Here is a spiral staircase we are designing for a client. We salvaged an antique round oak beam. It measures 14 feet long and is a solid 8 inches in diameter. The wood is so dense it takes four guys to lift it. We tried cutting it with a chainsaw and broke the chainsaw. It […]
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What do brooklyn green contractors do on their day off? Build igloos of course! The trick to building a good igloo is to use deep cake pans or small storage boxes to make snow bricks. The other trick is as you slant the walls inwards be careful NOT to slant the bricks. The walls slant
What Do Brooklyn Green Contractors Do On Their Day Off? Read More »
The NY City College of Technology does this cool seminar series called Anatomy of a Brownstone. This spring I’ll be one of their speakers. For more info see below. Spring 2010 Offering: Layouts and Lifestyles Course Code: BRNS 032 Date: Saturday 3/13 1 – 5 pm Fee: $40 Directions: click here When it’s
Anatomy of a Brownstone Event This Spring Read More »
I call myself a green builder and as such am constantly thinking what that title means. Possibly one of the best definitions of green building I can think of is this: does it age well? Green building is meant to be sustainable, meaning it can be repeated on an ongoing basis. Clear cutting trees is
Green Building gets better with age Read More »
Here is a good formula for a beautiful strong concrete countertop: 4 parts white cement 1/4 fly ash 4 white sand 4 marble dust 1/3 fiber It creates a nice white counter top that is also very strong. We do custom concrete counters and find that this formula really works. We sometimes add decorative aggregate.
Concrete Countertop Formula Read More »
The book “New Green Homes” by Sergi Costa Duran, Liliana Bollini and Ethel Pohl is a focused book. It is an architects visual study of modern homes around the world. They claim the homes are green but I didn’t really see that. What I did see was a study of a very specific architectural style,
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I’m seeing two styles in green building. One I call the Hobbit house and the other is the Glass Box house. One looks like the past, the other the future. Here are some examples of the Hobbit house. Hobbit Houses are: low tech, low embodied energy, dark, local materials, high thermal mass, part of the
Hobbit Houses and Glass Box houses Read More »
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
Brooklyn Brownstone Extentions and the Stack Effect Read More »
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
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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
