Modified hot water return systems in a green brownstone make a lot of sense. You want to minimize the amount of wasted water that normally goes down the drain while you are waiting for the water to heat up, thus the use of a hot water return, but you modify it from the normal hot […]
Saving Water and Energy in a Brooklyn Brownstone Read More »
The book of short essays “Less is More” collected by Cecile Andrews and Wanda Urbanska, tackles a subject dear to my heart: Voluntary Simplicity, the act of voluntarily making your life simpler, less cluttered, more frugal and quite simply… simpler. I don’t think the book does a very good job at it though. Firstly, a
Less Is More – Wabi Sabi Read More »
The book “Brooklyn Modern” by Diana Lind, published by Rizzoli, is a real inspiration to any green builder or contractor in Brooklyn because it shows great examples of creative, green renovations of Brooklyn buildings. Most of the renovations are not intentionally green, although some are, but the home owners are part of a Brooklyn breed
Brooklyn Modern Book Read More »
Architect and writer Julia Brooke Hustwit came by our Brooklyn Green Show House for the first in a series of articles she is writing on the house for re-nest.com. You can check out the first one here. We spoke a lot about how the green building process differs from normal building. Just the word “process”
Re-nest and the process of green building Read More »
Eco Brooklyn has one rule: we don’t buy new wood. We buy damaged wood, salvaged wood, unwanted wood, and overstock from other Brooklyn contractors. We collect it from dumpsters. But we won’t buy new wood. Period. It is the thorn in my carpenters’ side. When they are under pressure to perform (which is always), time
Here is an interesting site called RealitySandwich.com. Although it is not Brooklyngreen building related, it does touch a lot of the elements necessary to be a good green builder. Before being a green builder we are universal citizens. Check it out. Cool.
A reporter was over at the Brooklyn green show house last week and I was talking about the importance of Brooklyn green contractors being affordable to middle class people in order for our goal of turning Brooklyn green to be successful. She mentioned another green developer who had built a house in Phili for $100K
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
Gasoline Alternatives Read More »
There is a little book called “Simple Shelters: Tents, Tipis, Yurts, Domes and other Ancient Homes” by Jonathan Horning. It is part of a group of books called Wooden Books that the NY publisher Walker & Company puts out. From the web site, Wooden Books are Small Books with Big Ideas: “Historically, in all known
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
LED lighting is (almost) there Read More »
