Green Goddess

Get Bizzy With It

2012-01-31T07:48:00.001-08:00

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If you are seeking a highly professional marketing/advertising team that offers 24/7 support, personalized client service they may be for you.

Bizzclick has available a multitude of creative tools to assist you in finding the right advertising campaign and one of the fastest XML feed in industry. Check out their Advertiser page or Publisher page for more information.

And for you internet geeks they have their own FiSoAp traffic ranking system that helps our clients to get traffic sources that fit their needs. FiSoAp is a system that helps site owners to manage advertisement offers, avoiding charge backs and enables them to get the highest bids.

Bizzclick has excellent referral programs and other programs that benefit their community members. Offering more ways for you to further generate income and grow your business.

Letting the Sun Still In

2012-01-29T10:56:00.000-08:00

We recently had a snowstorm and heavy rains that led me to the question of how does one maintain solar panel performance during winter when solar gain can be impeded by weather issues.

In the Northwest its our grayness that often misleads people to think it rains a lot here when in reality its simply the lack of light and our short periods of daylight that give that impression. Why we are not the sunniest City we do have a strong solar community and no real problems when it comes to maintaining solar gain levels.

However, weather such as snow or long term wind and rain can affect the solar panels and in fact bring damage so they do require some attention. Solar is not maintenance free and most solar installers offer an annual maintenance package to ensure long term performance and when or if one elects to enroll in that option you should find out if it includes those times of extreme weather as it requires special attention to ensure damage, such as cracks, to the panels.

And as solar panels are often on high roofs it requires special care and handling for safety reasons, which is another reason I have frequently said that installing them on an adjacent garage, carport or other low lying structure is a much easier way to simply clean and monitor the panels than risking climbing high ladders and roofs to clean them at any time.

For residential panels, physical maintenance requires a little effort and posing no difficulty. This is because you just need to make sure that the panels are regularly wiped off and cleaned.

Cheap solar panels and home made ones are those that can accumulate dust and dirt easily and should be cautiously protected. Dust can cause blockage of sun rays, therefore decrease the efficiency of your solar panels.

Furthermore, these accumulating elements on the surface of the solar panels can decrease the system’s performance by almost 7% annually.

Cleaning routine will include brushing using a pole routinely to wipe off dirt on the panels. Also, standard garden nozzle and hose is recommended in rinsing the solar panels.

Rinsing must be done in the cool morning. This will avoid drastic changes in the temperature and may further result in damaging the fragile cells.

For rainy seasons, you don't need to exert effort in cleaning the solar panels because the rain will clean it off for you. It is still then recommended that solar panels must be rinsed once a year during peak months of summer.

Also, location is another factor on establishing the cleaning frequency of the solar panels. Developing areas and those with large amount of agriculture requires consistent regular cleaning.

So if you are not sure if your solar panels are performing correctly or are in need of some cleaning/inspection. Contact your installer or licensed roofer to make the necessary inspections and repairs or cleaning that is needed.

Shadow Rising

2012-01-12T09:18:00.000-08:00

I wrote quite some time ago about the Shadow People who are the the rising class of the un/underemployed - too young to go on Social Security, Medicare, too old to be considered employable.

As a result you have a still significant portion of the boomers who have made significant commitments both financial and emotional to maintaining a standard of living and contribution to society. Rather than admit to others that they are no longer as "valuable" they hide in the shadows hoping that somewhere it will all work out. Optimism is a valued trait in those residing in the shadows.

Then came the kids on Occupy Wall Street. They threw in some old fashioned activism with a modern flair. They reminded much of what their parents had raised them to be - polite, organized, fair and equitable. At times annoying, but always confident they movement grew and spread across the nation bringing with it attention to the issue that too has been hiding in the shadows - rising income inequity.

In the 1980s prior to Reagan's election the average CEO wages was approximately forty times the average factory worker by 1989 it was 93 times as much. In 2010 it was over 300%. There is no way in the last 30 years that CEO's are working 300 times as much as any other rank file employee but it still fuels the myth of Horatio Alger.

Well today another report by the Pew Research Study found that Class Warfare is in fact the largest and most significant issue people are facing over any other - including racial discrimination and immigration issues.

The rhetoric of the political landscape has changed where even those on the same team are starting to say that the free market economy is not as free to everyone on the playing field.

I have reprinted the study below to understand that as a Nation we have a very significant problem that if continues will divide our society and impede its growth. As we remind ourselves nothing is Sustainable if its long term affects are not analyzed and evaluated. Its clear that time is now.

Rising Share of Americans See Conflict Between Rich and Poor

by Rich Morin

The Occupy Wall Street movement no longer occupies Wall Street, but the issue of class conflict has captured a growing share of the national consciousness. A new Pew Research Center survey of 2,048 adults finds that about two-thirds of the public (66%) believes there are “very strong” or “strong” conflicts between the rich and the poor—an increase of 19 percentage points since 2009.

Not only have perceptions of class conflict grown more prevalent; so, too, has the belief that these disputes are intense. According to the new survey, three-in-ten Americans (30%) say there are “very strong conflicts” between poor people and rich people. That is double the proportion that offered a similar view in July 2009 and the largest share expressing this opinion since the question was first asked in 1987.

As a result, in the public’s evaluations of divisions within American society, conflicts between rich and poor now rank ahead of three other potential sources of group tension—between immigrants and the native born; between blacks and whites; and between young and old. Back in 2009, more survey respondents said there were strong conflicts between immigrants and the native born than said the same about the rich and the poor.1

Virtually all major demographic groups now perceive significantly more class conflict than two years ago. However, the survey found that younger adults, women, Democrats and African Americans are somewhat more likely than older people, men, Republicans, whites or Hispanics to say there are strong disagreements between rich and poor.

While blacks are still more likely than whites see serious class conflicts, the share of whites who hold this view has increased by 22 percentage points, to 65%, since 2009. At the same time, the proportion of blacks (74%) and Hispanics (61%) sharing this judgment has grown by single digits (8 and 6 points, respectively).

The biggest increases in perceptions of class conflicts occurred among political liberals and Americans who say they are not affiliated with either major party. In each group the proportion who say there are major disagreements between rich and poor Americans increased by more than 20 percentage points since 2009.

These changes in attitudes over a relatively short period of time may reflect the income and wealth inequality message conveyed by Occupy Wall Street protesters across the country in late 2011 that led to a spike in media attention to the topic. But the changes also may also reflect a growing public awareness of underlying shifts in the distribution of wealth in American society.2 According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data, the proportion of overall wealth—a measure that includes home equity, stocks and bonds and the value of jewelry, furniture and other possessions—held by the top 10% of the population increased from 49% in 2005 to 56% in 2009.

Perceptions of the Wealthy
While the survey results show a significant shift in public perceptions of class conflict in American life, they do not necessarily signal an increase in grievances toward the wealthy. It is possible that individuals who see more conflict between the classes think that anger toward the rich is misdirected. Nor do these data suggest growing support for government measures to reduce income inequality.

In fact, other questions in the survey show that some key attitudes toward the wealthy have remained largely unchanged. For example, there has been no change in views about whether the rich became wealthy through personal effort or because they were fortunate enough to be from wealthy families or have the right connections.

A 46% plurality believes that most rich people “are wealthy mainly because they know the right people or were born into wealthy families.” But nearly as many have a more favorable view of the rich: 43% say wealthy people became rich “mainly because of their own hard work, ambition or education,” largely unchanged from a Pew survey in 2008.

About the Survey
This report is based on findings from a Pew Research Center telephone survey conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2,048 adults ages 18 and older living in the continental United States, including an oversample of 808 adults ages 18 to 34. A total of 769 interviews were completed with respondents contacted by landline telephone and 1,279 with those contacted on their cellular phone. The data are weighted to produce a final sample that is representative of the general population of adults in the continental United States. Survey interviews were conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International, in English and Spanish.

• Interviews conducted December 6-19, 2011
• 2,048 interviews
• Margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points for results based on the total sample and 4.4 percentage points for adults ages 18 to 34 at the 95% confidence level.

Moreover, a recent Gallup survey found that a smaller share of the public believes that income inequality is a problem “that needs to be fixed” today than held that view in 1998 (45% vs. 52%). And when asked to rate the importance of various alternative federal policies, fewer than half (46%) say “reduc[ing] the income and wealth gap between the rich and the poor” is “extremely” or “very” important. In contrast, more than eight-in-ten (82%) say policies that encourage economic growth should be high priorities.

Social Conflict in American Life
About two-thirds of the public say there are strong conflicts between the rich and the poor, and nearly half of these (30%) say these conflicts are “very strong.” An additional 36% say these differences are “strong,” while 23% view them as “not very strong.” Only 7% say there are no conflicts between rich and poor Americans, while the remainder does not offer an opinion.

Three other historic social divisions are viewed as less pervasive or contentious. About six-in-ten (62%) say there are strong conflicts between immigrants and the native born, including 24% who characterize these disagreements as “very strong.”

That represents a major change from the Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2009. At that time, a larger share of Americans believed that there were more strong conflicts between immigrants and the native born than between rich and poor people (55% vs. 47%). Today, even though perceptions of disagreements between immigrants and the native born have increased by 7 percentage points in the past two years, this social divide now ranks behind rich-poor conflicts in the public’s hierarchy of social flashpoints.

Two other social divides are viewed as less pervasive or intense. Fewer than four-in-ten (38%) say there are serious conflicts between blacks and whites, including 10% who see these conflicts as being “very strong.” About a third say there are similar disagreements between the young and old (34%, a 9-point increase since 2009).

Income and Perceptions of Class Conflict
The perception that strong and growing conflicts exist between the economic classes is broadly held. Not only do those at the bottom rungs of the income scale agree that there are serious disagreements between the economic classes, but even those who are relatively well-off hold that belief.

Nearly two-thirds (64%) of all adults with family incomes of less than $20,000 a year report serious conflicts between the rich and poor—a view shared by 67% of those earning $75,000 a year or more.

Moreover, the perceptions of class conflicts have grown in virtual lock step across all income groups since 2009, rising by 17 percentage points among those earning less than $20,000 and by 18 points among those making $75,000 or more.

The increase is slightly larger among middle-income Americans earning between $40,000 and $75,000. Among this group, the share who say there are strong class conflicts increased by 24 points, from 47% in 2009 to 71% in the latest survey.

Other Demographic Differences
Young people ages 18 to 34—the demographic group most closely associated with the Occupy movement—is more likely than those 35 or older to see “strong” conflicts between the rich and poor. According to the survey, more than seven-in-ten (71%) of these young adults say there are major disagreements between the most and least affluent, a 17 percentage point increase since 2o09.

Baby Boomers ages 50 to 64—the mothers and fathers of the Occupy generation—are nearly as likely to say there are serious conflicts between the upper and lower classes; fully two-thirds (67%) say this, a 22-point increase in the past two years. Among those ages 35 to 49, more than six-in-ten (64%) see serious class conflicts.

While older adults are the least likely to see serious disagreements between the classes, the proportion who express this view increased from 36% two years ago to 55% in the current survey.

Women are more likely than men to say there are serious disagreements between the rich and poor (71% vs. 60%). In 2009, about half of all women (51%) and 43% of men said there was strong conflict between the classes.

Perceptions of Class Conflict Surge among Whites
In the past two years, the proportion of whites who say there are strong conflicts between the rich and the poor has grown by 22 percentage points to 65%. That is more than triple the increase among blacks or Hispanics. The result is that the “perceptions gap” between blacks and whites on class conflict has been cut in half, while among Hispanics the difference has disappeared and may have reversed.

In the latest survey, the difference in the share of blacks and whites who say there are strong conflicts between rich and poor stands at 9 percentage points (74% for blacks vs. 65% for whites). In 2009 the black-white divide on this question stood at 23 percentage points (66% vs. 43%).

Among Hispanics, the gap has closed and may have reversed: In 20o9, the share of Hispanics who said there were serious conflicts between the economic classes was 12 points larger than the share of whites (55% vs. 43%). Today, the proportion of whites who say there are serious
disagreements is 4 percentage points greater than the share of Hispanics who hold the same view (65% for whites vs. 61% for Hispanics), though this difference is not statistically significant.

The Politics of Class Conflict
Democrats and political liberals are far more likely than Republicans or conservatives to say there are major conflicts between rich people and poor people.

At the same time, in just two years the perceptions of class conflict have increased significantly among members of both political parties as well as among self-described independents, conservatives, liberals and moderates.

The result is that majorities of each political party and ideological point of view now agree that serious disputes exist between Americans on the top and bottom of the income ladder.

Nearly three-quarters of self-described Democrats (73%) say there are serious class conflicts, an 18 percentage point increase over those who said that in 2009. The increase among Republicans was about as large (17 percentage points); currently a majority of GOP partisans see serious conflicts between rich and poor.

Views of class conflicts increased the most among political independents, swelling by 23 percentage points to 68% in the current survey. Two years ago, fewer than half of all independents said there were major disagreements between the classes.

Similarly, perceptions of class conflict among ideological liberals increased by 23 percentage points to 79% in the past two years while rising less quickly among conservatives (15 points) or moderates (18 points).

How the Rich Got Wealthy
Americans divide nearly evenly when they are asked if the rich became wealthy mostly due to their own hard work or mainly because they were born into a wealthy family or had connections.

A narrow plurality (46%) believes the rich are wealthy because they were born into money or “know the right people.” But nearly as many (43%) say the rich got that way because of their own “hard work, ambition or education.”

The latest result is virtually identical to the findings of a 2008 Pew survey. It found that 46% of the public believed that riches are mostly the result of having the right connections or being born into the right family, while 42% say hard work and individual characteristics are the main reason the rich are wealthy.3

These competing explanations of wealth are cited by roughly equal shares of all income groups. According to the latest Pew survey, 46% of those with family incomes of less than $20,000 a year believe that luck and connections explain most wealth, a view shared by 47% of those with family incomes of $100,000 or more.

In contrast, attitudes of Republicans and Democrats on this issue are mirror opposites of each other. Nearly six-in-ten Democrats (58%) say wealth is mainly due to family money or knowing the right people. An identical proportion of Republicans say wealth is mainly a consequence of hard work, ambition or having the necessary education to get ahead. Political independents fall in between: slightly less than half (45%) credit personal effort, while an equal share believe family circumstances or connections is the most likely explanation.

African Americans (54%) are more likely than non-Hispanic whites (44%) to see wealth as a consequence of family money or connections, a view shared by 51% of Hispanics. Women in the survey are slightly more likely than men to say wealth is the result of family or connections but these differences are not statistically significant.

Young people are significantly more likely than older adults to believe most wealth is due to family money or connections (51% for those ages 18-34 but 37% for adults 65 or older). However, the views of the “younger young”—those 18 to 25—differ significantly from those who are just a few years older.

According to the survey, less than half (47%) of those 18 to 25 say the rich are wealthy because of reasons other than personal effort or drive, or about equal to the proportion of those 35 or older who share this view. In contrast, a majority (55%) of those 26 to 34 say being born into a wealthy family or personal connections are the main reasons that people are rich.

Views on Wealth, Class Conflict
Attitudes toward the wealthy—specifically, how the rich got that way—are somewhat correlated with views on class conflict.

According to the survey, those who believe the rich acquired their fortunes mainly through their own efforts are significantly less likely than those who hold the contrary view to say there are strong conflicts between the classes (60% vs. 72%).

A Peach of a Home

2012-01-10T11:36:00.000-08:00

Last night indulging in my guilty pleasure the Real Housewives of Atlanta one of the "stars" expressed confusion at what it meant to be "green" when at fundraiser where the issue of Sustainability was being discussed.

Watching many of the "housewives" building/moving into their less than green dream homes it brings to mind how far the green build movement has not come. At times you are seeing heartland projects that are large commitments - such as my personal favorite, Greensburg; other times its mentioned in passing as novelty projects that are not for a wider scale appeal.

You learn by doing and mostly exposing those around you to the advantages of green. Seeing that it is both affordable and not just resigned to modern style of home is essential to further the aspirations and ambitions of what it means to be green.

On that note today I was sent a project that makes it a perfect peach of a home in the Peachtree state. Elegant design, approachable, modern but still embracing traditional elements the home reflects a worthy entry in the green build community.

Athens, GA (January 2012) – Athens, Georgia has its first LEED-certified home that is setting a new standard for modern green home designs in the traditional, Southern college town. The U.S. Green Building Council awarded its highest designation – Platinum – to the custom-built home owned and designed by Lori Bork Newcomer, principal of Bork Architectural Design, Inc.

