BP Oil Spill as Seen From Under Water
Check this video out of the BP oil spill.
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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
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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
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Plastiki
The boat Plastiki is a boat built entirely out of salvaged plastic. I presume it is a play on the original boat called Kon-Tiki that THOR HEYERDAHL built out of reeds. You have to check out their site. Check out the pictures and the vids. They are on such a high that it is really
Green Roof Benefits
The primary ecological benefits of Green Roofs are as follows: The Reduction of Urban Heat Island Effect. An urban heat island (UHI) is a metropolitan area which is significantly warmer than its surroundings. As population centers grow in size from village to town to city, they tend to have a corresponding increase in average temperature,
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Reasons NOT to do Solar (maybe)
Obviously, the author at these links is NOT selling PV systems (I haven’t checked their accuracy): A PV Alternate Energy Summary… (April 25, 2010) … http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu10.asp#d04-25-10 ” Present panel costs are $3.50 per peak watt. For a significant net energy contribution, 25 cents or less per peak PANEL watt is required. Thus, present costs are FOURTEEN
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Salvaged Wood Synergy
Here is a cool example of creative salvaging. They have taken planks from an old brownstone roof and flipped them upside down as a ceiling. The one consideration is fire. This was done in a restaurant, which means it shares the ceiling with an apartment upstairs, which means the ceiling has to be 2 hour
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Natural Wood Finish
Vermont Natural Coatings is one of the leading green wood finishes out there. Most of the time we mix oils and bases from staple ingredients like tung oil, linseed oil, whey pigments and citrus solvent, but sometime the situation calls for a more “conventional look”. This is when we might use Vermont Natural Coatings. Here
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Cancers from Environment ‘Grossly Underestimated’
Cancers from Environment ‘Grossly Underestimated’. “Daily Exposures Cause Far More Cancers Than Once Thought”, a Presidential Panel Says. According to studies almost half of the US population will be diagnosed with Cancer over their lifetime…. It makes me think of the Roman empire where they regularly ate off lead plates and all their plumbing was lead.
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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
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