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We use Citrus Solvent mixed into Tung oil to make a really great wood sealer. It works great on wood floors. Citrus solvent is a “natural” substitute for the more toxic turpentine. Citrus solvent dilutes the Tung oil and allows it to seep deeper into the wood. The solvent also acts as a drying [...] When doing an eco renovation of a brownstone there are two key factors: maximizing space and maximizing light. A New York brownstone floor is not the largest of spaces so one way to expand the space is to add a deck off the parlor floor. But this creates a problem with the other important [...] Here is a great clip pretending to be a nature show following the “life” cycle of the plastic bag from strip malls in California to the great garbage island in the Pacific. Narrated by Jeremy Irons, it is really great. What I love about the clip is how it not only shows the tragedy [...] Last week a judge dismissed Henry Giffords law suit against USGBC. Gifford had pointed out that energy audits of LEED buildings showed no greater energy savings than normal buildings of the same class, and in fact LEED buildings showed WORSE energy savings in many cases. Green Source Magazine speaks about it here. USGBC countered [...] Being a New York green contractor involves pushing two very important elements through DOB code approval: 1. composting toilets 2. gray water and rain water for flushing toilets. We recently tried to get composting toilets approved for our Passive House in Harlem but it got shot down. We will persevere trying to get it legalized in NYC [...] As a New York green roof installer I have a special affection for my own green roof. Check it out after all these summer rains. It is bursting with life. I threw a couple handfuls of Native North East wildflower seeds a couple years ago and now the roof overflows with sunflowers both big [...] Eco Brooklyn’s business model is to salvage as much as possible. We believe this is the true definition of a NY green contractor in a city with such abundant and high quality trash. We recently salvaged what we thought was marble. We cut it down to make all the bathroom and kitchen counters for [...] Here is a cool video prepared by our media intern Stavros about the eco garden design we are doing in the Brooklyn Show House. As a New York green contractor the truth is that our work is very much about things not in NY. Each time we salvage wood from a dumpster we aren’t saving a NY tree. We are saving a Canadian of Brazilian tree. As a company we may be acting locally but our vision is [...] For me the green builder’s tedium is the boring non-VOC paint and I’m forever looking for more natural and interesting wall applications. The book Tadelakt – An Old Moroccan Plaster Technique Newly Discovered, by Michael Johannes Ochs and published by Norton, is one such source for alternatives to the bla of big company non-VOC [...] Here is an email from a client that shows our new green contractor business plan is working. At the end of last year we decided to reconfigure Eco Brooklyn to make it more effective. We had too many jobs and we struggled with keeping the quality up. As the jobs ended we stopped taking on [...] A typical thing happened today in the life of Eco Brooklyn. One of our workers noticed a dumpster full of wood and called it in to the office. I dispatched our “Rescue Truck”, Eco Brooklyn’s veggie oil pickup, to go salvage the wood before it was carted off to the dump. This wood has [...] We just made a last minute switch from Zehnder’s Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) to Ultimate Air’s ERV for our Manhattan Passive House project. There were two main factors in this decision: price and USA made. Zehnder is a great unit and Barry the sales rep is a great guy. You’ve got top grade quality [...] Wikipedia is one of the wonders the internet has brought us, along with Google, Paypal, Facebook and Craigslist. This list goes on. But Wiki and Craigslist are special since they are founded by true visionaries and idealists who value free speech and free information above all else. Wiki and Craigslist could easily have sold out and [...] This NYC government web page lists the times, zip codes and dates that helicopters will spray pesticides over the city. They call it the “Aerial Larviciding Schedule”, and define Aerial Larviciding as: Dropping natural bacterial granules by helicopter to marshes and other large natural areas to kill mosquito larvae before they grow into adult mosquitoes. [...] Here is an interesting video showing some of the latest green building products for 2011. Of note are improved LED lights (although still very expensive and using huge amounts of embodied energy), net zero homes for the masses and dual function solar PV panels cooled by water that is then used in the house [...] Here is a cool web site about all things Passive House, aptly called, International Passive House Magazine, or IPHM. It is run by Tamas Banki. Based in Hungary he is doing a great job pulling together all the PH info from around the world. As a Passive House builder in New York I found the site [...] We just finished applying the EPDM roofing membrane to the Harlem Passive House renovation. The owners plan on growing vegetables on the roof. We like EPDM over all other roofing applications because it has a good combination of price and durability. The book Green from the Ground Up - Sustainable, healthy, and energy-efficient home construction byDavid Johnston and Scott Gibson is one of my suggested books for Eco Brooklyn’s rookie workers and interns. The book is very similar to Your Green Home – A Guide to Planning a Healthy, Environmentally Friendly, New Home by Alex Wilson, [...] Eco Brooklyn is a Design/Build firm specializing NY brownstone renovations but our design aesthetic and process is very different from other firms. The reason for this is almost completely due to our sourcing. Your typical firm will design something and then build it, sourcing whatever materials are best suited to achieve the form and [...] Eco Brooklyn does soil remediation and does its best to keep on top of the lead based remediation topics. Here are some links I got from the “leadnet” listserve (hosted by the national center for healthy housing www.nchh.org) in a conversation about lead and growing vegetables in soil. http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/eb1884/eb1884.pdf http://www.umass.edu/plsoils/soiltest/lead1.htm “Sources, Sinks, And Exposure Pathways [...] Here is a fantastic bit of information for removing lead from New York gardens. Eco Brooklyn offers soil remediation services to the many Brownstone owners who have high lead levels in their garden soil. This article from the NY Times discusses a solution that is truly ground breaking, pun intended. We can’t wait to [...] Here is a discussion between myself and other Passive House people regarding what ventilation system to use in the New York Passive house Eco Brooklyn is building. I originally got a bid for an ERV from Barry Stephens at Zehnder, which I thought was expensive. That prompted me to ask around for other options. [...] Here are three excellent Passive House resources prepared by the folks at the Passive House Institute. One is for retrofits: One for new construction: And the third for non-domestic: Eco Brooklyn is a passive house builder in New York City, where there are very few Passive House projects. The vast majority of [...] Here are two useful videos on Passive House principles, insulation and air tightness. Eco Brooklyn is a New York Passive House builder and we are committed to spreading Passive House information. It is good stuff, especially when combined with green building strategies of recycling and salvage. In the video you well see Tomas O’leary, [...] I was speaking with a green building intern today about how green building has a different set of priorities than say a normal corporation. In fact from a green building perspective the priorities of a normal corporation are criminal, suicidal and simply bad business in the long run. I see it as a perspective [...] I checked out Film Biz Recycling‘s warehouse today in Brooklyn on President and 3rd Ave. Eva Radke, founder and visionary, gave me a tour of the place. Film Biz Recycling collects all the props and materials from film sets and offers it up for sale. You’ve got a great selection of cool stuff, from [...] The folks at Living City Block are coming to tour the Brooklyn Green Show House this wednesday. This is exciting because they share a lot of the same focus as Eco Brooklyn. Their work sees the city as a bio-organism, where each block, each company, each house, each person are functioning aspects of the [...] Here is my friend Joe Pepe from M. Fine Lumber where Eco Brooklyn has bought mega bucks of salvaged lumber over the years. It is a video of him dancing and eating pizza. You may want 2:59 minutes of your life back after watching it. But then you may feel like getting a pizza [...] Here is an excellent pdf on Passive House. It shows the construction methods and results of a group of Passive House buildings in Hannover, Germany, giving a great insight into how Passive House works. PEP-Info1_Passive_Houses_Kronsberg As Passive House builders in New York this information is invaluable to us. In NY we are definitely experimenting [...] |
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