Programmable thermostats are sometimes touted as a good way to save money. They are used to turn the heat down in the night when you are sleeping or during the day when you are at work out of the house. But in our green show house in Brooklyn we are not using programmable thermostats. We […]
Do Programmable Thermostats Save Money? No. Read More »
It is cool to be green. Wearing green is the new black. Green power is the new black power. It is cool to be green. But it is important to not let the fad take over the message. Being green, like every other revolution (revolution = full turn), is about moving one rotation up the
There is a general disagreement in green builders. You have basically two general types (you have a lot of types but these are two big ones). You have the scientist type who thinks that green building is about energy efficiency. Seal up the house, use energy efficient tools, lower the carbon footprint, save the world.
Green Building Energy Conversion – Energy or Morality? Read More »
All builders create waste. Green builders create a lot less because they reuse, recycle and find others to use their stuff. One of the tricks is finding places or companies that will take your stuff and channel it for another use. Here are some resources from a deconstruction article that ran a couple of years
Deconstruction, Salvage and Recycling Read More »
Green building is all about energy efficiency, saving precious resources, green roofs and recycled cellulose insulation, right? I would actually say that those things are secondary and that there is a larger philosophy behind green building. Those things are some of the focused methods we carry out the philosophy perhaps but the overall philosophy is
Green Building Ethics Read More »
I love the abundance of energy emerging for green roofs in Brooklyn and New York. Installing a green roof in Brooklyn is the smartest think I can think of. When I go on a Brooklyn rooftop and see all the plane flat roofs I see a possible forest of verdant green and fauna. I see
New York Green Roof Contractor Read More »
I went to the LED light trade show a couple weeks ago. It was way cool. They are making real progress for residential LED lighting. One technology that I especially liked was phosphorescent lenses that convert blue LED into visible light like a normal bulb. This varies from normal LED lights that combine the three
LED light tradeshow Read More »
What is manufacturer’s’ obsession with telling me how many LEED points I can earn by buying their product?! From the advertisements you’d think every house being built is going for LEED. But the manufacturers know they aren’t. They are betting on people saying, “Heck, if it good for LEEDS then it’s good for my little
LEED Marketing Mania Read More »
I’m happy to say that NY is an exception to the rule that using wood isn’t green due to the Gotham Forest we have here: millions of board feet of old growth lumber sitting in the frames of old buildings just waiting to be harvested and reused. I simply have to drive around to dumpsters
Gotham Forest Wood Read More »
We are installing radiant floor heating with pex tubes. We had a set of challenges: The floor height was low or the floor already had wood flooring on top of it. Radiant Subfloor In both these cases it did not work to put pex tubing OVER the subfloor. So we had to hang it below
Radiant Floor Aluminium Fin Alternative Read More »