The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building standard is quickly becoming the norm for new and renovated public buildings across the U.S., as commercial and government building owners recognize green designs are more marketable and result in happier and healthier occupants. Newcomer’s project is significant in that it is among the first to bring the same high level of environmentally responsible design to the residential scale. Her home is only the seventh in the state to receive LEED Platinum certification.

Newcomer already is known for some of Athens’ most distinctive modern home designs, with the kind of clean lines and gracious living spaces regularly featured in publications like Dwell or Atomic Ranch. For her own home, she wanted to incorporate that contemporary appeal but remain sensitive to the architectural context of her historic, in-town neighborhood. To do this, she designed a deceptively compact front façade for the 2,632-square-foot home, blending strong horizontal and vertical modern lines with the traditional gabled form and large front porch indicative of the neighborhood’s cottages.

The side elevation reveals shotgun-style length – another Southern tradition that also allows natural passive ventilation. Tennessee fieldstone, stucco and white clapboard siding echo the native and traditional materials used in many of Athens’ oldest homes. “As much as I love modern aesthetics, we didn’t want to build something alien to the neighborhood,” says Newcomer. “So I borrowed signature characteristics of the cottage vernacular to envelope a contemporary living space that fits our lifestyle.”

Inside, the sculptural vault of the glass-clad front gable provides natural light to the open floor plan’s kitchen, living, and dining areas. Newcomer’s architectural studio is located at the back of the house, below a traditional sleeping porch connected to the master bedroom. Locally-sourced reclaimed heart pine floors and salvaged wood from an old shed on the lot further connect the house to the local site and culture. Large windows provide natural lighting as well as passive-solar heating in winter months.

The ingenuity with which she references the traditional craftsmanship of the early 20th Century while designing for the needs of today earned Newcomer the 2011 award for Outstanding New Construction in a Historical Neighborhood from the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation.

Responding to rising energy costs is one of the growing concerns of 21st Century homeowners, and it’s why green homes like Newcomer’s are beginning to draw more attention industry-wide. Thanks to air tightness, superior insulation, reflective roofing, Energy Star windows, solar hot water and a host of other energy-efficient features, Newcomer and her husband’s utility bills are roughly the same as they were in a previous house that was a third the size of their new home.

Energy efficiency is just one of the benefits of Newcomer’s green home. Low-flow fixtures conserve water inside the house, and a 1,100-gallon cistern captures rainwater for irrigation outside. With drought-tolerant landscaping, Newcomer’s yard looked vibrant even through the worst of Georgia’s drought in the summer of 2011. Interior finishes, adhesives and cabinetry all have low or zero VOCs (volatile organic compounds), meaning healthier air for Newcomer’s young family.

“The advantage of LEED for Homes over other energy savings centered programs, like Energy Star, is that it looks at green building from a more holistic viewpoint: tackling not only energy reduction, but also responsible site selection, water conservation and the reduction of construction waste while also promoting recycled materials and healthy indoor air quality,” says Leesa Carter, Executive Director of the U.S. Green Building Council - Georgia. “A Platinum-certified home like Newcomer’s represents the pinnacle of what is possible with green-building practices.”

Other energy-saving and environmentally friendly elements included in Newcomer’s LEED platinum home design include:

EPA-certified low-emissions wood burning stove
Mineral paints by San Marco, USA on interior walls
Polished concrete floors with 20 percent fly ash (recycled waste from coal-fired power plants)
Recycled FLOR carpet tiles by Interface
Formaldehyde-free EccoDoors with 100 percent recycled content
Cellulose and ecobatt recycled wall insulation
High-efficiency heat pump with an ERV (energy recovery ventilator)
Infrastructure for future solar power installation
Spray-foam icynene insulation in the roofline
LED and CFL light bulbs in more than 50 percent of light fixtures
Pervious paving systems

Although the perception is that a green home of this caliber comes at a cost premium, Newcomer says people are shocked to learn the home only cost around $125 per square foot. In some parts of the country standard home construction costs far eclipse that amount, which is one reason Newcomer suspects the housing industry will emerge from its current slump with greener practices in the Southeast. Newcomer notes that while initial construction costs are higher for some green elements such as windows, insulation and heating-cooling systems, savings in monthly utility bills offset the slight increase in monthly mortgage payments.

Newcomer’s designs for two EarthCraft-certified homes built by the nonprofit Athens Land Trust (ALT) in 2010 further dispel the stigma of a “green premium.” Those homes incorporated clerestory windows to allow for natural lighting, sustainable hardwood floors, Energy Star appliances, low-VOC paints, and numerous other features for less than $100 per square foot. However the most remarkable thing about the ALT houses is the open, expansive feel that Newcomer was able to achieve with a minimal footprint.

“We couldn’t have built the same quality of home if we had used an off-the-shelf green home design,” says ALT Director of Operations Heather Benham. “So much of what makes a house livable and efficient is designing it for the site, and that's why it's so valuable to work with someone like Lori."

See how Newcomer’s green home designs progressed on Facebook, or watch a video slideshow.

About Bork Architectural Design, Inc.

Founded in 2005, Bork Architectural Design (www.BorkArch.com) creates regional-based designs in response to site, climate conditions, historical context, and local materials for both residential and small-scale commercial projects. Principal Lori Bork Newcomer received her professional degree in Architecture from Rice University before going to work for world-renowned architect and former Yale Architecture School Dean, Cesar Pelli, in New Haven, CT. Newcomer was made an Associate of the firm at the young age of 25. In addition to having worked on professional baseball stadiums, skyscrapers, and academic campuses, she was one of the senior designers and Project Manager on the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Orange County, CA. Lori teaches studio courses in Interior Design at The University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art and is a founding member of the Athens branch of the US Green Building Council.

Contact:
Lori Bork Newcomer
(706) 355-3010
lori@borkarch.com
www.BorkArch.com

Garden Sweet

2012-01-10T08:38:00.001-08:00

A Garden Home – The Modern, Spacious & Affordable 21st Century solution to the ‘Granny Annexe’

The site - the rear of a detached home in Kent, England, offers a unique contemporary living space for a couple who required additional room for elderly loved ones. The 2 bedroom home provides 98 sq/m of independent living space for the elderly parents and offers a solution for bringing the family together whilst providing the necessary separate living spaces.

The architectural focus of this build is a practical, modern and relaxing space in an open-plan layout that offers great value for money.

The front of the house and to the left is an open plan kitchen/diner supplied by in.it.joinery; leaving the client with the option to dine inside during the cold winter months, and outside for a quintessentially British cream tea on the spacious ‘Accoya’ fitted decking area during the summer time. The large expanse of opening bi-folding doors on the front elevation allows the large living area and kitchen to be part of the garden space.
At the rear of the property are two great size bedrooms with built-in wardrobes and sitting between the two bedrooms is an attractive shared bathroom that is not only in keeping with rest of the house décor, but is fitted with timeless fixtures giving the bathroom suite that matching contemporary design.

Other modern features include spot lighting which features throughout this self contained home, a sky lit hallway and large floor to ceiling windows,

The exterior offers a superb environmental eco design; where the sustainable architecture is achieved without compromising the aesthetics or increased costs. The building is cladded in Canadian Western Red Cedar, which unlike other timbers has better durability and lifespan than most due to the natural oils in its make-up. This helps to preserve the material when exposed to the outdoor environment and has a minimum lifespan of 60 years.
Furthermore, the cedar used by in.it.studios comes from sustainably sourced forest certified through both PEFC and FSC schemes. The unique living sedum roof effortlessly ties in with its surrounding environment. This durable living organism requires zero maintenance whilst providing a much improved aesthetic in comparison to most typical roofs. Not only does this build offer a great eco design and layout, it lives up to its environmentally friendly features as in.it.studios has managed to not only achieve U-value guidelines set by British Building Regulations , but exceed them by a considerable amount; providing their clients with a well insulated home; and thus saving money on their energy bills.

The experienced team at in.it.studios completed the build of the home in an impressive 8 weeks, with no compromise on quality or finishes. Operating in an efficient manner that saves their clients’ both time and money is what makes in.it.studios so unique to the market. Unlike a traditional build there are no additional architectural costs and fees as all the work is done in house and within our turnkey service; making the approach towards building a new home or granny annexe one of the most competitive in the market.

These Boots Are Made For Winning

2012-01-10T08:02:00.001-08:00

WorkBoots.com Launches Wolverine Boot Giveaway

WorkBoots.com is hosting a giveaway to gear up one worker with work boots for the New Year. The online retailer is teaming up with Wolverine to give away a pair of premium, handcrafted Northman boots ($333).

Wolverine pays homage to its more than 125-year history with this made-in-the-USA work boot. From their Michigan-based factory, the craftsmen combine the finest Horween leather, Gore-Tex waterproof lining, Vibram outsoles and Thinsulate insulation with traditional, time-tested methods to create the Northman. These Goodyear Welt constructed Wolverine boots are available in brown or black with an optional steel toe.

There’s no hard work involved when earning a chance to win these boots. To enter, just visit Work Boots News and answer the question, "Where do you wear your work boots?" The randomly selected winner will receive a pair of the high-quality, durable Northman boots.

All contestants must be 18 years or older and live in the United States. Comments must be approved, so they might not appear immediately. The final day to enter is January 20, 2012, and the winner will be announced January 23.

When the Earth Meets the Sky

2012-01-09T12:53:00.000-08:00

Looking through the Builder Online I found perhaps one of the most striking green roof projects. The careful mimcry and unique design allows for the home to blend into the nature that which surrounds the home.

It is an excellent illustration and application of green roofing on a residential project but it is not one easily replicated however and that should be duly noted - not all projects of this kind are but they are still essential to push the boundries of creative design.

Grass Ceiling
Planted roofs help two cottages fit snugly into their unspoiled surroundings.
By: Claire Easley

When the owners of an existing home on this stunning hillside site decided to build a couple of additional outbuildings—one to be used as a yoga studio and another as an artists’ workspace—one thing was already abundantly clear: There was no point in trying to compete with the pristine landscape. Instead, the ingenious little structures simply nestled right into it.

The designs mimic the forest, with upright wood siding echoing the surrounding redwood and pine tree trunks, topped by planted roofs that evoke the forest canopy. And thanks to the site’s steep slope, which mandates a verticality for the buildings, the structures’ shape adds to the illusion.

Bringing the rooftop gardens to life required both structural support and attention to waterproofing and drainage, says Jonathan Feldman, the project’s architect. “You have to build it so that when the soil is fully saturated with rain, the building can support that weight.”

And because the project’s site sits in “earthquake country,” he says, structural support meant both larger columns and more shear walls.

While the soil and plants help to protect the roof against damage from the sun’s rays, they also come with problems all their own, such as concerns regarding moisture and roots. To meet the challenge, a waterproof membrane was applied to the underlying roof structure. Above that, the soil is held on top of a layer of drainage fabric with a cavity underneath to allow excess water to escape. At its borders, the roof is fitted with a layer of river rock on all sides to whisk water away.

Details
Project Mill Valley Cabins, Mill Valley, Calif.
Architect Feldman Architecture, San Francisco, Calif.
Green roof and landscape design Jori Hook Landscape Architecture, San Francisco, Calif.
Builder JP Builders, Oakland, Calif.

Saving

2012-01-09T11:21:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the post from Sylvester Campbell

I just moved to New York City. I got a great internship at Conde Naste and I am hoping that one day soon it will turn into a higher paying job. I have a great little apartment with my college roommate. She is going to the Parsons Fashion School ( yes the one on Project Runway), but studying fashion marketing. She isn’t a designer, although I wish that she were! We are good roommates and are good at stretching our dollars in our living situation.

We logged onto www.newyorkenergyrates.com and got a great energy rate. We also decided not to get cable, but share a Netflix and Blockbuster account. We hook up our macbooks to the television and can watch movies. If there is ever something on television that we want to watch, it usually ends up being on the internet so we can stream it. We also don’t have a house phone. If you are going to live in New York, you have to be creative about saving money, that’s for sure!

Obama Orders

2012-01-09T08:51:00.000-08:00

In light of the current debate over why the DoD is opting out of LEED Gold/Platinum credential there is no less of a commitment from the Obama Administration to retain a strong Green philosophy. This cannot be overlooked given the tatting nature of our current Congress and as a result is large ineffectiveness when it comes to actually accomplishing any policy what-so-ever.

The most recent Executive Order
From the President

Army Sustainability Stats. Released in late December, the third annual sustainability report from the U.S. Army details progress in implementing Executive Order 13514. The report addresses the Army's four core enterprises: human capital; training and operations; material and acquisitions; and services and infrastructure.

According to Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment Katherine Hammack, the report serves as a road map to relate ongoing and new sustainability efforts. To accelerate progress, the Army's senior leadership initiated a comprehensive sustainability campaign to institutionalize sustainability throughout the Army.

Each section of the report addresses topics of note, reports on EO 13514, DoD and Army sustainability metrics and highlights successes. The successes—which span the sustainability spectrum from reduced accidents to increased recycling, quality of life improvements, and increased cooperation with communities—include:

17.2% reduction in accidental military fatalities
12.6 % decrease in civilian lost time and fatal claims during fiscal 2009
42.9% increase in installations with formal sustainability plans (from 21 to 30) year over year, 2008-2009
28.4% reduction in hazard waste disposal year over year, 2008-2009
58% increase in recycling of solid waste and construction waste, year over year, 2008-2009
42.3% reduction in environmental enforcement actions, year over year, 2008-2009
25.3% increase in buffer partnerships, adding 120,657 acres

"Our plan is to appropriately manage our natural resources with a goal of net zero...,"

As you can see that molehill meet mountain when it comes to our DoD and commitment to Sustainability. Being green is a much bigger than a building's LEED points its an overall program and plan to use less, waste less and rely less on non-renewable's. No points should be necessary to achieve this goal.

Damned if You Do and if you Don't

2012-01-06T12:32:00.000-08:00

Its been a rollicking week of highs and lows when it comes to the current state of our economy - first with the release of a Pew Study showing that social and economic mobility is near to impossible in the United States and increasing numbers of families falling into poverty with the good news that job creation is up as is manufacturing.

The Horatio Alger myth/legend/story is one we all Americans hear from birth. It fuels the up from the bootstraps, I came from a home where we wore duct tape for shoes to the belief that you can arrive in America and through simple elbow grease become a raging success.

Its a myth and a dream for a reason - its simply not a fact. There are and always will be tales of those who made it from a dream or idea but those individuals were and will always also be few and far between.

The Pew Study found that income mobility is very much a fact of birth. Where and more importantly to whom you were born to will have great affect on your lifetime earnings and place in society.

Link this to a very fluid if not confusing level of what defines poor, middle class and rich you can see why many Americans are not quite sure where they stand in regards to their true level in Society. A recent Gothamist article found a site where many rich participants seemed very distressed at their current lot in life - not only disturbing but a clear example of how truly disconnected people are to those who are not as fortunate. The myth that only if "you work hard" is clearly not the case nor even true as the article from the New York Times (reprinted below) illustrates.

The economic in balance in this country comes at a time when also more of the small percentage who do manage to attain a degree find themselves equally in financial/employment dilemmas. The Washington Post has an article showing that of all fields suffering for new degrees - Architecture is the highest. (It also explains why I was so upset with the blog that had working Architects mock their clients - it really showed another type of disconnect for their peers as well)

What made social and economic mobility possible was a diverse economy that inspired innovation and creativity as well as options for those who wanted to work in the trades versus those who opted for more creative and varied pursuits. To think now that all innovation is simply relegated to the sciences and engineering you wonder what kind of economy, and more importantly, kind of society, that this will generate.

Harder for Americans to Rise From Lower Rungs
By JASON DePARLE
Published: January 4, 2012

WASHINGTON — Benjamin Franklin did it. Henry Ford did it. And American life is built on the faith that others can do it, too: rise from humble origins to economic heights.

But many researchers have reached a conclusion that turns conventional wisdom on its head: Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe. The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles, but a sour season of mass unemployment and street protests has moved the discussion toward center stage.

Former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a Republican candidate for president, warned this fall that movement “up into the middle income is actually greater, the mobility in Europe, than it is in America.” National Review, a conservative thought leader, wrote that “most Western European and English-speaking nations have higher rates of mobility.” Even Representative Paul D. Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who argues that overall mobility remains high, recently wrote that “mobility from the very bottom up” is “where the United States lags behind.”

Liberal commentators have long emphasized class, but the attention on the right is largely new.

“It’s becoming conventional wisdom that the U.S. does not have as much mobility as most other advanced countries,” said Isabel V. Sawhill, an economist at the Brookings Institution. “I don’t think you’ll find too many people who will argue with that.”

