Energy
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Insulation Values For Selected Materials
The table below gives R values of various building materials. To obtain a wall or ceiling assembly R-value you must add the r-values of the individual components together (this won’t give you an entirely accurate R value if you’ve got thermal bridging but it is good enough for rough estimates).
If we are building a passive [...]
Solar PV vs. Solar Thermal Costs
There is an increasing opinion amoungst New York solar installers that solar thermal pays for itself quicker than solar PV.
Looking at the numbers I thought so too and would recommend solar thermal as a better investment if the client had to choose between solar PV and thermal. Of course it is great when the client [...]
Green Counter Top Options
I realize concrete has huge embodied energy and creates tonnes of CO2 during it’s manufacture but I still can’t resist reading up on the uses of concrete for residential interior applications.
Eco Brooklyn is guilty of making some concrete counters too.
I just read Concrete at Home by the concrete fanatic Fu-Tung Chen. He has definitely cornered [...]
Solar powered attic fans
The following info to chew on was compiled by Martin Holladay, former associate editor at the Journal of Light Construction, former editor of Energy Design Update, currently senior editor for Green Building Advisor. GreenSpec recently delisted powered attic ventilation fans, to which the powered attic fan manufacturers have taken great exception.
- [...]
Vernal Equinox
Happy Vernal Equinox!!!!
Today at 10:33 PDT, 13:33 EDT, 18:33 CET is the Spring Equinox.
The moment when the relation of the Sun and the Earth are in equipoise.
Our planet hangs in perfect balance for one brief flash of a second…all balanced, the day and night everywhere, for all of us in San Francisco, [...]
Food Industry is bigger than oil
We are destroying ourselves and the planet with our current eating process.
The solution is simple:
LESS MEAT
LESS JUNK
MORE PLANTS
Repeat it over and over again with each bite.
New Construction Should be Outlawed
I think new construction is to building like heroin is to health. It should be outlawed as a threat to our well-being. There are enough old buildings for us to renovate. New construction is a needless act of arrogance and self destruction.
There’s really not much more to say. I could explain why I guess but [...]
World Energy Consumption Per Capita
Here is a graph that shows some of the highest energy consumers and lowest per capita. Sobering.
Click on image to enlarge
Net Zero Brooklyn Brownstone
A net zero brownstone means that it consumes a net zero amount of energy, meaning over time it creates as much energy on site as it consumes. It does this by using very little amounts of energy (few and efficient appliances that are sparingly used) and producing a lot of energy (lots of solar panels [...]
93.9% of the energy that is consumed by US is NOT from renewable sources
Here is an interesting list of what energy the US consumes and the % consumed for each. Notice over 90% is not renewable.
Source: no idea!
Green Building is More Dependant on Natural Cycles
One of the many differences between renovating a Brooklyn brownstone the old fashioned way and doing a green renovation is the difference in cycles.
A normal brownstone renovation is very similar to all post-industrial activity: MAN OVER NATURE. And ever since the “triumph of science” we have been able to overpower the earths natural cycles and [...]
New York net metering fix
While most of us are looking forward to a relaxing weekend, others are working hard on our behalf. Right now they are pushing hard to pass an improved version of the net metering bill through the Senate. This allows your average Brooklyn brownstone owner to put solar panels on their home and actually sell the [...]
Permaculture, Pigs and Bees
Here is a cool insight into nature. It is by Michael Pollan. He also talks about the Polyface Farm which is run by “grass farmer” Joel Salatin. Joel is interviewed a lot in the Food Inc Movie. Check out the talk below, follow the links above. All very cool stuff.
Not directly connected to green contractors [...]
Brooklyn Brownstone Extentions and the Stack Effect
This is the season of phone calls from clients needing Eco Brooklyn’s help with their brownstone extensions. The problem is always the same: they are cold.
They call us up because we are Brooklyn brownstone insulation specialists.
Here are my observations having seen and fixed extensions for a while now.
There are two types of extensions. The first [...]
Building Green Book
This book has a long title: Building Green: A Complete How-To Guide to Alternative Building Methods Earth Plaster * Straw Bale * Cordwood * Cob * Living Roofs. But then again it is a big book.
Written by Tim Callahan and Clarke Snell this book overflows with 600 pages and 1500 images. The book aims to [...]
Concrete and CO2
I was just blogging how much we like earthen floors because for one it doesn’t use CO2 producing concrete.
Then I decided to calculate how much CO2 your typical Brownstone basement would produce if you poured a concrete slab.
Answer: Almost ONE MILLION cubic feet of CO2 is let off to pour a simple brownstone basement concrete [...]
Earthen Floor Brownstone
The correct way to finish off a brownstone is to put lots of insulation and then a concrete slab, right? Correct maybe but not the greenest way. Concrete creates way too much CO2. The greenest way and a great alternative to concrete is to put lots of insulation and then an EARTHEN floor. Yes earth, [...]
Comfortable Green Brownstone
Here is a great image. It shows the true value of a Brooklyn brownstone green renovation.
This is something you can’t put a price to. It is like the credit card advertisement:
Insulation $10
Radiant floor $15
Fiberglass Windows $12
Watching your baby play naked while it snows outside: Priceless
This photo really shows the immediate value of doing a good [...]
HVAC Watch Dog
HAVC manufacturing companies throw a lot of info around without consumers really knowing what is true. As an energy efficient HVAC installer we are very interested in the real energy efficiency of a unit. Is it really a SEER 25? How did they do the test? Does it retain that rating when the temperature drops [...]
Global Dimming
Here is a sobering documentary on what is called Global Dimming, the effect of pollution particles blocking the sunshine on the planet. Ironically global dimming helps block the sun’s rays and thus REDUCES Global Warming. But the moral of the story is not very positive. This documentary apart from being fascinating is also a very [...]
Spray Foam Installation – Cellulose is better
Brooklyn brownstone owners are becoming aware of the positive effects of spray foam insulation, also known as Spray-applied polyurethane foam or SPF, to get a nice tight building envelope that does not let heat out in the winter and in during the summer. Examples of SPF are Icynene, [...]
Gasoline Alternatives
Eco Brooklyn is growing as a company and needs to buy another vehicle. As a green contractor we are not crazy about adding to our carbon footprint. So lessen the impact we’ve started looking into alternative fuel options and fuel efficiency.
The best web site for this is FuelEconomy.gov
We started by first looking at the vehicles [...]
low energy living is 10% technology and 90% lifestyle
“we were becoming good at standards but not very good at implementing them…low energy living is 10% technology and 90% lifestyle”
This is a quote from a thoughful critique on Passive House, which is big on creating a technologically complex house that uses very little energy. But they point out that people’s lifestyle is much more [...]
Brooklyn Passive House
I’ve been discussing a lot with my colleagues how best to reach Passive House standards in a green Brooklyn brownstone renovation. Passive House (a German building system not to be confused with passive solar) is a good benchmark because if you do it correctly you really don’t need a heating system.
Here is one comment [...]
LED lighting is (almost) there
Here is an interesting cost comparison between LED, CFL and incandescent. I have not checked the numbers but they seem pretty accurate. They clearly show that over the life of the bulb it makes a lot of sense to buy LED.
What the numbers do not show are the quality. I’ve tried a lot of the [...]