energy. Additionally, all of the home systems are controlled by a single iPad […]