Author Archive
Energy Efficient Front Doors
It is striking that despite the many green building going on in the US that there still remains some blaring gaps in our knowledge and available products.
I encountered another of these gaps recently in my search for a good front door for a Brooklyn Passive House style brownstone. I was looking for something super energy [...]
Energy Efficient Fan – Biomimicry
Fans are inherently energy efficient since they reduce your need for an energy hog air conditioner. But for those of us constantly pushing the envelope we want to know what the most energy efficient fan is.
Right now my favorite is the Sycamore Fan.
The main reason I love it is that it is a classic example of Biomimicry, [...]
Natural Paint Options
A client of mine just came back from England raving about her friend’s natural paint company Annie Sloan.
Paint, a substance you put onto another surface, usually acts as protection and an aesthetic. Natural paint can be many things but needs to have the same basic elements: a binder, a base and optional color.
The binder holds [...]
What Gray Water Systems are available?
Every Brooklyn brownstone should have a gray water system to feed the toilets, green roof, living wall and garden.
Unfortunately there are few systems to choose from. They range between $2,000 and $7,000 for the unit not including running the extra drains from the shower, bathtub, sink and washing machine.
Right now in the US the only [...]
Upcoming Speaking Announcement
Green Home NYC is featuring Gennaro Brooks-Church as a guest speaker. He will be speaking on two key concepts he coined: Build It Forward and the Zero Brownstone. More info below on the event next week.
August forum: Working with contractors (AIA credit)August’s forum will discuss working with contractors in both residential and commercial projects. Along [...]
Hybrid House Book
Broadly speaking there are two kinds of green building books: one looks to the latest scientific innovations for solutions and the other looks to revive ancient techniques. Lets call them the futurists and the traditionalists.
In the futurists camp you have high tech, in the traditionalists you have low tech.
Futurists design houses with complex energy calculations. [...]
New York Earthen Floor Design
I just uncovered a New York Times article on earthen floors. It is cool because it mentions the person who is consulting with Eco Brooklyn on some earthen floors in Brooklyn and Harlem. Her name is Sukita and she is very knowledgeable in earthen floors.
Here are more cool pics.
We have done some experimenting to adjust [...]
No Fracking in NY
If you haven’t signed a petition against Fracking please do so with this link.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/676/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4322&tag=youtube
If you want the negative view on Fracking check out this three minute Video. And yes Haliburton and Cheney are once again part of it. It is so funny how they pop up wherever there are mass deaths, ecological disasters and wanton [...]
Brooklyn Farmers’ Market and Twinkies
I see the Brooklyn Farmers’ Market as the antithesis of a Twinkie.
The Twinkie is always the same. It lasts forever, is full of chemicals and is made on some distant planet. And never does it create a healthy sense of community.
The Brooklyn Farmers’ Market on the other hand is possibly the most powerful community force since Indians sat [...]
Eco Brooklyn Green Building Terms
On the Eco Brooklyn job sites we have certain green building concepts that we use. They are mostly coined by me to help the crew and clients understand what Eco Brooklyn’s core goals are. They are easy rallying points to help us all stay on track.
These terms can be searched on this site for more [...]
Green Building Sales – Art of Bid Pricing
I love the psychology of sales. It is what distinguishes humans from numbers.
The sale item that a shop keeper takes a loss on to get people in the door so they buy other things. Half price drinks at the bar with the hope people will stay and buy full price drinks. Pricing something at $99 [...]
Green From The Ground Up – Book
The book Green from the Ground Up, Sustainable, Healthy, and Energy-Efficient Home Construction, offers everything its title promises, and yet that very same title shows how wrong the authors are. It is 330 pages full of intelligent “green” building techniques covering everything from efficient insulation techniques to natural ventilation.
The book is a fantastic overview of pretty [...]
Brooklyn Wood Floor Revival
We did two jobs over the past week on wood floors. They started out really ugly. And they ended up amazing. We finished them with 100% pure tung oil so they are really natural.
The first job was to remove some paint that a previous owner, in their infinite and unfathomable intelligence, had painted over the [...]
Green Roof Resources and Installers
Here is a great page full of information on green roofs, green roof installers and green roof supplies.
Graywater, the Next Wave
The book Graywater, the Next Wave is one of many graywater books I have read in my ongoing search for a viable graywater system for Brooklyn brownstones.
The book offers a great beginners introduction on how to build a residential graywater drainage system.
