|
||||||
|
|
Eco Brooklyn is building a natural swimming pool in its show house. Below is a good article that explains how to build one. Whether you like to practice your dolphin dives or lounge away the day on a raft, swimming is one of summer’s perfect pleasures. With a minimum of materials (and without [...] The Native American concept that all our actions today will effect seven generations to come is profound. Green builders understand this naturally. We build homes that may last hundreds of years, protecting families for many generations. Each nail, each brick is a respectful nod to our ancestors who taught us the wisdom of sustainable [...] Here is a crap article by the New York Times arguing that in order to stop global warming we need to pick between either sacrificing (consuming less) OR picking greener options of consumption (so we can consume the same). My response? Duh! We need to do BOTH. And even then we may not have [...] Unable to sleep at 4am in New York I came accross this video of an abandoned town renovated by a small group of utopians. It is one of the most inspirational green building stories I have seen in a long time. So often green building is housed withing the capitalistic context where it is just another product [...] Here’s to every immigrant worker in the world. Did you ever think that countries were created to create cheap immigrant workers? Here at Eco Brooklyn we love immigrant workers. Not because they are cheap labor. Eco Brooklyn pays based on talent alone, not nationality, race or sex. And if you have a family [...] As a New York green contractor we are especially sensitive to the effect chemicals have on humans. New York city has many environmental stressors. You have noise, lots of people, lots of cars and a million other things in the environment that cause stress to the body. There are also a million chemicals that contact [...] Since the Occupy Wall Street events this fall I have immersed myself in information that questions existing paradigms and searches for solutions to current problems. I’ve always done this, and as a green builder I do it on a daily basis, but the recent Occupy Wall Street events has given my ongoing education a focus and timely reference [...] I heard somewhere that the building industry is more honest than other industries when it comes to greenwashing. Building only lies 96% of the time as opposed to the average of 98%. I don’t know if that is true but Eco Brooklyn tries not to focus on negative elements like greenwashing or environmental destruction [...] Here is an example of a roof repair we just did. New York City has mostly flat roofs but once in a while we come across shingle slanted roofs. It is important to do shingles right because otherwise the slightest wind will blow them off again. In this case the roof was only a couple years [...] In our Manhattan green brownstone renovation in we used Rieder windows because they allow us to meet the stringent Passive House standard. They came from Austria so it took about two months lead time to get them. All said it cost about $30,000 just in window expenses to supply the brownstone with your basic front and [...] Here is a good article in the NY Times about Passive Houses in NYC. As a Passive House builder we are excited to see growing interest in the technique as we feel it is a key element in building a greener New York. Here is a side shot of your typical Passive House [...] Here is a shout out to Film Biz Recycling. They do great work and help reduce the waste of the film industry, which quite possibly is one of the most wasteful industries out there because film builds real world environments and immediately after the shoot need to get rid of them. Film Biz Recycling [...] The two best building systems I know of right now are the Earthship and Passive House methods. Right now Eco Brooklyn is lucky enough to be involved in two jobs that involve both systems, one a NY earthship and the other a NY Passive House. Earthship building is best for non-urban parts of the [...] I have tolerated Mayor Bloomberg because he has done some good things for New York’s ecology. He isn’t the mayor of Copenhagen, Denmark. Now that is a city worth looking at in terms of ecology and social planning. But Bloomberg could have been a lot worse. His plan NYC is an acceptable plan, the bare minimum [...] When I was 25 I paid a lot of money to have my fortune read from a palm leaf. Turns out a wise man way back when in the depths of Eastern India scratched down on palm leaves the destiny of every soul who was to incarnate on the earth. So I tracked down [...] Here is an idea for a New York back yard. Your typical container is the same shape as your typical back yard in Brooklyn and NY. Why not put a shipping container into the earth as a cellar or underground room? [...] Here are some examples of rammed earth and rammed clay walls. We did one recently in Brooklyn and it was really cool. Rammed earth forms with cross strength braces: They call this rammed earth but it isn’t really. It is more like concrete with low levels of cement. [...] Come check out our Open House and Blowerdoor test at our Harlem Passive House renovation. When: Friday, November 11, 2011, 4:30 PM Where: 156 West 130th Street, Manhattan. The New York Passive House community is kicking off the weekend of International Open Passive House days at Ecobrooklyn’s project in Harlem. The house is well [...] I love visiting the folks at Occupy Wall Street. It is a very empowering thing. For me it feels like the seed of our first global revolution. We’ve had lots of revolutions. The French one was big. Lost lots of heads in that one. The Cuban revolution made quite a splash. But we have [...] If you live in New York city you know the summers can be hot and muggy, with humidity levels shooting through the roof. As a New York green contractor we are faced with the challenge of creating healthy and happy indoor air environments while keeping energy consumption low. So how do you remove humidity [...] As New York green contractor we feel that unwanted sound can be just as toxic as chemicals so we put a lot of work into making homes that reduce sound. We are in the soundproofing stage of our Passive House renovation in Harlem. Here the soundproofing techniques we used: Foam on the joists – foam [...] As a New York contractor we are constantly trying to incorporate the best green building techniques to New York and Brooklyn brownstones. The creative use of clay is one of our tools. We just did a another clay wall job in Brooklyn. We switched the mix up a little to make it a little smoother, [...] As a New York green contractor you learn very quickly that “natural” does not mean “good”, nor does it mean “bad”. Case in point: the mushroom. Mushrooms are some of the most beneficial human foods available. But you eat the wrong one and you will die. Not good, not bad. Powerful, yes. So the [...] I attended last Saturday’s Occupy Wall Street march to Times Square because as a New York green contractor I feel alligned with many of the issues brought up in the Occupy Wall street movement. There was a big crowd and for the first time in my life I saw more New Yorkers than tourists [...] This week we had CUNY students come by to the green show house. One of Eco Brooklyn’s interns Michele Fonzi, who has a degree in Landscape Architecture, showed the model of our green roof she built. Above you see the side view of the green roof installation. First there is the [...] As a green design build firm in New York we are constantly looking for ways nature makes an impression on the city. Here is a literal impression. A leaf fell onto the sidewalk cement when it was wet and made its permanent mark. This Friday at 2pm we will be doing a blower door test at the harlem Passive House. If you are interested in attending please let us know. Eco Brooklyn, NY Passive House Contractor
Check out this picture of our Eco Brooklyn Green Show House bee hive. We left some space in the hive and the bees filled it up with their own combs. The precision and symmetry they build the comb is really beautiful. Here is a cool article from GreenBuildingAdvisor.com. As a New York green contractor we are always looking for local green building materials, especially anything that relates to the super high efficient Passive House construction tools. These windows from Maine look really promising. New Green Building Products High-performance windows, doors, and tapes for your next [...] We are doing the flashing and installation of the windows for our Passive House brownstone in Manhattan and needed a scaffold. There seems to be a lot of confusion among contractors around what is allowed for scaffold installation. Here are the official rules for scaffold installation in Manhattan I asked around to my seasoned contractors and [...] |
|||||
|
Copyright © 2012 ECO BROOKLYN INC. - All Rights Reserved |
||||||