One reason for the mobility gap may be the depth of American poverty, which leaves poor children starting especially far behind. Another may be the unusually large premiums that American employers pay for college degrees. Since children generally follow their parents’ educational trajectory, that premium increases the importance of family background and stymies people with less schooling.

At least five large studies in recent years have found the United States to be less mobile than comparable nations. A project led by Markus Jantti, an economist at a Swedish university, found that 42 percent of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes stay there as adults. That shows a level of persistent disadvantage much higher than in Denmark (25 percent) and Britain (30 percent) — a country famous for its class constraints.

Meanwhile, just 8 percent of American men at the bottom rose to the top fifth. That compares with 12 percent of the British and 14 percent of the Danes.

Despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, about 62 percent of Americans (male and female) raised in the top fifth of incomes stay in the top two-fifths, according to research by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Similarly, 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths.

By emphasizing the influence of family background, the studies not only challenge American identity but speak to the debate about inequality. While liberals often complain that the United States has unusually large income gaps, many conservatives have argued that the system is fair because mobility is especially high, too: everyone can climb the ladder. Now the evidence suggests that America is not only less equal, but also less mobile.

John Bridgeland, a former aide to President George W. Bush who helped start Opportunity Nation, an effort to seek policy solutions, said he was “shocked” by the international comparisons. “Republicans will not feel compelled to talk about income inequality,” Mr. Bridgeland said. “But they will feel a need to talk about a lack of mobility — a lack of access to the American Dream.”

While Europe differs from the United States in culture and demographics, a more telling comparison may be with Canada, a neighbor with significant ethnic diversity. Miles Corak, an economist at the University of Ottawa, found that just 16 percent of Canadian men raised in the bottom tenth of incomes stayed there as adults, compared with 22 percent of Americans. Similarly, 26 percent of American men raised at the top tenth stayed there, but just 18 percent of Canadians.

“Family background plays more of a role in the U.S. than in most comparable countries,” Professor Corak said in an interview.

Skeptics caution that the studies measure “relative mobility” — how likely children are to move from their parents’ place in the income distribution. That is different from asking whether they have more money. Most Americans have higher incomes than their parents because the country has grown richer.

Some conservatives say this measure, called absolute mobility, is a better gauge of opportunity. A Pew study found that 81 percent of Americans have higher incomes than their parents (after accounting for family size). There is no comparable data on other countries.

Since they require two generations of data, the studies also omit immigrants, whose upward movement has long been considered an American strength. “If America is so poor in economic mobility, maybe someone should tell all these people who still want to come to the U.S.,” said Stuart M. Butler, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

The income compression in rival countries may also make them seem more mobile. Reihan Salam, a writer for The Daily and National Review Online, has calculated that a Danish family can move from the 10th percentile to the 90th percentile with $45,000 of additional earnings, while an American family would need an additional $93,000.

Even by measures of relative mobility, Middle America remains fluid. About 36 percent of Americans raised in the middle fifth move up as adults, while 23 percent stay on the same rung and 41 percent move down, according to Pew research. The “stickiness” appears at the top and bottom, as affluent families transmit their advantages and poor families stay trapped.

While Americans have boasted of casting off class since Poor Richard’s Almanac, until recently there has been little data.

Pioneering work in the early 1980s by Gary S. Becker, a Nobel laureate in economics, found only a mild relationship between fathers’ earnings and those of their sons. But when better data became available a decade later, another prominent economist, Gary Solon, found the bond twice as strong. Most researchers now estimate the “elasticity” of father-son earnings at 0.5, which means if one man earns $100,000 more than another, his sons would earn $50,000 more on average than the sons of the poorer man.

In 2006 Professor Corak reviewed more than 50 studies of nine countries. He ranked Canada, Norway, Finland and Denmark as the most mobile, with the United States and Britain roughly tied at the other extreme. Sweden, Germany, and France were scattered across the middle.

The causes of America’s mobility problem are a topic of dispute — starting with the debates over poverty. The United States maintains a thinner safety net than other rich countries, leaving more children vulnerable to debilitating hardships.

Poor Americans are also more likely than foreign peers to grow up with single mothers. That places them at an elevated risk of experiencing poverty and related problems, a point frequently made by Mr. Santorum, who surged into contention in the Iowa caucuses. The United States also has uniquely high incarceration rates, and a longer history of racial stratification than its peers.

“The bottom fifth in the U.S. looks very different from the bottom fifth in other countries,” said Scott Winship, a researcher at the Brookings Institution, who wrote the article for National Review. “Poor Americans have to work their way up from a lower floor.”

A second distinguishing American trait is the pay tilt toward educated workers. While in theory that could help poor children rise — good learners can become high earners — more often it favors the children of the educated and affluent, who have access to better schools and arrive in them more prepared to learn.

“Upper-income families can invest more in their children’s education and they may have a better understanding of what it takes to get a good education,” said Eric Wanner, president of the Russell Sage Foundation, which gives grants to social scientists.

The United States is also less unionized than many of its peers, which may lower wages among the least skilled, and has public health problems, like obesity and diabetes, which can limit education and employment.

Perhaps another brake on American mobility is the sheer magnitude of the gaps between rich and the rest — the theme of the Occupy Wall Street protests, which emphasize the power of the privileged to protect their interests. Countries with less equality generally have less mobility.

Mr. Salam recently wrote that relative mobility “is overrated as a social policy goal” compared with raising incomes across the board. Parents naturally try to help their children, and a completely mobile society would mean complete insecurity: anyone could tumble any time.

But he finds the stagnation at the bottom alarming and warns that it will worsen. Most of the studies end with people born before 1970, while wage gaps, single motherhood and incarceration increased later. Until more recent data arrives, he said, “we don’t know the half of it.”

Get Organized

2012-01-04T08:35:00.000-08:00

As a part of your New Year's resolutions many are about getting organized, Arrow Spacemaker offers a variety of cabinets. storage sheds, carports and patio covers that you can purchase in a variety cost-saving combinations that are right for your needs, space and budget.

Spacemaker offers Garage Cabinets that are easily adaptable and attractive which can match the needs of your home or office.

Arrow offers preconfigured value packages to make your selection easier or the option to plan your own, as well as accessories needed to organize your storage needs.

Visit Arrow Spacemaker Storage Cabinets
for a wide selection of storage needs for both indoor or out. Arrow Spacemaker has many Steel Storage Cabinets, as well as helpful FAQs, tips and animated assembly advice.

***this blog entry was sponsored by Arrow Spacemaker***

Green Roads

2012-01-03T12:39:00.000-08:00

I received an email today about building better roads and in turn building sustainability via energy efficiency in fuel use.

Given the timing and the nature of our current Congress and the debate about job creation and infrastructure the timing could not be better.

I will not reprint the article, Green Technology Road Improvements, here; however feel free to read it at your leisure as I feel they make excellent points regarding ways that energy consumption must be reduced from more than one level the user.

As the authors maintain...

Road systems may be one of the largest, most immediate and least expensive sources of untapped energy savings available. Improved roads can provide significant reductions in fuel consumption at no additional cost to road users and with no changes required as far as driving habits or type of vehicle used. At the same time, road owners can construct more fuel-efficient pavement systems and stabilized running surfaces at lower cost than conventionally designed roads through innovative, sustainable product technology.

We have already made great headway in realizing that the type of concrete one uses has immense effects on water savings and in turn green house gas emissions... why not realize that efficiency is not just the role of the automobile.

Congress Kills LEED

2012-01-03T09:28:00.000-08:00

In our contentious Congress and our especially anti regulation, anti environmental House of Representatives a recent Amendment was passed in the House to refuse LEED Gold or Platinum certification of any Governmental building.

Treehugger was in arms about this current turn of events, however I want to point out one of a few things:

1. It was singularly passed in the House, not the Senate nor signed into Law by the President. This was a House Amendment that joins the current legion of position bills that include defunding Planned Parenthood, NPR and re-defining Rape; In other words all politics all the time.

2. The Amendment said GOLD and PLATINUM only not just basic certification or Silver which are perfectly fine reasonable benchmarks if LEED is to be attained at all.

3. The Amendment seems to be focused on DoD buildings which are now requiring an energy analysis regarding performance as a part of certification.

Green Building Law asks relevant questions on what the larger impact regarding green building on the long term will be but if you look further down the blog trail he discusses USGBC's own internal politicking and conflict of interest in their lobbying efforts.

Just like anything one understands is that Lobbying is the largest influence regarding policy decisions, be it green or otherwise. The House currently passed another Amendment to rescind the energy savings bill that required energy saving light bulbs as the mandate. So if anything this is just another "get Obama" and gnaw away at the current efforts by the EPA to actually enforce and regulate the environmental laws passed decades ago to preserve our environment

Frankly I have never been a proponent of Certifications that go beyond the basic necessity of a buildings performance and function and one could point out that higher levels of LEED certifications do not necessarily lend to a buildings superiority in that area. As a taxpayer who funds these projects the Department of Defense should and must sacrifice a few points to make a building "LEED" vs further cuts to social service programs that are increasingly serving more as our economy falters.

Mr. Alter, whom I respect, did not respond to my tweet to him asking him why sacrificing LEED is so distressing when its not a total abandonment of Green build? And frankly I find it odd that given he is Canadian his country is not suffering economically nor have had a overwhelming amount of budget dedicated to "defense" so it seems to be a false alarm ringing. And ironic that Canada just opted out of Kyoto protocol upon the eve of building the XL Pipeline - a by far more detrimental affect on the environment than the lack of a Gold LEED star for a building.

We are a nation and globe undergoing massive changes in budgets, policies and philosophies and frankly forgoing the attainment of higher LEED certifications is a perfectly acceptable cut as long as the overall ambitions of green build are not.

Nurse Wanted

2011-12-28T12:42:00.000-08:00

Are you a Licensed RN or Nurse with specialized training and have a desire to find interesting employment across the United States? Then TravelNursing.orgmight be for you. They offer an exciting career option enabling licensed traveling nurses to travel the country with the opportunity to both travel while doing what you love and are trained for.

Thanks to an ongoing demand for qualified Nurses everywhere traveling nurses can find themselves in highly compensated positions often living arrangements provided by the employer, and bonuses and insurance benefits.

If you would like more information on what exactly is a Travel Nurse or what is required to become one, feel free to check out their website and learn more about what it means to do this fascinating and very needed work.

Contest Giveaway - UPDATE

2011-12-20T08:08:00.000-08:00

PartSelect.com is giving away $5,000 worth
of new GE Appliances to one lucky blogger!

That’s $5,000 you can slice and dice anyway you want*.

Pick your color. Pick your style. Pick a new fridge and stove, or new washer
and dryer set. You win, you choose.

Share your DIY story by adding this tag to your post: This is an entry for PartSelect’s $5000 GE Giveaway contest

To enter, simply choose one of our official blogging topics below, write a
post** and send it to contests@partselect.com. It’s that easy!

Official Blogging Topics:

Tell us about your worst DIY disaster!
(Not all DIY’s end with a smile! Share your best ‘oops!’ moments.)
Tell us about your proudest creation or empowering DIY moment!
(Ever tackled a tough project that left you jumping for joy?)
Tell us your best “If my appliance could talk” story!
(If your washer could talk, what dirt would it have on you?)
What is the coolest way you problem solved a home-related conundrum?
(Got a great ‘cheat’ for solving life’s little problems?)
What is the coolest thing you upcycled or repurposed in your home?
(Show us how you turned ‘trash’ into treasures!)

* Some restrictions apply.

** Check out the Entry terms for full contest details.

I just heard today that the deadline has been extended.. per emailll

Over the past few weeks we have received a lot of feedback from people who wanted to enter but just couldn’t find the time during such a busy season. It was our hope with this contest to gather as many inspiring stories as possible, so in the interest of including everyone who would like to share their DIY experiences we have decided to extend the deadline to midnight, January 31, 2012.

Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten how much time each of you put into getting your entry in by December 30th. As a token of our appreciation we’re doubling your chances to win by entering each of your names into the contest twice!

If you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to let us know by emailing contests@partselect.com. We’ll be announcing the winner within seven days of January 31, so keep your eyes peeled on your inbox, Twitter and Facebook for the official announcement

No You Didn't!

2011-12-19T11:13:00.000-08:00

I read a lot of Architecture Blogs, Magazines and articles by Architects. I appreciate good design and more importantly the shared collegial exchange by Architects who are excited by building science as a part of their work.

I appreciate anyone in any field who is passionate about their work, open to collaboration, learning and advancing the field for positive change - whatever field that is.

I follow the boys at Build.blog because in addition to Architecture they are passionate about travel and design and frequently share those passions to their readers. But every now and then I get a blog that is an eye-roller and reminds me why I frequently call Architects the Divas of the building trades. And this recent entry on "What Not to Say to an Architect" was one such entry.

Frankly it comes across as whiny, arrogant, narcissistic and silly. I don't think anyone in any field from Medicine to Building can avoid any of the scenarios of encountering others who in an attempt to connect or to gauge a conversation with someone who inadvertently says something that skirts on silly to outright seeking free advice.

If the idea was to mock the "Architects" that are thinking those responses or the "silly" comments others say - it fails. What it does is insult people be it laypeople or their colleagues and potential clients. Isn't everyone a potential client or colleague at some point? Any opportunity to engage and educate should be viewed as that - an opportunity to learn and to teach.

When I read a blog telling me "silly things" I should not say to anyone in a trade is the ultimate in hubris (and ironic that its also their Christmas blog). Perhaps that blog should be called "things that you shouldn't blog about". It reminds me of the recent open letter to Obama by a wealthy 1%, Leon Cooperman, who is upset with the rhetoric directed to his and his kind. It came across equally vacuous, arrogant and judgmental.

When your blog is your professional voice it is a challenge to write solely on on topic and to stay safely neutral and apolitical. And as I have transitioned my blog to reflect some of the larger issues that interest me, I know that I have strong opinions and political beliefs that often put me at odds with my prospective clients/colleagues. But, why we may disagree on those issues, I would never denigrate or demean anyone whose thoughts on any subject are different than mine. Often out of disagreement comes enlightenment and I am always open to be enlightened.

Boys of Build, your blog was a miss this time. No confusion on what I am thinking, the amounts of comments to your blog showed that to many "didn't get it" and those who expressed as such were rudely and summarily dismissed in the same "snark" that some think pass for both wit and intelligence (neither IMO) and that may be the point.

When your blog is your public face some things for your private one are better left off the mark or off the blog.

Sustainable Holidays

2011-12-19T09:10:00.001-08:00

This Christmas I am advocating the "Buy Nothing" this season. In a time of such economic upheaval it seems that while we want to do more to build the economy we are also doing more to simply support an economic platform that is not sustainable.

From the trade in balance with China to high levels of personal debt its a good idea to ask yourself what you really want, really need and can really do without.

With 1 out of 2 Americans at risk of being pushed into poverty and surveys saying 5 out of 6 Americans think they are "doing well" the math simply doesn't add up or the fact that "doing well" is a relative term with little substantive meaning.

Much like the poverty standard in this country set across the board and across the country at $22K for a family of four, a family of four living in Iowa vs California would find themselves quickly homeless on such a low standard of living.

Much like housing we have different needs for different "climates" be they weather or economic.

So what about "buy nothing" does it mean? Well if you want to buy something think about where it was made, the cost, the value, its long term payback period. Apply the same standards for investments in one's home as you would in determining gifts.

Recycle, Upcycle and yes Re-Gift. I am having a Eco gift exchange with an emphasis on household items. Everyone must bring things from their home for the home that they no longer need, use or want. They must be clean, functioning and useful. I need a new mixing bowl and I have a fondue set I no longer use or want. Sounds reasonable? There have been many such clothing exchanges in the past but many of us have more than what we need in our home - from bread makers to dinnerware there are many redundant, duplicate and ignored items filling our pantries and homes. Anything left from the party that goes unclaimed is to be donated to charity. Its a win-win.

If you buy electronics include rechargeable batteries to make less waste. And more importantly buy recycled electronics. They are as good if not better than new. Check out your local 3R Technology firm or similar in your area for great deals.

Use a living tree. Plant a tree in a Terra cotta pot and bring that indoors and later you can always donate it to the local parks or to groups looking to build parks and gardens.
Wrap in what you have. Use newspapers or brown paper sacks you can decorate and design yourself.

Spend time not money. That is the most valuable useful sustainable gift you can give to others.

Upcycle This!

2011-12-16T13:30:00.000-08:00

Upcycling is taking something that exists and turning into something else entirely.