It doesn’t answer my questions thought. Firstly because they flat out state that gray [...]
Eco Brooklyn is Featured in NY Times Blog
Here is an article on Eco Brooklyn in today’s NY Times Blog.
http://fort-greene.thelocal.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/sustainable-brownstone-101/
The general gist is that green building can be affordable. They say Eco Brooklyn “practices guerrilla green-building techniques” to achieve this, which involves a lot of dumpster diving and salvage.
We try to set up more formal ways of collecting material but it is not easy. I [...]
Action Needed: Sign Petition for Benefit Corporation
A Benefit Corporation is a new corporate entity offering entrepreneurs and investors the option to build and invest in businesses that meet higher standards of corporate purpose, accountability and transparency.
NY Assembly will vote later this week on whether to pass this new entity. PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION NOW TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT OF THIS BILL.
In a traditional corporation, fiduciary [...]
Green Kitchen Design
When people say green kitchen design they usually mean recycled glass counters or something. But the actual design of the kitchen doesn’t change much. For me a green kitchen design alters the behavior of the inhabitants so that they better the environment without extra thought or effort.
For example we all know recycling and composting are [...]
Chicken Picture
Check out this chicken picture. Funny.
City Chickens Workshop Series: Introduction to City Chickens
Time: June 20, 2010 from 2pm to 4pm
Location: Imani Garden Dean Street and Schenectady Avenue, Brooklyn
Harmful effects of EMF
On my quest to find information on the effects (negative, positive or neutral) Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) I have uncovered the following negative info. In fact some if it is the strongest proof yet that EMF is harmful to us, or at the very least causes our bodies stress.
The reason this is of interest to a Brooklyn green [...]
New York Cancer Clusters
The NY Dept of Health released the latest figures for cancer in New York State. It is in the form of an interactive map where you can click on an area and see the amount of cancer cases since 2000 as well as the population.
Zoom into the Brooklyn area and click the “Identify” button to [...]
Waste, Toxic Homes
The other day I passed by a Manhattan condo renovation and saw they were throwing out good stuff: metal studds and flooring. The contractor told me it was a 3,000 sq.ft. condo that right before the current gut reno it had just been gut renovated!
It had high end everything: Poggen Pohl German kitchen, slate counters, [...]
22 Million Barrels a Day
A few nights ago Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News answered a question about whether the oil disaster would increase the price of oil. He answered that it wouldn’t as the spill was such a small amount of oil relative to actual usage. He said all the oil that has spilled so far is just [...]
Brac Graywater Systems Nightmare
Brac Graywater Systems is the graywater system we have in the Brooklyn Green Show House. We bought it because we were not fully educated on the graywater needs a Brooklyn brownstone has.
Unfortunately it was a huge mistake. We do not think the Brac Graywater unit is intelligently designed. In fact it is over designed.
Apart from being vastly [...]
Our Planet in Perspective
Check this PowerPoint out. It is cool. It shows images of the earth and other celestial entities. It gives a really great perspective of our place in the universe, both as a small spec in a vast ocean and as a very beautiful, fragile gem.
EnglishAstronomie2
Bromine as a Chlorine Alternative for Gray Water
We’ve been looking for a chlorine alternative for our Brooklyn brownstone gray water systems. Chlorine is not ideal because it gives off fumes. I’ve also read that when the chlorine molecules bond with the soil particles it alters the chlorine into a form called Chloramine that causes cancer. This is a concern if using the gray [...]
Insulation Detail For Exterior Walls
Brooklyn homes were originally built without insulation. We often come across a situation where we are doing a green renovation of a Brooklyn building but not gutting it completely. This creates an insulation problem. We want to add plenty of insulation but that is hard if you are working with existing exterior walls.
In this situation I propose [...]
BP Oil Spill as Seen From Under Water
Check this video out of the BP oil spill.
Extensive Green Roof
An extensive green roof is a green roof that is less than 6″ thick. As opposed to an intensive green roof that is more than 6″ thick. Because of the thickness of the growing medium an extensive green roof can only support sedum and drought tolerant small plants. The reason for this is the limited root space [...]
Lead Levels in Brooklyn Children
This week was the moment of reckoning for Eco Brooklyn. We are constantly doing things to improve our green building techniques but it is rare that we see the numbers to either back up our claims or damn them.
But this week we did, in the form of my son’s blood level tests. One of the biggest bragging [...]