We all have done some upcycling in our lives.. from the coffee mug pencil holder to the arts and crafts projects in school turning objects into art or vice versa. The most ambitious and familiar of upcycling is quilting. Taking extra fabric and creating an expression of individuality and practicality and usefulness. The ultimate in sustainability.

Certainly we have seen the log stools or the newspaper stools or pillows (I have one) but here is one I was greatly impressed with was the egg carton stools.

Below is an article from the New York Times Home section documenting one individuals project that became something both useful, practical and yes visually stimulating.

What You Make of It
Turning Egg Cartons Into Stools

By ANDREW WAGNER
Published: December 14, 2011

MY history of trash collecting goes way back. Long before I was the director of Krrb (a kinder, friendlier, hyper-local version of Craigslist) or the editor of ReadyMade (the magazine, now defunct, that billed itself as the bible of reuse for Generations X, Y and Z), I was a skateboarding teenager in California trolling the Central Valley suburbs for building materials for ramps. Even now, living in Manhattan, I keep my eyes open for anything tossed to the curb that might be turned into something beautiful or useful.

Not long ago, I was making my way home from work in Chinatown when I saw something that made me stop short: 100 egg cartons (or egg trays, I later learned) stacked neatly on the curb outside a Chinese restaurant, in preparation for recycling.

The industrial-size cardboard trays had been used to transport 36 eggs apiece from the farm, but lying there nested together, bound with a red plastic bow, they suddenly took on the appearance of an interesting-looking bar or dining stool. Or the makings of one, anyway.

My first prototype was simple: I applied white spray paint to the trays, cutting four small squares (spray-painted black) and affixing them to the bottom as legs, and securing the stack with colorful old luggage straps to add aesthetic interest and structural integrity.

The result wasn’t bad: the cardboard had a nice amount of give when I sat on it, and the nesting trays provided plenty of support. I began to envision a set of six.

But first I needed more trays — at least 500 more. A few weeks of haunting the curbs outside Chinese restaurants, however, yielded only five. Approaching the owners of restaurants and asking them to hold their empty egg trays for me produced only 10 more. I began to wonder if I had just been lucky the first time around. Did it take months for restaurants to use that many eggs? Was another urban scavenger getting there first?

I decided to try one more time, in a more targeted way: specifically, on a Friday night — because that’s paper-recycling time in Lower Manhattan — and on East Broadway between Bowery and Houston, the center of the city’s Chinese bakeries. In less than an hour, my wife, Heather, and I collected nearly 400. The following week yielded at least 100 more, enough to begin my project.

To turn 600 egg trays into great-looking dining stools, I enlisted the help of Jen Turner, an architect and designer in Manhattan who worked with the architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien for years, and knows how to turn raw material into something stunning. We decided to make three sets of two, to demonstrate various possibilities.

For our first set, we went with a colorful, loud 1980s style, christening the stools Madonna and Michael (although I argued for Cyndi and George). This was the simplest set. To make them dining height (17 to 19 inches), rather than bar stool height, we stacked 60 trays for each stool. Then we spray-painted them light green and pink, and wrapped them in Day-Glo pink-and-green rubber tubing we had picked up at Canal Rubber.

For the next set, we wanted a nautical-outdoorsy vibe. Before they were even finished, we decided to call them Scout and Skipper. The construction, again, was simple: 60 trays each, spray-painted army green and various shades of blue, and held together with burlap strips and sisal rope. The most trying part was attaching the natty snaps to Scout’s burlap straps and tying the sailing-inspired square-reef knots on Skipper.

We took a more refined approach with the final set, using felt cord from McMaster-Carr (mcmaster.com) for the straps and leaving the trays unpainted. These two we called Marcel and Eileen, after Marcel Breuer and Eileen Gray.

As projects go, this one took a certain amount of thought and experimentation — far more than my first prototype. But it was an adventure all the way around, from collecting the material to designing and building the stools. And it was reassuring to know that if we didn’t like the final product, we could neatly stack the trays, wrap a red ribbon around them and set them out for recycling. After all, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

Passive No More

2011-12-13T09:14:00.000-08:00

Ijust found this article in EcoHome about Passive House's new alliance with RESNET which should resolve some of the more challenging aspects to the program - primarily the variations in climate within in the United States that requires some variations in what seems to very strident (and often arbitrary) metrics.

This is also I think more in line with NetZero Design which focuses on performance vs extrisincs that have little to do with actual function and purpose - energy savings.

New Certification Will Help Bring Passive House to the Mainstream
Passive House Institute teams with RESNET to offer energy-based rating.By: Jennifer Goodman

A new certification focused on the energy usage of U.S. Passive House projects will also help raise public awareness of the benefits of the stringent building system.

The new PHIUS+ certification system combines elements of the Passive House standard and the HERS index energy-efficiency rating. The Illinois-based Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS) recently partnered with RESNET to offer the enhanced certification.

By translating Passive House efficiencies into existing U.S. metrics such as the HERS rating, the organization hopes to make the European building system more accessible and understandable to mainstream consumers, says Mike Knezovich, PHIUS communications director.

The industry-recognized HERS rating can help projects qualify for financial incentives more than a Passive House certification alone can, he says. For example, utility companies and local and federal government agencies offer incentives, rebates, and grants for energy-efficient construction that are often tied to a home’s HERS rating. Buildings that meet the Passive House standard can have HERS ratings in the single digits, Knezovich says.

The enhanced certification also is expected to help Passive House buyers more easily qualify for higher appraisals and energy-efficient mortgage loans. “It’s making Passive Houses more marketable and more sellable,” Knezovich says. The new standard also will help to make Passive House buildings more compatible with other green building programs that use the HERS index.

“By harmonizing our standards with RESNET—one of the most respected standards organizations in the country—we expect Passive House to vault into the mainstream, where it belongs,” says Katrin Klingenberg, PHIUS executive director.

The announcement of the new certification follows a recent rift between the Germany-based Passive House Institute and PHIUS, which ended their relationship in August. Knezovich says part of the fallout was because the European group took issue with the idea of partnering with RESNET and other U.S. building industry organizations. Some hard-core Passive House enthusiasts voiced concern that pushing the movement to the mainstream might take away its cachet.

“This was a thing they were completely against, but we saw it as a necessary step in this market and this culture,” he says. “We are going from appealing only to early adopters to bringing this to the mass market, and a whole lot of people want that to happen.”

In addition to holding multiple sessions to train RESNET raters in its new certification, the U.S. organization is also working on initiatives with other groups, including the USGBC and the Earth Advantage Institute, Knezovich says.

“The bottom line on all this is to get Passive House away from a cult-like thing that cannot be touched,” he says. “Let’s really show how it’s something people can do right now to save energy.”

in.it for Guests

2011-12-13T08:26:00.000-08:00

in.it.studios does perfection but this is one project that may make your Guests never leave..

Another project complete, another success story to tell..

In the beautiful location of Oxford, one of our clients required a garden room with a fitted kitchen and bathroom; accompanied with a large decking area. This particular garden studio is perfect for two main purposes:

• All year round Guest House
• A relaxing space during the summer; perfect for hosting barbeques and a spot of ‘Al Fresco Dining’

Tailor made to the clients individual needs, the in.it.studios team worked on the architectural and joinery aspects of the build, completing the project with both the clients requirements coupled with our unique design and expertise.

An important aspect for this build was to ensure the garden room blended effortlessly with its environment and context. The undulating levels of the garden presented a design challenge which was overcome through the implementation of landscaped features to break the hard lines between the studio and garden. With the picturesque garden overlooking the Thames River, it was important for the studio to be placed strategically to make the most of the scenic views it was surrounded by. Both the joinery and architectural team worked hand in hand, ensuring the design and layout would be of a high standard matching its beautiful surroundings.

With plenty of natural light entering through the studio via glazed bi-folding doors, the wood finish on the interior and exterior and a living sedum roof are all touches that provide an environmental building. With additional features such as external spot lighting underneath the canopy, help to create a perfect mellow ambience during the night time; giving the guest house a warm and relaxing sensation. All our garden rooms are fitted with a white glass panel heater and retaining with thick insulated walls, ensuring the outdoor building is nice and toasty during those cold winter months and enabling it to be used all year round.

This particular studio has been designed with multiple functions in mind; as previously outlined it is perfect for hosting dinner parties for family and friends, or as a private retreat to enjoy a nice glass of wine whilst watching the sun set.

The Little Green Schoolhouse

2011-12-12T13:24:00.000-08:00

I want to introduce a new blog to the roll The Green Schoolhouse Series.

I have recently written for them as many others are in the Sustainable community. Their focus:

The Green Schoolhouse Series is a unique collaboration bringing together corporations, foundations, school districts, communities, media outlets, and volunteers to build high-performance, environmentally-sustainable, LEED-Platinum designed Green Schoolhouses at Title I, low-income, public schools

And as many may or may not know I am currently working a Substitute Teacher in the Public Schools myself. I had left teaching years ago but due to the economy I have come back working as a Substitute and am a great supporter in keeping Education Sustainable by keeping it a PUBLIC enterprise. Education doesn't need "reform" it needs support. Something only needs reforming if its broken. Education isn't broken its been neglected. A very different principle must be applied. Banks need reform, Schools don't.

Feel free to peruse their site or read my post on Green Envy.

The Cost of Living

2011-12-12T11:52:00.000-08:00

A recent study came out from the Urban Institute showing the most expensive cities in which to live with the minimum income needed to live there.. and no shock its the same as it has been for decades - Wash DC, San Francisco, New York. To rent a safe, clean, two bedroom home the income to debt ratio shows that the average income must be $60K or greater in most of those cities - an income most associated with technology professionals solely thereby leaving out many in well not so well paid careers.

The long term affects of this is not only are people having to live further away from work, share housing, and live in less secure areas all things that do little to build diverse and financially viable cities.

I am seeing that Seattle which has the double privilege of not only being a tech city pushing housing prices higher it is also a major University city which also contributes to increasing the costs of living.

You would think having a higher income city with expensive housing would be a benefit but in fact its a detriment. Another study by two Brown University Economists found that without diversity of all kinds cities actually decline economically.

The report from the Atlantic.wire is below...

"Cultural Diversity, Geographical Isolation and the Origin of the Wealth of Nations," recently released as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, charts the role of geographic isolation, proximity and cultural diversity on economic development from pre-industrial times to the modern era.

It finds that "the interplay between cultural assimilation and cultural diffusion have played a significant role in giving rise to differential patterns of economic development across the globe." To put it in plain English: diversity spurs economic development and homogeneity slows it down.

Ashraf and Galor examine the "Great Divergence" in economic development. During the Industrial Revolution, Europe and the New World developed a rate of economic development that far outpaced the rest of the world. "The gap in per capita GDP between the richest regions of the world and the poorest increased from a modest 3 to 1 ratio in 1820," they note, "to an astounding 18 to 1 ratio in 2000."

Many of the most important economists, sociologists, geographers and other social scientists have grappled with the factors that shaped this great leap in economic development. Max Weber famously attributed this divergence to the "Protestant ethic," which emphasized thrift and hard work, propelling entrepreneurship and productivity improvements. Other classic studies attributed the West’s rise to distinctive cultural norms and values which favor individual effort, freedom and the spirit of enterprise.

Still others suggest that its institutions hold the key. In their classic The Rise of the Western World, Douglas North and Robert Thomas argued that the institutions that arose under the aegis of democratic capitalism, turning as they did on respect for individual property rights, enhanced the rate of technological innovation and economic development. Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel put geography front and center, attributing the West’s economic vibrancy to the serendipitous advantages of easy access to raw materials, abundant rainfall, temperate climate and lower disease burden.

Ashraf and Galor acknowledge these factors but argue that what really propelled Europe and the New World's economic ascendance was their relative openness to other cultures, which they measure in terms of greater or lesser geographical isolation. To get at this they develop a "Geographical Isolation Index," based on the travel time to 139 Old World capital cities. They use this measure to gauge two things. The first is the effect of geographic isolation on cultural diversity. The second looks at the effects of geographic isolation on the level of economic development from the 19th century until 1960.

Their findings overwhelmingly suggest that cultural diversity and geographic openness matter significantly to economic development across the board. They draw three major conclusions:

First, geographic isolation served a positive role in pre-industrial times (aka the agricultural stage of development). But it turns substantially negative as industrialization kicks in. "Societies that were geographically less vulnerable to cultural diffusion benefited from enhanced assimilation, lower cultural diversity, and more intense accumulation of society-specific human capital, which permitted them to flourish in the technological paradigm that characterized the agricultural stage of development," they write. "However, the lack of cultural diffusion and its manifestation in cultural homogeneity and rigidity diminished the ability of these societies to adapt to a new technological paradigm, thereby delaying the onset of their industrialization and, thus, their take-off to a state of sustained economic growth."

Second, societies that were geographically isolated all the way back in pre-industrial times continue to be less culturally diverse today.
Third and most significantly, they found that cultural diversity has a positive impact on economic development in the process of industrialization, from its inception through modern times.

All of this is in line with what has been deemed "class warfare" or what the Occupy Wall Street protesters illustrate with their cry for the 99%.

Its not homogeneity that makes a city succeed just like one that is for the 1%, that bubble like existence will its bane of existence. And just like the rural towns of yesteryear and the decline of the major industrial cities, America's major urban cities will suffer the same fate - dissolution and disruption.

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Affordable Meds

2011-12-08T13:37:00.000-08:00

***this blog is brought to you by your friends and Canada Drug Center**

The cost of pharmaceutical drugs are rising at the same time record numbers of uninsured is also rising.

Ways to circumvent the costs is by looking how you fulfill your prescription requirements. One way is though using Canadian pharmacies online.

Canada Drug Center is one such source the offer you the highest quality brand name and generic medications at the most affordable prices. All medications are shipped to you in its original manufacturer packaging and meet all applicable regulatory requirements.

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If you are looking for low prices, toll free support and fast shipping check out CanadaDrugCenter.com

No Scrubs!

2011-12-06T15:35:00.001-08:00

Attention all Nurses. Are you looking for a source for scrubs?

Go to: http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/categories/Scrubs/Scrubs-for-Women/

Whether you work in Doctor, Dentist, Veterinarian or health clinic you know the value of having affordable scrubs. Or maybe you plan on playing nurse this Halloween and need your costume now. This is the site for cheap scrubs for men, women and kids too!

Blue Sky Scrubs has nursing uniforms, scrub tops or pants. Whatever you are looking for in colors or prints - Blue Sky Scrubs can make you look like Nurse Jackie or Marcus Welby - yes they even have lab coats!

Blue Sky prides itself on being fashionable and affordable. They have a sale page as well as an accessory one to make you stand out without breaking the bank.

Tips to Save Energy

2011-12-06T11:31:00.000-08:00

With a larger portion of renters now there is always a concern on how to save/reduce energy costs - affordably and easily.

In many cases asking the landlord is the best advice but often I find in these cases its best to ask forgiveness than permission. Doing it yourself and paying for it yourself is much easier than waiting for a landlord to do it and ultimately raise rents for "improvements". As I pay all utilities anything I do to save money is something I have a vested interest in and would rather pay for directly. In the long run all receipts and expenses should be maintained for warranty purposes and later upon leaving to document improvements made that lend to the overall value of the property - especially when seeking a damage deposit return.

Again, this is in the cases where major structural issues are not being done but simple caulking, repairs and changes to the overall energy performance of a home.

If you are looking for ways to DIY most energy improvements check Energy.gov for excellent tips and ideas.

And to further winterize homes, especially ones with low performance windows, is to build your own storm windows.

Making a storm window

Use standard 1×2-inch lumber to make the rectangular framing for the storm windows. Any type of wood will work fine. Redwood or cedar is rot-resistant and can be stained for a very attractive appearance, but at a higher cost. Pressure-treated lumber holds up well in wet areas, but it does not accept paint well.

Use a miter block to make 45-degree angles. This makes a more professional-looking frame corner joint than just a butt joint. Size the frame slightly smaller than the outdoor window opening to allow room for foam weatherstripping. The compression of the foam will hold the storm window in place.

Use clear acrylic plastic (Plexiglas) for the glazing. Any thickness you find at your home center will work. The efficiency comes from the dead air space, not the plastic or glass itself. If you want something tougher for first-floor windows, use more expensive polycarbonate (bulletproof glass).

If you have a router, make a slot along the inner edge of the frame sides to hold the acrylic sheet. The acrylic sheet will have to be cut slightly larger than the inside of the frame. If you do not have a router, nail some narrow wood stops on each side of the edge to form a slot.

A still easier method is to use a bead of clear silicone caulk to hold the acrylic pane in the frame. In this case, the frame is assembled and painted first. Use a staple gun to staple the frame corners together. Also use a strong glue, such as Gorilla Glue, in all the frame corner joints.

Place the storm window in the opening and note the clearance around it. Buy adhesive-backed foam weatherstripping that is thicker than the gap. Peel off the backing and stick it to the frame. Force the frame into the window opening

Started My Business

2011-12-06T10:53:00.000-08:00

Guest post written by my buddy Aldo Mays

When I first started my business I was only 16. I didn’t need things like business cards or t1 service, I just went around the neighborhood knocking on doors to see who needed their yard mowed.

I think it was that salesmanship that’s really shaped the way I do business today and I’m really proud of where this little company of mine has come. I mean, things are much different for us now than they’ve ever been and I’m finally making enough money that my wife can stay home and raise our boys while I work which is what both of us have always wanted.

There’s something to be said for finding ways to make the best of your situation and I feel like that’s just what I’ve done. I never had a bad hand but I’ve really gone all out to make sure things are as good as they could be and you know, that’s the way it should be. I don’t know why more people don’t open their own businesses!

Blackdog Deals

2011-12-01T08:48:00.000-08:00

We are delighted to announce Black Dog’s 40% CHRISTMAS OFFER on a selection of our bestselling Gardening & Environmental books!

The books featured this year include the best-selling Kids in the Wild Garden and Kids in the Garden; accessible gardening guides for children packed with fun, quirky projects and vibrant illustrations, and the hugely popular Recycle: The Essential Guide, a basic introduction to the how’s, what’s, when’s and where’s of recycling. Perfect gift ideas for friends and family, there is something for everyone!

To take advantage of the 40% discount, simply email jess@blackdogonline.com with the book(s) of interest and your delivery address and she will place the order for you.

Who Are the 1% and Who are the 99%

2011-11-25T10:55:00.000-08:00

I have been very concerned of the rising tide of two kinds of unemployment: The college kids and the middle aged boomer. Two groups seemingly book ended on a dead end for financial security.

While one group is starting out with immense debts already acquired, the other is trying to maintain a lifestyle no longer affordable or attainable. Each see each others as enemies and rivals for the few jobs and wages available.

I have written about the group I call the Shadow People - those too young for Social Security/Medicare but too old to be desirable in the marketplace. This is due to a series of reasons I call "the over/under" phenomena - "over" experienced and too old to be "under" paid - people who still have "overwhelming" and immense skills, talents, and resources but cannot afford to work for subsistence "under" wages. In a country where most of the wealthiest are all over 50 its ironic to think that over 45 you somehow you become stagnant and useless, well unless you are wealthy then be 80 and people call you an "oracle".

I was listening to a interesting Australian Economist, Steve Keen, discuss the problems in our current economy on BBC America and he has some interesting real truths about our current global realities regarding this collapse. And one is simply we are heading to a long term decade or longer Depression if we don't start reducing debt - both on a micro and macro level. And we hear a lot "of eat our "peas" and "tighten belt" talks but in reality comparing the two types of economies is always challenging. But how Mr. Keen proposes this debt reduction is by a simple "write off" of debt on a massive level; this move would require the banks to take the loss. And across the board you can see in the US and Europe that has been the last tool in the equation. Everyone must suffer for the banks fraud, duplicity in greed, so much for "everyone"

We are facing massive crisis in hope, future of the economy globally and yet the arguments still seem about "austerity" but the only one's feeling that are the 99%.

Simple facts about wage inequality are this.. (as taken from Paul Krugman's column in the NY Times)

According to that report, between 1979 and 2005 the inflation-adjusted, after-tax income of Americans in the middle of the income distribution rose 21 percent. The equivalent number for the richest 0.1 percent rose 400 percent.

For the most part, these huge gains reflected a dramatic rise in the super-elite’s share of pretax income. But there were also large tax cuts favoring the wealthy. In particular, taxes on capital gains are much lower than they were in 1979 — and the richest one-thousandth of Americans account for half of all income from capital gains. (not from inventing or creating jobs or "working harder" all myths perpetuated to build a class warfare that is INTRA not INTER - more confusions such as comparing micro to macro economics)

For who are the 0.1 percent? Very few of them are Steve Jobs-type innovators; most of them are corporate bigwigs and financial wheeler-dealers. One recent analysis found that 43 percent of the super-elite are executives at nonfinancial companies, 18 percent are in finance and another 12 percent are lawyers or in real estate. And these are not, to put it mildly, professions in which there is a clear relationship between someone’s income and his economic contribution.

Executive pay, which has skyrocketed over the past generation, is famously set by boards of directors appointed by the very people whose pay they determine; poorly performing C.E.O.’s still get lavish paychecks, and even failed and fired executives often receive millions as they go out the door.

The reality is that this current model of economics is not sustainable. While Capitalism is certainly demonstrated success its not working any longer and its time for a change. Perhaps we are leaving the Guilded Age to the Age of Equity.

To understand the long term affects and results another editorial in the NY Times clarifies what long term unemployment and income inequity results.

The Age of the Superfluous Worker
By HERBERT J. GANS
Published: November 24, 2011

AMERICA, like other modern countries, has always had some surplus workers — people ready to work but jobless for extended periods because the “job creators,” private and public, have been unable or unwilling to create sufficient jobs. When the number of surplus workers rose sharply, the country also had ways of reducing it.

However, the current jobless recovery, and the concurrent failure to create enough new jobs, is breeding a new and growing surplus pool. And some in this pool are in danger of becoming superfluous, likely never to work again.

The currently jobless and the so-called discouraged workers, who have given up looking for work, total about 15 percent of the work force, not including the invisible discouraged workers the government cannot even find to count.

In the old days — before Social Security, welfare and Medicaid — poverty-caused illnesses killed off or incapacitated some of the people who could not find jobs. Even earlier, some nations sold their surplus workers as slaves, while the European countries could send them to the colonies.

In addition, wars were once labor-intensive enterprises that absorbed the surplus temporarily, and sufficient numbers of those serving in the infantry and on warships were killed or seriously enough injured so that they could not add to the peacetime labor surplus.

The old ways of reducing surplus labor are, however, disappearing. Decades of medical and public health advances, as well as Medicare and Medicaid, have reduced the number of poverty-related deaths. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have left many more service members injured than killed.

Over the past quarter-century, one very costly way of decreasing the surplus has been the imprisonment of people, mostly dark-skinned men, for actual and invented offenses. Felons are not often hired when they leave prison. Many, at least those who do not become recidivists, become surplus and then superfluous labor. As incarceration becomes less affordable for financially strapped states, inmates will reach surplus or superfluous status at a younger age.

Meanwhile, new ways of increasing surplus labor have appeared. One is the continued outsourcing of jobs to low-wage countries; the other is the continuing computerization and mechanization of manufacturing and of services not requiring hands-on human contact. Continuing increases in worker productivity add yet more to the surplus. So does the unwillingness of employers to even consider hiring people who have been unemployed for a long time.

When the jobless recovery ends and the economy is restored to good health, today’s surplus will be reduced. New technology and the products and services that accompany it will create new jobs. But unless the economy itself changes, eventually many of these innovations may be turned over to machines or the jobs may be sent to lower-wage economies.

In fact, if modern capitalism continues to eliminate as many jobs as it creates — or more jobs than it creates — future recoveries will not only add to the amount of surplus labor but will turn a growing proportion of workers into superfluous ones.

What could be done to prevent such a future? America will have to finally get serious about preserving and creating jobs — and on a larger, and more lasting, scale than Roosevelt’s New Deal. Private enterprise and government will have to think in terms of industrial policy, and one that emphasizes labor-intensive economic growth and innovation. Reducing class sizes in all public schools to 15 or fewer would require a great many new teachers even as it would raise the quality of education.

In the long run, reducing working time — perhaps to as low as 30 hours a week, with the lost income made up by unemployment compensation — would lead to a modest increase in jobs, through work sharing. New taxes on income and wealth are unavoidable, as are special taxes on the capital-intensive part of the economy. Policies that are now seemingly utopian will have to be tried as well, and today’s polarized and increasingly corporate-run democracy will have to be turned into a truly representative one.

Whatever the costs, they would be a small price to preserve America as a healthy society. A society that has permanently expelled a significant proportion of its members from the work force would soon deteriorate into an unbelievably angry country, with intense and continuing conflict between the have-jobs and have-nones. America could become a very sick society, just when it needed to be stronger than ever to flourish in the global economy.

Pool Time

2011-11-19T15:15:00.000-08:00

Well its the end of summer and its a great time to switch from the outdoor pool to the indoor one.

If you are looking for family fun that is affordable then try home games that can build skill while having fun doing so. Is your game of choice Bumper Pool, Air Hockey, Foosball or Shuffleboard Table Game?

I find the holidays are a best time to purchase a larger table game as they make great features in those remodeled basement family rooms. If you are thinking about your office or community center and want to find a way to build a team there is no better way than over a game of Air Hockey or Shuffleboard.

Table games are great for larger more diverse groups who would like to play sports together in a way that is both fun and easy for all ages and genders.

The way to build relationships and team skills can result from participating in something as easy as a challenging Foosball game. As I frequently say that community is essential in building sustainability.

So when thinking of what to get the family for Christmas think about a Game Table for your family room.

Have a little Eco Chi

2011-11-15T13:14:00.000-08:00

No its not the latest drink offering from Starbucks its a new way of examining the well established principles of Feng Shui with Sustainability in design.

I cannot think of a better merger of ideas as the concepts of Feng Shui and Green Design as they are so mutually inclusive its a wonder it took so long for someone to do as such.

Well better late than never; Debra Denelier has devised the principles of what she calls, "Eco Chi", in her new book - Eco Chi - Designing for the Human Experience. Using the principles of Feng Shui and sustainable living practices that encourage healthy living and positive environmental psychology, Debra has devised a simple integrated approach to changing the way you live in relation to your space.

Feng Shui had been a popular concept in the late 1990s and I too was very encouraged to remodel a property incorporating some of its most easiest attainable options. Many of those ideas today - from plants, to water to light are certainly ones you see in relation to current green build designs. Incorporating these principles in her book, Debra has devised a simple strategy on you and your home can find Yin and Yang and in turn find yourself feeling healthier, happier and more in tune with your surroundings.

Debra has done an excellent job in this simple guide on how you can find Eco Chi in your life. Using personal experiences and success stories you can see how many of her suggestions are ones very similar to the Green Build/Design movement and her approaches are both affordable and easily approachable for any layman interested in a crash course of the ancient art of Feng Shui.

Eco Chi is available at ....

Let the Blogger Beware

2011-11-08T08:36:00.000-08:00

I have been reading of late of numerous threats or litigation towards bloggers or trades people who on their websites or blogs mention problems with certain products or even use photos with logos or trademarks.

As a blogger who frequently touts issues relating to the good, the bad, the ugly and the great with regards to Sustainability - predominately build related - I tread a fine line to recommend one product or concept vs another. Which on most cases centers on the absurd "verifications" of all kinds and types of buildings.

My issue is that one is NOT better, superior or worse than the other - it is the simple fact that they are mutually inclusive not exclusive when it comes down to the basic of building science and frankly charging people money to put stars or what have you on them doesn't fundamentally change the fact: If a building is built smart well designed with ultimate energy conservation and consumption in mind adding more bells and whistles doesn't make it greener it just makes it with more stuff. Fundamentally a green building is one that uses less resources and is made with less resources with a long lifespan of performance and function. The End.

Having bamboo floors, high end quartz counter tops and the like are all lipstick, frosting or superfluous extrinsic factors that lend to a building's overall shade of green but it ultimately does not make it "greener." That comes fundamentally from its design and construction.

So when I read about two lawsuits regarding one site that mentioned a specific company/brand by name saying its a poor performer and another where the discussion was about performance overall over materials - not by name but by concept - however it used a photo with a brand clearly illustrated, you wonder what the purpose of the suit was?

Well we are all entitled to an opinion. And the fact is the web allows for a myriad of such often without substantive documentation or even identification. There are so many ways now to manage and of course subvert messages. You can use this power for good to inform and advise and in some cases to destroy and malign professional reputations and businesses with no more agenda than a personal one.

I try to stay away from the product recommendations overall although frankly its also how I support myself but I disclose those as sponsored posts. I do recommend on time to time my own personal likes and dislikes but I steer clear of trashing one product over another. I can only say that this was my experience overall and as anyone knows when it comes to products we find results that work for us.

I share this link with this article I found on GBA today (I normally do not link to them as they are very proprietary to their material but I am hoping they respect that this is to aid people from similar situations) and another on Builders Counsel Blogdiscussing two very different cases regarding the same issues however.

Blogger beware. The photos used, such as the ones I often use, can also be a problem Many of them are trademarked or copyrighted and must be used with permission. While I find no problems with many of the news articles I cite and I try to find generic Google photos from free sites its a difficult line to know until well that letter arrives from an Attorney demanding a removal. As I said I try to reprint all articles I cite as sources from magazines, papers and journals that I PAY AND SUBSCRIBE to; I don't reprint from those I do not. And I link back to the source. All of these things are done with acknowledgement that the web has made "borrowing" material considerably easier. As I certainly can attest the Huffington Post certainly has done that better than most. With 90% of its content often taken from other major magazines and newspapers without remission - so if they can do it - why can't anyone else?

Free speech, the right to access information, the right to reprint it if you have subsequently paid for it are all significant issues. And the blog-o-sphere struggles with it like any other industry.

Green Comes at a Cost

2011-11-07T10:20:00.000-08:00

When I started the remodeling company the biggest focus was on "affordability" of going green.

As I evolved the business to educate and consult with others I have never lost that message that green is affordable and approachable for those with any budget and a project of any size. The idea being that green is easier the smaller the budget and scope vs the larger ones. There is just an antithesis in the notion that you must "build it green."

At first I was very keen to believe that endorsing, certifying and registering a project was essential to legitimizing the project's intent. I respectively took every course, class and quiz that gave me Energy Star, LEED, NAHB, Green Advantage and my local Built Green verifier's qualifications. Then I began to realize the costs. For my liability insurance, my level of risk and the absolute lack of financial incentives by any of the organizations providing certifications that would enable me to value one over the other.

And of course they simply can't. They all have the same fundamental principals involved, the same goals, perscriptives and ideas each with their own unique approaches that allow a building to be certified green.

In turn I would also have to raise my fees, get undoubtedly more equipment and the time involved for me alone to do most of them would require a herculean effort on my part thereby negating the whole "affordability" concept.

So I discontinued maintain the verifier requirement by all of them (more time away working on studying to test one program over another) and spending more time simply studying building science, issues on sustainability and keeping my fees and costs down.

I find that yes even the 99% are looking for ways to go green. In Seattle its a mantra and I find myself edged out of a marketplace saturated with green at all levels. So where does one go to find green?

Today this article in the NY Times discusses that for cities who have the mandate they also don't have the budget. And of course the 99% go without the basic necessities that make communities green - public transport, clean air and water and affordable housing.

When one looks at a plan for LEED for Communities these are all over the "certifications" but how to pay for them in communities torn by the mortgage meltdown and subsequent economic crisis are not not mentioned. Just as the fact that we will have an excessive housing surplus in the years ahead with the slow down of immigration, births and families co-habituating (or living in parks occupying if you will). I brought this up at the Department of Energy conference in Denver and I have yet to hear back from the presenter with those statistics. I don't expect to either.

A couple of years ago at a Building Science workshop, John Staube thought we would need a million or so homes year to meet demand. I demurred, but its hard to debate someone so knowledgeable about building, but about census and migration patterns I wondered. He is also Canadian, lives there, and how much did he or even I know at the time where we were heading regarding this matter?

Its clear my deepest doubts and fears are reality. We have a decimated industry and homes literally rotting empty or un-maintained due to owner neglect thanks to underwater mortgages and financial constraints.

The article below is about the cost and dark side of going green in one of America's most underwater (irony perhaps) cities - Phoenix, Arizona.

To go green costs money. We get that and the payback can be time consuming. Yet even today we are finding that Solar is starting to get cheaper (thanks again to the Chinese - a trade off that cost Solyndra however) and in turn the need is never greater.

The wealthiest people in this Country - the 1% - most are from the Energy fields. All of them carefully against "climate change" and the idea of a green economy. Not unlike their brothers in the Automotive trade who resisted the notion of sustainable vehicles, these dinosaurs are waiting to either let fossil fuels die first or they themselves to die before moving into a sustainable course. This is one course doomed for failure and at what costs?

The challenge Phoenix faces is no different than what Detroit, Cleveland or any other major city in financial free fall faces. But there is one hope the potential for those "green jobs" everyone was talking about.

The Dark Side of the ‘Green’ City
By ANDREW ROSS
Published: November 6, 2011

The struggle to slow global warming will be won or lost in cities, which emit 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases. So “greening” the city is all the rage now. But if policy makers end up focusing only on those who can afford the low-carbon technologies associated with the new environmental conscientiousness, the movement for sustainability may end up exacerbating climate change rather than ameliorating it.

While cities like Portland, Seattle and San Francisco are lauded for sustainability, the challenges faced by Phoenix, a poster child of Sunbelt sprawl, are more typical and more revealing. In 2009, Mayor Phil Gordon announced plans to make Phoenix the “greenest city” in the United States. Eyebrows were raised, and rightly so. According to the state’s leading climatologist, central Arizona is in the “bull’s eye” of climate change, warming up and drying out faster than any other region in the Northern Hemisphere. The Southwest has been on a drought watch 12 years and counting, despite outsized runoff last winter to the upper Colorado River, a major water supply for the subdivisions of the Valley of the Sun.

Across that valley lies 1,000 square miles of low-density tract housing, where few signs of greening are evident. That’s no surprise, given the economic free fall of a region that had been wholly dependent on the homebuilding industry. Property values in parts of metro Phoenix have dropped by 80 percent, and some neighborhoods are close to being declared “beyond recovery.”

In the Arizona Legislature, talk of global warming is verboten and Republican lawmakers can be heard arguing for the positive qualities of greenhouse gases. Most politicians are still praying for another housing boom on the urban fringe; they have no Plan B, least of all a low-carbon one. Mr. Gordon, a Democrat who took office in 2004, has risen to the challenge. But the vast inequalities of the metro area could blunt the impact of his sustainability plans.

Those looking for ecotopia can find pockets of it in the prosperous upland enclaves of Scottsdale, Paradise Valley and North Phoenix. Hybrid vehicles, LEED-certified custom homes with solar roofs and xeriscaped yards, which do not require irrigation, are popular here, and voter support for the preservation of open space runs high. By contrast, South Phoenix is home to 40 percent of the city’s hazardous industrial emissions and America’s dirtiest ZIP code, while the inner-ring Phoenix suburbs, as a legacy of cold-war era industries, suffer from some of the worst groundwater contamination in the nation.

Whereas uptown populations are increasingly sequestered in green showpiece zones, residents in low-lying areas who cannot afford the low-carbon lifestyle are struggling to breathe fresh air or are even trapped in cancer clusters. You can find this pattern in many American cities. The problem is that the carbon savings to be gotten out of this upscale demographic — which represents one in five American adults and is known as Lohas, an acronym for “lifestyles of health and sustainability” — can’t outweigh the commercial neglect of the other 80 percent. If we are to moderate climate change, the green wave has to lift all vessels.

Solar chargers and energy-efficient appliances are fine, but unless technological fixes take into account the needs of low-income residents, they will end up as lifestyle add-ons for the affluent. Phoenix’s fledgling light-rail system should be expanded to serve more diverse neighborhoods, and green jobs should be created in the central city, not the sprawling suburbs. Arizona has some of the best solar exposure in the world, but it allows monopolistic utilities to impose a regressive surcharge on all customers to subsidize roof-panel installation by the well-heeled ones. Instead of green modifications to master-planned communities at the urban fringe, there should be concerted “infill” investment in central city areas now dotted with vacant lots.

In a desert metropolis, the choice between hoarding and sharing has consequences for all residents. Their predecessors — the Hohokam people, irrigation farmers who subsisted for over a thousand years around a vast canal network in the Phoenix Basin — faced a similar test, and ultimately failed. The remnants of Hohokam canals and pit houses are a potent reminder of ecological collapse; no other American city sits atop such an eloquent allegory.

Disaster Avoided

2011-11-04T12:20:00.000-07:00

No one appreciates the DIY or HGTV channel more than I. I find it a tremendous resource. That said it often avoids details such as costs. Why? Because regionally costs, fees and requirements vary. And thanks to the miracle of editing the time frame permitted for projects are often unstated.

Ultimately theese are projects often for television and many magic elves often assist to complete the project. (I should know I had a project filmed for the DIY channel once and it was a nightmare behind the scenes, but a dream on camera)!

So as a result even them most jaded and experienced person might think that project is not as difficult as it appears. So what you see is definitely not what you get.

What are the most common errors that many homeowners make when it comes to remodeling projects? Here are the top 5:

Cost based Assumption:

Assume you know what your project will cost without doing the research first.
An example is a homeowner who thinks that a kitchen remodel with all new appliances, custom cabinets and granite counter tops will only cost $20,000. What they find is that a $20,000 kitchen most likely includes a basic appliance package, laminate counter tops and stock cabinets from a home improvement store. In fact, the average kitchen remodel is closer to $50,000, with many approaching $80,000.

Knowing that the actual costs versus what you think they cost and determining your budget based on that "knowing" can affect your options and financing as well. Developing a real project cost goes hand in hand with selecting your materials before starting any work. Appliances and materials will make the biggest difference in what your remodel costs end up.

Example: Apppliances. The dishwasher for $300 will definitely not perform at the same level one for $500 does. So what is most important to you and tailor your project around that. Manufacturers, Energy Star ratings aside - finding value in an appliance requires research.

Because cabinets are usually a big ticket item, Understanding the costs and materials involved in cabinetry is the largest variance vs the labor (altought with Ikea there are added costs as they take more time to install). Cabinets themselves can vary from $100 per lineal foot for already made stock cabinets bought at Home Depot to over $500 per lineal foot for custom made or specialty cabinets.

And don’t forget to account for every little thing, lazy Susan's, sliding shelves even drawer pulls and door knobs can start to add up. It may seem unnecessary to develop a budget that detailed, but you’ll be much better prepared if you do.

A great idea is to work with a contractor AS PART of setting the budget. You can get a lot of good advice during the pre construction process, and learn whether or not you can work with that contractor as a result. And this is why I recommend hiring a Contractor initially to work with you on the plans and budgets and pay him accordingly for his/her time. Even if you end up not working together on the final project there are no hard feelings and you have gotten good working advice if you decide to move forward on the project or not.

Include all non-construction costs such as permits, and design costs. And don’t forget to add tax. In Washington State it is 9.5 percent, so a $300,000 construction quote from a contractor actually will come in at $330,000.

Start without a design or a plan.

Many homeowners don’t know how to come up with a plan or design, and don’t understand the importance of how design will affect the final outcome. Design is not decoration. It is the practical application of where permanent items will be installed in your home, how they will function, and what they look like.

One easy example of poor design is a bathroom where the door can’t be opened without hitting the toilet.

Don’t start without design, and make sure you take the time to understand it. If you don’t allow enough time to understand it, you’ll be surprised in the end, which is always bad.”

Visualize the design and do a final check when the construction is in the rough in phase. Check the height, distance and spacing for counter tops, electrical switches, shower heads, and faucets. Otherwise, fixing mistakes later is quite expensive.

Time Management.

It’s all too common for home improvement projects to take longer than you think they will, even after you’ve doubled or tripled the estimate in your head. Whether you are doing the work yourself, or working with a professional, things don’t always go as planned. The unexpected can and will happen.

And for large projects find out from the professionals but more importantly their past clients how long it took from start to finish. You may be surprised. Allocate time for drawings, design, building permit, to interview contractors, get quotes, to buy the materials, move out, and schedule the workers. And, there are many more tasks than just those.

Many Designers, Architechts and Contractors recommend at least 2-4 hours a week.
and sometimes more when selecting materials. Allow time each week for meetings, walk throughs, decisions, and progress reports.

And, remember if you are working with professionals that you’ll have to take time off from work during the day to meet with them. Contractors, architects and designers have families at home, too!

Changing Midstream.

Ask yourself why you want to do this project? Is it for resale, to make your home more functional while you live there, or just improve its cosmetics? Each of those answers should help in your selection of materials, colors, and maintenance.

Once you have those selections made avoid second guessing oneself, and don't change your mind about design or materials choices mid-stream. This will almost always cost more, and take more time. But it’s wise to allow 10% of your budget for surprises or to adopt new ideas.

Select professionals based on price alone.

Of course, we’ve all heard horror stories about contractors gone bad, but reputable designers, contractors and subs want you to be happy with their work and will stand by it with written guarantees.

Don’t cut corners by going with a cheap installer for an expensive product. If you are using a general contractor, get a warranty for work done – get it in writing, and get it for more than 1 year. A reputable firm will stand behind their work. In Washington state law requires a 2 year warranty. So know what your current law or code says and confirm it on the contract.

If you are handling really high end or specialized materials, you may need a higher level of expertise for installation than normal.

Trust and communication are the number one and two qualities you should look for in a professional who will be coming into your home.

Looking at the minimum to get the maximum is not the best way to approach a home remodel. Build strong communication with all professionals on your team early on, even if you are letting others Project Manage don't be an absentee homeowner.

Remember, pricing and service go hand in hand. When you focus on price alone, you may save hard dollar costs, but the end result may not be what you wanted.

Instant Repairman

2011-11-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

What to do With Your Broken Appliance: Repair or Replace?

If you’ve ever owned a house, you’ve surely learned how costly it is to replace appliances. The good news, if you have a broken appliance, is that you can probably repair the appliance yourself rather than having to go out and buy a completely new one.

How do we know this? We sell appliance parts and took a look through our data to figure out which appliances break the most frequently and what the most common problems are. From this research we found that washers, dishwashers, and ovens are the most likely appliances to break.

Based on which parts were needed most frequently, we were able to determine what the specific problems associated with each machine were and how easy they are to fix. To make this information easier to digest, we built an interactive, HTML 5 infographic:

We created this diagnostic infographic to troubleshoot some of the common problems that affect household appliances. Clicking on the pulsing dots shows each common issue and the parts required to correct the problem. Many people replace an entire appliance, which is neither cost-effective nor environmentally responsible. We displayed the average cost of replacing the appliance as well as the cost of the parts required to fix the problem (and a scale of the difficulty of the repair

If you curious about your appliances, check out the Instant Repairman site.

The Wo-Man Cession

2011-11-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I read a Pew Study on the long term affects of being unemployed and they found that unilaterally the time one was unemployed only slightly varied between those with upper degrees, high school and no degree. Showing that now for what is qualified as the "long term" unemployed there was little difference in percentage points when it came right down to it. Because be it Manufacturing, Finance, Building or Education - all industries have taken massive hits when it comes to employment. (So you will see an Architect just as unemployed as a Carpenter)

That length of time out of the market is perceived by many in "job creation" as a loss of skills and they become less desire able to rehire when seeking applicants. Of course experience doesn't deteriorate as well really what in many fields are advancing at high rates during an economic downturn? You would need productivity and dedication to innovation and advancement and given that the predominant resources in many companies are to the Executive Compensation area its a claim I find hard to believe.

And we have the man-cession, the man-gap and the overwhelming fact that women are outpacing men with regards to Education and opportunity but the wage gap has remained. Wages are declining across the board and for women that really isn't' that far to go.

I found this article in American Prospect bemoaning the fact that women regardless of industry are still finding themselves shut out when it comes to professional compensation and growth. We are not coming or going a long way baby. Coupled with the increasing hostile political climate toward women and their reproductive rights, the demands on child care due to Education cuts only points to the situation getting worse.

Add to this that for white women particularly (again according to Pew) this group, along with Black Males falls out of the Middle Class faster as a result. Clearly we are doing something wrong here in determining that gender and income inequity are linked and this is also contributing to many other problems that affect overall society's growth and potential.

As a woman who finds herself at largely male dominated events I find myself often isolated from the men and yet also from the women who have no skills in mentoring and see many women as threats (which is not surprising given the enviornment who wouldn't be?) I find myself wondering if this experience and isolation is a result of the field or is just a larger scale problem.

I also find myself frequently asking "where are the faces of color" as a I look around and again wonder if this is a regional issue or professional one? Whatever the question the answer is simple - the issues manifested from income inequality are doing damage financially, emotionally and professionally overall.

HomeE.J. Graff How Far We Haven't Come, Episode #1707
E.J. Graff
November 4, 2011

Remember "The End of Men," the concept that the future belongs to women, because women are more prepared for today's economy? Well, it hasn't hit us yet. Even when women are better educated, men earn more, at least in most parts of the workforce. As Motoko Rich reports at the New York Times,

Even with the same college and professional degrees, men earn more than women. And among so-called creative class workers like architects, teachers, artists, engineers, bankers and journalists, men earn much more than women, even though more women hold such jobs.

It’s similar at the bottom end of the scale. According to a report issued Thursday by the United States Government Accountability Office, a higher proportion of women finish high school than men, a milestone that is a minimum requirement for any job mobility. Women — especially younger women — are also completing bachelor’s degrees at higher rates than men. Yet they represent a higher proportion of low-wage workers, defined in the report as those who earn hourly wage rates that put them in the bottom 20 percent of the work force.

Think that wage gap might have anything to do with sex discrimination, including that portion of sex discrimination called "sexual harassment"—by which a woman loses months or a year to facing a personally hostile workplace? Or with the fact that, in a society with so few social supports, women end up with more of the unpaid "care" work for children and relatives? Or with ... oh, you've heard me on this before

I'll Trade This

2011-11-03T21:54:00.000-07:00

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Vehicular Movement

2011-11-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

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Let them do the leg work and find the right car transport company. As one who has moved across country and shipped a vehicle before this is not an easy task. Many of the staff at Car Transport are former agents and transporters themselves so they understand the specifics and requirements needed for such a task.

If you have questions, concerns or just want to understand the process or auto shipping rates, Car Transport has an outstanding service record with a commitment to returning all messages within 5 minutes of receiving them.

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The New Sustainabilty Plan

2011-10-31T18:13:00.000-07:00

Obama Administration Releases Federal Agency Sustainability Performance Plans
Second annual plans focus on implementation of programs that cut waste, pollution, and costs

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Continuing its commitment to lead by example and cut waste, pollution and costs in Federal operations, the Obama Administration today released Federal agencies’ 2012 Strategic Sustainability Performance Plans. Agencies develop and submit Sustainability Plans annually under President Obama’s Executive Order 13514 on Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance, signed October 5, 2009. This year’s Plans highlight agency milestones, new strategies for improving performance, and specific examples of projects that are saving taxpayer dollars, creating clean energy jobs, reducing pollution, cutting waste, and saving energy.

The Sustainability Plans build on two years of progress under the Executive Order, including: completing the first comprehensive greenhouse gas pollution inventory of Federal agency operations; doubling the Federal hybrid vehicle fleet and integrating electric vehicles into the Federal fleet to reduce gasoline consumption; and tracking agency performance through Energy and Sustainability Scorecards prepared by the Office of Management and Budget.

“The Federal government is seeing the same kinds of positive results that leading American companies have seen from their own sustainability efforts,” said Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “Making buildings more efficient, conserving vital resources, and reducing waste all improve the Federal Government’s energy and environmental performance and save taxpayer dollars.”

The 2012 Sustainability Plans were announced on the opening day of the 2011 GreenGov Symposium in Washington, D.C., a three-day forum bringing together leaders from government, the private sector, non-profits and academia to identify opportunities to create jobs, grow clean energy industries, and curb pollution by greening the Federal Government.

Executive Order 13514 requires Federal agencies to submit their plans to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval. Agencies annually update Sustainability Plans, prioritizing activities that help to meet energy, water, and waste reduction goals based on a positive return on investment for the American taxpayer.

Agency Strategic Sustainability Performance Plans are available now at http://sustainability.performance.gov.

For more information on Executive Order 13514 on Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance, please visit: http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ceq/initiatives/sustainability.

Clean and Clear as Glass

2011-10-31T12:58:00.000-07:00

I am sharing with you a guest post written by Laura Briggs on the issue of transparency as it relates to current building materials used in green building.

And while this is specific to that issue those in the Sustainable movement are strong advocates of transparency and endorse the concept as we believe it inherently allows for better quality and affordability not to mention longevity.

Please read Laura's article below and comments or thoughts are always welcome.

EPDs clearing the way for environmental transparency

By Laura Briggs

A sustainability movement established largely on assumed environmental benefit has exposed a need for transparency to minimize confusion and remove doubts about unfettered claims made by materials manufacturers.

Evaluation of environmental costs of building materials must be based on universal and transparent criteria that compare actual performance. Determining the true cost of materials requires evaluating overall product lifecycle costs.

Architects and designers specify hundreds of thousands of materials in the projects they design, considering numerous claims of environmental performance as part of the process. Very few of those assertions are backed by independent verification, and even if they are, the lack of standardization of methodology makes a true comparison difficult.

Rigorous, scientific analysis of carbon footprints introduces credibility and gives architects a meaningful way to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Full environmental disclosure becomes the basis by which architects evaluate manufacturer claims during the materials selection process, understand the likely environmental performance of a building, and promote low-carbon building materials for projects.

Environmental transparency dominated the conversation at Greenbuild, an annual industry gathering dedicated to green building. The discussion focused on the need to move beyond the “greenwashing” stage of the sustainability movement and how to do it most effectively.

Several timely drivers are influencing the need for comprehensive and comparable disclosure. The U.S. Green Building Council’s pilot credit program provides a transparency incentive for materials use and represents another step in encouraging a formalized process. The U.S. Forest Service recently advocated for green building codes and standards that include adequate provisions to recognize the benefits of life cycle environmental analysis to guide building materials selection.

Many European nations are already closing in on requiring Environmental Product Declarations (EPD), a universal system based on third-party comparison of data across pre-established categories. Such a requirement would have a dramatic impact that could extend globally through materials suppliers in other countries that sell products in those nations.

In the U.S., emerging code requirements will force specifiers to use materials that have undergone third-party environmental scrutiny. Those requirements once limited to a few progressive cities are extending rapidly to markets around the country.

A small handful of North American materials manufacturers have emerged as early environmental transparency leaders, producing peer-reviewed EPDs. The Western Red Cedar Lumber Association, which has completed peer-reviewed EPDs for decking and siding, is one example. The association holds the only known wood products EPDs in North American and two of a small handful overall.

EPDs are based on a holistic approach that considers life cycle analysis and product category rules that establish criteria for evaluation. Essentially, they provide a standardized, cradle-to-grave evaluation of environmental performance that becomes a reliable resource for both manufacturers and purchasers.

Evaluating the overall costs of a product lifecycle is the only way to determine the true environmental costs of materials. The comprehensiveness of the EPD establishes a universal basis for independent comparison of environmental product attributes, minimizes confusion about technical data, and removes doubt about product sustainability.

Laura Briggs is a Chair of Sustainable Architecture Research at Parsons the New School for Design where she teaches courses on ecological design within the School of Constructed Environments at Parsons, the only integrated school of architecture, interior design, lighting design and product design in the nation.

Occupy Wall Street: Redux

2011-10-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

I found this on YouTube and I thought it expressively demonstrates my first thought and my ultimate view on what I found when I went to Liberty (Zuccotti) Park myself.

A new movement has growing pains but there is no question that the message is loud and clear. The current model of Capitalism is not sustainable and our current method of Governing is failing the 99%.

What more can be said... nothing. But what more can be done? Plenty.

All politics are local. You don't have to occupy a park or a street you can however occupy a school board meeting, a town hall, a city or county council meeting. You can occupy a voting booth but you cannot do that from your armchair.

Wall Street Protesters Hit the Bull’s-Eye
By EDUARDO PORTER
Published: October 29, 2011

Occupiers of Zuccotti Park and other sites around the country have been criticized for the fuzziness of their goals. Their complaint that the privileged few in the top 1 percent are getting a disproportionate share of the nation’s prosperity, however, is spot on. And Wall Streeters are taking a bigger and bigger chunk of that income.

Who exactly are the people at the top? They are 1.4 million families that made on average $1 million in 2009, the latest data available. They took a hit from the 2008 financial crisis, but no doubt are regaining lost ground. The rich always do: a report published last week by the Congressional Budget Office shows that the share of national income going to the top percentage of households skyrocketed over the last three decades, even as it fell for the vast majority of American families.

The top 1 percent’s share of the nation’s total adjusted gross income was 17 percent in 2009, down from 23 percent two years before. But those people are still earning more than the entire bottom half of the population.

The first chart shows the share of national income that goes to families at different points of the income distribution. Since the mid-1980s the top 10 percent of Americans have increased their share at the expense of everybody else. But the lion’s share of these gains accrued to the richest 1 percent; and half of those gains went to the top 0.1 percent.

Wall Street financiers were always well paid. In the last three decades their representation at the very top of the income pyramid has grown by leaps and bounds. A recent study by two academic economists and a Treasury Department analyst found that financiers — bankers, fund managers and the like — account for about 14 percent of the taxpayers in the top percentile of income distribution. There are more non-financial business executives than bankers in this wealthiest slice of income. But their share of this slice fell over the past quarter century, while the financiers’ share grew substantially. Today financiers account for 16 percent of the income of the top percentile, up from 9 percent in 1979. Their share is now almost as big as that of lawyers and doctors combined.

It’s hard to believe today, but from the 1960s to about 1980 workers in finance made little more than those in the rest of the private sector, on average. Then, things changed: from the ’80s on, administrations from both parties embraced deregulation, undoing many of the rules put in place in the wake of the Great Depression to limit banks’ riskiest, and most lucrative, investments. Gone were the limits on interstate banking, down came the wall separating commercial and investment banks.

From 1979 to 2006, the financial industry’s share in the nation’s corporate profits grew from a fifth to almost a third. By 2006, bankers and insurers were making 70 percent more, on average, than workers in the rest of the private sector. Then they set off one of the worst financial crises in living memory, and taxpayers bailed them out.

The protesters’ grievances may be aimed at Wall Street as a metaphor for broader economic forces. But there is nothing metaphorical about who is taking home the wealth. The protesters might even aim a bit higher: the real income growth is happening in the top 0.1 percent. There are lots of bankers there, too.

The High Line

2011-10-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

In my tour of New York Open Houses and in between Occupying Wall Street, I toured the High Line Park.

As I have been writing about the concept of public/private spaces and how those can have great affect on a community both good and bad; I was very anxious to tour perhaps one of the most recent successful if not lauded public/private partnerships - The High Line.

I had blogged earlier about a modern development adjacent overlooking the High Line and I finally got to see it. Devoid of occupants as many of the buildings are in already expensive Manhattan (rents now average over 3K a month) the once gritty Meatpacking area is alive with trendy Hotels, Restaurants and shops. The new Tribeca.

But the High Line is not as exclusive. Teeming with people on the most windy of Saturday afternoons it is a glorious tribute of salvaging an industrial space and make it literally a green space.

The New York Times today had an article discussing the most recent generous donation to the park's fundraising efforts to finish what is perhaps an elegant statement about the challenges and successes of public and private partnerships when done right.

Record $20 Million Gift to Help Finish the High Line Park

By LISA W. FODERARO
Published: October 26, 2011

Many visitors to the High Line, the popular park that wends above street level on the West Side of Manhattan, stop at its northern terminus and peer wistfully through a chain-link fence at the as-yet unreclaimed half-mile segment to the north. Until this week, the nonprofit conservancy that operates the High Line still needed to raise $85 million to finish the park and maintain it.

On Wednesday night, the conservancy took a major step toward that goal when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced a $20 million gift to the High Line from the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation.

The gift, which will help build up the park’s endowment and pay for the design of the last section, is the single largest donation ever made to a New York City park, according to city officials.

It follows two previous donations totaling $15 million to the High Line from Barry Diller, chairman of IAC and Expedia, and his wife, the designer Diane von Furstenberg.

“It’s not surprising that Barry and Diane — visionaries that they are — got in early on the High Line project,” Mr. Bloomberg said in a statement. “But even better, they are seeing it through. Their generosity is leading the way for the High Line to become a New York icon that will be enjoyed for generations to come.”

The High Line is an unusual public-private partnership. The city paid most of the construction costs of the first two sections (the second opened earlier this year), which together run from Gansevoort to 30th Streets.

But Friends of the High Line, the conservancy that rallied to save the railway from demolition and raised money for its transformation into a park, assumed full responsibility for the cost of the operations from the start.

With three million annual visitors, 10 times what the founders of the conservancy initially envisioned, wear and tear, as well as educational programming, is a constant challenge for the 60-member staff. Annual operating costs for the park come to $3 million.

“If you ask Josh or me what keeps us up at night, it’s not next year or whether we complete it — we know it will get done,” said Robert Hammond, co-founder of Friends of the High Line along with Joshua David. “It’s the maintenance, and this gives us security. Having an endowment gives us another revenue stream to fall back on in hard times.”

But perhaps just as important is the gift’s ability to propel Friends of the High Line toward the finish line: the railway’s endpoint at 34th Street. Now the curvaceous teak benches and ornamental grasses that make up the park’s northern landscaping stop abruptly at that chain-link fence.

On the other side is a jumble of weeds, rocks and old ladders. The future section, which hugs the West Side Railyards, runs west to 12th Avenue and then continues north to 34th Street.

That segment is owned by CSX Transportation, which is now in negotiations with city officials, as well as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and other interested parties, on an agreement that would allow for public access. In 2005, CSX donated the portion of the High Line south of 30th Street to the city.

Adrian Benepe, commissioner of the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation, said the talks dealt with a “very complicated site.” But he added that “everyone wants for the city to eventually” obtain the site for the High Line park.

Mr. David and Mr. Hammond estimate that the final half-mile stretch will cost up to $75 million to build, about the same as each of the first two half-mile sections. Given the constraints on the city’s budget, private sources will have to cover the initial capital expense, they said. Before the new gift, Friends of the High Line had raised about $65 million toward its $150 million fund-raising goal.

In a statement, Mr. Diller took the long view. “In a hundred years, people will be amazed that this park was ever built, and during all that time it will have given pleasure to such great numbers of people,” he said. “I’m glad that our family is able to pay a small role in making the High Line a reality.”

In a city of deep-pocketed philanthropists, the donation from Mr. Diller and Ms. von Furstenberg turned heads, not least because it went to a park rather than a cultural or educational institution. Previously, the largest private gift to a park was $17 million from the philanthropist Richard Gilder in 1993 to Central Park.

Friends of the High Line hopes that the $20 million donation will inspire additional giving.

That happened once before. After the Museum of Modern Art mounted a small exhibition of designs for the park in 2005, the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation made its first gift of $5 million, generating interest in the project. Then came a gift of $10 million from the foundation in 2009. Earlier this year, Tiffany and Company Foundation gave a $5 million challenge grant.

The return on those investments has been substantial; the first two sections of the High Line have generated more than $2 billion in planned or new development, city officials said. The park has also become a major tourist attraction, drawing a quarter of its visitors from outside the United States.

Gazing at the unfinished segment, Martin Oeggerli, 37, a photographer visiting from Switzerland, said he would like the park to keep going. “It would go straight to the Hudson and give you a great view,” he said.

Last week, when Mr. Diller told Friends of the High Line of the gift over the phone, the conference room erupted. “A large number of people on our staff burst into tears,” Mr. Hammond said.

Insuring Security

2011-10-27T07:06:00.000-07:00

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The Next Green

2011-10-20T10:34:00.000-07:00

As we move along the color palette to find the deepest green certification program a new one has entered the list. The Net Zero Energy Building Certification or the NZE (no build green program can survive without a fitting acronym).

So now to add to the ever growing list from LEED, Built Green, Energy Star, Earthcraft, Passivhaus, or a Health House label for which home owners and builders to certify their new home. Now one more is added to the list.

Home grown and local green from Seattle - the non-profit organization - formerly known as the Living Building Institute (until April of this year) - now ILFI - which manages the Living Building Challenge program; the Cascadia Green Building Council, a green building advocacy group for builders in the Northwest, British Columbia, and Alaska.

In addition they also manage the Natural Step Network USA, which advises businesses on environmentally sustainable practices; and Ecotone Publishing, which produces books about green architecture and design.

This is the group most famous of their upcoming Living Building Challenge project - The Bullit Foundation Building (which I recently blogged about).

Despite all the ways available to find construction strategies and renewable-energy systems to design and build buildings that can operate at net zero energy, the International Living Future Institute decided it is time to introduce a certification system for projects aiming for NZE performance vs modeling (the results vs the actual goal). And unlike other certification programs this one has a global reach.

NZE projects anywhere in the world can apply for consideration, although candidate buildings must be operational for at least 12 months before they’re evaluated.

A variety of renewable-energy systems can be used, including passive solar, photovoltaics, wind turbines, solar thermal, direct geothermal, water-powered microturbines, and fuel cells powered by hydrogen generated from renewable powered electrolysis.

While many projects are frequently marketed as net-zero-energy performers, those that qualify for the NZE Building Certification will have to meet the following Living Building Challenge requirements:

The NZE building’s construction and renewable-energy system curb the project’s contribution to the effects of sprawled development.
The building operates at net zero energy.
The project is built in a way that does not preclude another building from achieving net zero energy operation as a result of excessive shading.
Renewable-energy systems must be incorporated into the building in ways that are “attractive and inspiring.

Will this one get lost in all the varying ways, means and programs in the current drive to certify buildings or will it bring a new method to make our buildings fully sustainable? It is early days yet but once again what I find troubling is that all of these certifying agencies or organizations are non-profit businesses seemingly making immense profits from adding more bells and whistles to an already overloaded palette.

While we are always looking for the most effective way of improving building the real winners here seem to be the non profits making significant profits during the worst downtime in building.

Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-18T18:34:00.000-07:00

I spent the last 4 days in NYC. I had already planned the trip in conjunction with Open House NYC - a time when many residential, commercial, public and private spaces are open for tours, lectures and other information regarding green building and other sustainable challenges in one of America's most challenging cities.

Well all of that seemed suddenly indulgent when one month ago yesterday (the 17th) marked the anniversary of the rag tag group called "Occupy Wall Street." Well I do write quite a bit about what defines "sustainability" and that includes income inequality, the drive for profits over purpose and long term goals including the immense problems in this country for many to find work that provides a living wage, benefits and security.

I think of late the most read of my posts about the subject was Shadow People my thoughts and name for the group of boomers too young for being put out to pasture to old to be employable. A group that is the largest of the boomers left and the target for ire by both our Government and those behind us as we are viewed as the one's who 'take' everything and feel "entitled" to such programs as Social Security and Medicare. The things which well we are entitled as we paid into them as investment security for our old age.

The kids took over Wall Street in an effort as they say not to protest but to point out that most of our current woes can be tied to this location; Zuccotti Park is in the shadow of Wall Street and one block from the former site of the World Trade Center. A location that cannot be overlooked for its symbolism on all counts.

My four days there I met many people who were diverse in interests and place of origin, mostly young who for all intensive purposes had nowhere to go. They were already marginalized by society - income inequality does that to families. We aren't number one in the world with child abuse for nothing. And it leads many to struggle on how to get ahead in world so clearly divided by the have and the have nots.. and the haves being only 1% of the population. So hence they are called the 99% ers.

Of course I have seen this before in the 60s and the same silly arguments, labels and anger are on display again. Nothing changes and everything old is new again. But there was a clear message - Get us out. Out of Vietnam out of war. This message is not so singular and not one that fits into the paradigm of a what defines conventional movements - civil rights, women's right, gay rights. Financial Services rights? Capitalism Sucks Rights? As you can see this is a complicated issue and not one easily placed upon a billboard or sign. As the time evolves the messaging will. But to ask what are the demands is to also ask from whom are we making them? The Government? The Corporations? the Wall Street Banks?

It is difficult to negotiate with anyone when they are all seemingly interconnected the level of money and business involved in the business of Government has made lobbying a lucrative business for business but who lobbies on behalf of the American people? This occupation is not a hostage crisis but a reflection of the crisis that has evolved over decades of income disparity. You cannot make demands when you don't even know where to begin and from whom to make them.

I went because I have railed on this subject for quite sometime and with no avail. I already knew the facts but I wanted to know if the occupiers knew them. Well many of the kids have never voted. Many have no interest in politics but they know the system is broken and they just want someone to give a shit. That was a consistent if not repetitive message.. we want someone to listen. It hearkened back to my favorite play Death of Salesman and the line "attention must be paid." And yes attention has been paid. The world has responded and now across the country and world occupation is the demand. But for now the movement is still leaderless, faceless and largely nameless. Ironic as that seems to be the point when you are of the 99%.

I urge those curious to understand more. To try to have patience while they to sort it out. But as all things are local and no more so than politics perhaps it might be time to occupy yourself in finding out what matters to you and work on doing something to make that different, to improve it, to let it be known you are not in the shadows any longer.

Occupy Wall Street, Main Street, Any Street on which you live. These problems are not just confined to the park in Manhattan.

Economics of Scale

2011-10-13T12:16:00.001-07:00

I started this blog just prior to the Economy's "official" downturn. It was intended originally to promote my new venture into Green Remodeling and my then partner and I business, Vida Verde.

Since then the economy has tanked, I have a lost a partner and changed my business model and strategy on more than one occasion.

The reality is that just a few years ago Green was a LIFESTYLE. From blogs, to magazines to television shows, even a channel was devoted to what it means to be green. Ah how times have changed for us all.

I have always been leery of the idea that being green of all things meant you had to buy more things in order to be green. The idea I advocated as many others in this field did - sustainability meant examining your approach to consumerism. It was more of an "investment" approach where you look at the long range goals and aspirations and took on only what you need and what would have the least environmental impact for the future.

Today that approach is more so but so is the reality. What I had been preaching all along - sensibility, budget, affordability is now the fact. Those greenies who still write adoringly about the latest green gadget or building product are fewer but no less still passionate but the honest truth is that most Americans except for a select few are truly driving the consumer train.

Today in the Home section of the New York Times an article about the truth of going green even for diehards has come home to roost with their organic chickens nesting in their certified coop.

The simple DEMAND for products green is lessening. Be it cleaning products to more high end ones such as cars and homes has been affected by the recession. To pretend otherwise seems absurd at best crazy at worst.

There are some green products that are negligible in costs and others while more simply have a better payback. A CFL that costs more also simply lasts longer. It does take some energy to realize the overall life vs cost approach and well most people don't want to expend energy to save energy.

I reprint the article below which I think provides outstanding life lessons on what it means to find "your right shade of green"

Eco Meets the Economy

By STEVEN KURUTZ
Published: October 12, 2011

In August, Lloyd Alter came up against the limits of his environmental convictions when he had to replace the leaky roof on his house in Toronto. He wanted to put a metal roof on his house to reduce energy costs, but “when push came to shove, I bought asphalt,” which is cheaper.

“For years, I said I would install a reflective metal roof,” because it helps to reduce heat and lower energy costs during the summer, said Mr. Alter, 58, an architect who writes about design for Treehugger, the sustainability-focused Web site. But “when push came to shove,” he said, “I bought asphalt.”

The asphalt shingles aren’t as good at reflecting the sun’s rays, and worse still, they’re made from a petroleum-based material. But they were a lot cheaper: the total cost of the new roof, including installation, was about $12,000, Mr. Alter noted, while “the metallic roof probably would have cost double.”

It is the kind of reality check that many eco-conscious consumers face these days. And like Mr. Alter, most have resorted to cutting their spending on a variety of items, particularly green products, which typically cost more than their non-green counterparts and can be difficult to justify, or even afford, when budgets are tight.

In a bad economy, what used to seem essential can quickly become optional.

At the same time, what was once merely fashionable can become a matter of necessity. Activities like growing and canning food, raising chickens and making your own clothes and other household goods — which in recent years have been exalted for their artisanal qualities — are now seen by many as a way to economize while staying true to green values.

David Quilty, a blogger in Santa Fe, N.M., has stopped buying organic cotton T-shirts and shopping for produce at Whole Foods. And after years of buying packaged cleaners and soaps from eco-friendly companies like Method and Seventh Generation, he can no longer afford them, he said, so he has started cleaning his home with a solution he whips up himself.

Not coincidentally, his widely read environmental blog, The Good Human, recently ran an article entitled “23 Ways to Use Vinegar for Nontoxic Cleaning.” One of a number of similar features that have appeared on the site in the last year, it is a sign of the blog’s shift toward a do-it-yourself mentality.

“I have to prioritize my spending, as many people do right now,” said Mr. Quilty, 39, who makes a living running the blog and has seen ad revenue fall by a third in the last six months. “I just don’t have the financial ability.”

The same shift in focus is evident on other environmental blogs. Mr. Alter said he sees it playing out daily on Treehugger. “Had you come on the site four years ago, before the recession, you would have seen a post every day for a new bamboo shirt or bamboo sandals,” he said. “We do almost none of that stuff anymore, because people don’t have the money to buy it.”

Gone, too, is the avid coverage of $1,000 laptops with cases made of recycled plastic, the furniture built out of sustainably harvested wood and the solar-panel hats. Instead, Mr. Alter said, “We’re writing a lot more about cooking, politics, riding bikes.”

Jill Fehrenbacher, 34, the founder and editor in chief of Inhabitat, a popular green design blog, said she has cut back on product articles as well, a shift her readers all but demanded. “In the last few years,” she said, “we’ve seen a real anti-consumer pushback.”

Not surprisingly, the green products industry is feeling the pinch. Laura Batcha, executive vice president of the Organic Trade Association, said that while the organic-goods sector has boomed in the last eight years, going up to $29 billion from $9 billion in sales, the industry’s yearly growth rates dropped to less than 6 percent in 2010, from between 15 and 20 percent previously.

And some brands have felt the pain more than others. According to SymphonyIRI Group, a market research firm that tracks mass-market stores (excluding Wal-Mart), sales of Clorox Green Works tub cleaner and dish detergent each dropped by more than 30 percent in the 12-month period ending in early September. And Seventh Generation, a popular green brand, has seen a drop in sales of items like paper towels, which are down by more than 15 percent during the same period (though sales of some of the company’s other items, like dish detergent, are up by a nearly equal percentage). Meanwhile, pricier items like hybrid cars have seen sales decline by more than 20 percent in the last year, according to Baum & Associates, another market-research firm.

Despite all that, Ms. Batcha insists that the green industry is continuing its “uphill climb” (the industry’s growth rates are back in the low double-digits this year, she said, although she was unable to provide specific numbers), and most people aren’t making a choice between green and cheap. At the moment, however, many eco-minded consumers seem to be wary of both.

Not long ago, Mr. Alter found himself in a grocery store, trying to decide between $10-a-pound organic bacon and a nonorganic brand that cost $5. In the end, he didn’t buy either one. “More and more people are doing that,” he said. “It’s like ‘Buy Nothing Day’ all year.”

FOR Erin Peters, a stay-at-home mother of three who began using green products four years ago, the D.I.Y. approach was a response to what she thought was a temporary financial hardship. When her husband’s company transferred him from Washington, D.C., to Raleigh, N.C., in 2008, just as the real estate market collapsed, they were saddled with a mortgage on one home and rent on another, until they finally sold the house a year later.

During that time, her shopping trips took on the aspect of a liberal morality play. “I couldn’t get us into more debt,” said Ms. Peters, 32. “But I felt guilty if I didn’t buy the green products we’d been using.”

Recently, they had another setback: their health insurance premiums went up, which meant “we lost a few hundred dollars from the monthly budget,” Ms. Peters said, and had to make more spending cuts.

For now, at least, that means no organic produce. They are also renting a smaller house within walking distance of her husband’s office and the children’s school. By driving less, they save money and reduce their carbon footprint.

Ms. Peters has also begun gardening and canning vegetables, and although she once thought of thrift stores as selling clothing that was “rotten or falling apart,” and would never have dreamed of shopping there, that’s now where she buys clothes.

But despite forgoing things like green cleaning products and organic food, Ms. Peters said, she thinks she is living in a more sustainable way than she did before. “I think the economy has forced people to be greener,” she said. “Even if they didn’t intend to.”

OTHERS have found they can make do just by being more selective. Megan Yarnall, 23, a recent graduate of Dickinson College, has been on a strict budget since she moved out of her parents’ house a year and a half ago and into an apartment in Yardley, Pa. She still buys organic produce, but not as indiscriminately as she did in college.

“For me, it’s a matter of choosing what should be bought organic,” she said, “and what isn’t as crucial.”

From a co-worker at TerraCycle, the recycling-design firm in New Jersey where she works, Ms. Yarnall learned about the so-called “Dirty Dozen,” a list of the 12 fruits and vegetables most susceptible to absorbing pesticides, based on data from the United States Department of Agriculture. Ms. Yarnall now saves money by buying organically grown produce only if it’s on that list. That means splurging on things like strawberries, apples and lettuce, but not on thick-skinned fruit like bananas.

Mr. Quilty has come up with his own accommodation: to afford grass-fed meat, he buys fruit and vegetables at a farmers’ market, which “is much cheaper than Whole Foods,” he said.

And if the produce isn’t organic, at least it’s local. “It is a tradeoff, but it’s worth it to me to eat the healthiest meat I can get.”

Some worry that all this frugality may result in what Gita Nandan calls “short-sighted knee-jerk reactions,” namely, passing up green products with high upfront costs, despite the long-term savings and reduced environmental impact.

“People say, ‘I only have $3 in my pocket, I should buy the incandescent bulb because it’s cheap,’ ” said Ms. Nandan, 40, a partner in Thread Collective, a Brooklyn design firm specializing in sustainable architecture. But “in the end, the math doesn’t work out,” she continued, because using more energy means your monthly bills will be higher.

Ms. Nandan said that she suggests clients skimp in certain areas (“let’s not spend a lot of money on paint or the $12,000 bathtub”) and put the savings toward costlier green materials that will pay off in the long run.

Lately, she has been advocating a product made by EnergyHub, a device that allows homeowners to monitor and control their electricity use. “Are my clients going to pay the extra $300?” she said. “I don’t know, but it’s worth having the conversation.”

Investing in an eco-friendly energy monitor might not require much thought in a robust economy. But like many of the things environmentally conscious consumers talked about doing a few years ago — installing solar-panels, buying hybrid cars, building LEED-certified houses — it may be a dream that has to be deferred.

Earlier this year, Ms. Peters and her husband test-drove a Leaf, the all-electric car from Nissan. Buying it would be an energy-efficient upgrade from the couple’s 2004 Honda Odyssey, and it’s something Ms. Peters said they might have done not long ago.

“Like most Americans,” she said, “I had the mind-set that if I wanted something new, I could run out and get it.”

Instead, she and her husband have entered a contest to win the car and have put off buying anything. When the economy recovers, she said, they hope to be driving a new fuel-efficient vehicle, but “it’s out of reach right now.”

David Quilty’s Homemade All-Purpose Cleaner

Fill a spray bottle two-thirds full of water and one-third full of white distilled vinegar. To cut the vinegar smell, add a few drops of an essential oil like lemon grass, sage or grapefruit. (The smell of vinegar dissipates soon after using the cleaner, so you can skip the essential oils if you are sensitive to the oils’ fragrance.)

Mr. Quilty estimates that he uses about one cup of vinegar per spray bottle and pays around $4 for a gallon. That works out to about 25 cents for a bottle of cleaner, which is “way, way less” than a typical $3 to $5 packaged cleaner at the store, he said. “I use that everywhere around the house as an all-purpose cleaner.”

Dedicated Follower of Fashion

2011-10-13T10:49:00.000-07:00

A Tyvek Rain Coat.

I have be musing of late to start a Tumblr blog about my other passions - food and fashion and art. But I thought today I would indulge and include some posts about fashion design using materials most often found in build design

When they merge with building materials there is a perfect organic symmetry that cannot be committed to a blog about sustainability and green build - or can they?

I found today wk-shp.com a clothing line dedicated to materials and design most often found in Architecture and Building. Airi Isoda earned a an architecture degree and has worked for a number of prominent firms in Los Angeles. Her inspirations are art, the built environment and other modern influences. At her site she says she strives to find the connection between architecture and fashion, reflecting on the urban landscapes where the two meet

As you peruse the site you see a unique and modern collection of very wearable clothes incorporating concrete, wood, metal latex paint and my favorite, Tvyek (house wrap).

Note the beautiful necklace made of concrete forms. Seemingly light but also substantial.

Or this silk charmuese blouse finished with latex paint and a delicate wood veneer collar.

wk-shp goes beyond just using building materials to make clothing they make clothing as a art form. The magnificent forms and use of very non-traditional materials might seem to some a challenge found on Project Runway but from such challenge comes great inspiration. As a long time follower of the show I may find many things head scratching but then again if you ever watch a Paris couture show you have seen amazing clothing made from garbage bags to brown paper ones. Design is inspirational and its not proprietary to one medium.

DRIFT Eyewear has also come up with a line of eyeglasses made of wood and other sustainable materials and a strong corporate philosophy that advocates strong craftsmanship and design. DRIFT is a company founded on a desire to push the eyewear industry to a new level through technological innovation and ecological consciousness.

Design is about just that design be it in buildings or fashion or in art. It is about thinking outside the box and pushing boundries while establishing new frontiers in eco friendly sustainable concepts. Its not all hemp wear.

A Case of the Shingles

2011-10-13T08:46:00.000-07:00

I just received word that D.R. Horton, one the largest home builders in America, are rolling out a test program than includes a new variety of solar shingles as roofing materials.

The new technology in partnership with Dow Chemical, is done to meet the obvious growing interest in energy self sufficiency while blending it with a desire to meet the aesthetic needs of home owners who do not wish to have a solar panel on top of the roof.

They have no pricing nor actual kWh measures available but when one of the largest builders are starting to go green in alternative energy the rest will follow - simply due to demand and competitiveness; as Zillow reports today, home building will see a decrease in both home size and an increase in what defines energy efficiency - smaller spaces to heat and cool and using less windows, ceiling fans and design strategies in which to accomplish said goals. This new concept of solar panels will also undoubtedly factor in future home building and in turn the long range costs and payback period currently associated with solar installation will undoubtedly also decline. A good thing from this case of the shingles.

As for home ownership on the other hand don't expect this to change anytime soon. On the heels of this recession, the foreclosures may be staving off but the decline in those buying homes, particularly the young (overall decline in their population numbers which also contribute) finding rates of ownership for 25-34 year olds and 35-44 year olds have declined by 9.6 and 9 percentage points, respectively. It shows that those who are not embracing home ownership as a part of the great "American Dream" there will need to be a distinct marketing and manufacturing shift in making homes distinctly more affordable - not to mention more energy efficient to make that dream a reality.

Oh Solo Mio

2011-10-08T12:28:00.000-07:00

Reading the article below from this mornings New York Times I was reminded of the drawbacks (but also the immense perks) out of working from your home. As a "Solopreneur" I have in the last decade worked exclusively out of my homes, starting out rehabbing my own homes and working and living right on site - literally selling out from under myself.

That to many people sounds horrendous, especially anyone undergoing a remodel, but my ability to quickly and elegantly rehab and style a property for resell with my own crew gave me immense skills and abilities that lent well to working independently.

And this current economy is going to see a major incline in home based businesses and as a result a difficult way of learning to balance what is home/work life. They become one when you are home 24/7 and while that allows for greater opportunities to be flexible and adjust schedules accordingly you realize that many of those with whom "you work" are not on the same schedule.

In the last year the calls started to decline from a trickle to non-existent which meant I either had to market more, network more or simply fold up shop. I turned to blogging in earnest as a way of keeping my work alive. And I also went back to school to keep my skills fresh. Many Community Colleges are recognizing this and have tons of programs for those seeking Entrepreneur guidance. They are often a few days to one or two workshops that are designed to get you up and running on everything from writing a business plan to how to work with accounting and spreadsheet software. And the secondary bonus is you meet others like you and in turn valuable contacts you might need in the future.

Its very important that you "network" if that means forming a group of like minded professionals via LinkedIn, Facebook, Meetup.org or any other means that allows you to communicate and share ideas both online and more importantly OFFLINE.

The last two years since I changed from a Partnership to a single practitioner I found that I missed the bouncing ideas of another person. So instead I found through my local coffee shops tons of real estate agents, contractors, and other trade professionals that would meet for breakfast or coffee and we would share war stories or try to keep each other propped up when worrying about the next gig. Sadly or gladly most of them are gone and only one or two of them I see monthly or so but we are still here alive and kicking. Some went on to find jobs in their field, others moved, others found new prospects and well the last to remain are making it work with part time work and odd jobs. But that is still a valuable resource when one needs simple support.

I cannot stress enough it is not easy when you have a family or have distractions. This year I made a concentrated effort to actually turn my office into a working lab actually trying out different, paints, flooring, lighting etc as a way of making the environment a working one and also a place that makes me less likely to flee at the end of the day. And that included making serious changes to the outdoor space adjoining my office, adding a charming vintage French sign to my office door saying Ouvrez or Fermé when I went "upstairs" for the night

Last summer I tried a pop up office and space dedicated to showcasing green products with the hope to permanently move there but the economy has been slowly eroding and the design center here in such decline I decided to forsake that idea. Frankly I enjoyed having somewhere to go every day and I could still bring my dog and go for a walk. But you can transform spaces in your home to give you that illusion and this recent upgrade for me found ways to do just that.

I still use my laptop upstairs for work as I frequently watch TV for design ideas and use my cell phone to make calls; however I do have a land line which via my cable company allows me to screen calls when upstairs and still be part of work when I need to. We have to face the fact that working at home really at some point requires a 24/7 commitment. And that is the hardest part.

I had to quit having meetings in my home, frankly the space isn't large enough, and storing samples is equally challenging as they were taking up my garage. Keeping them in a nearby storage unit helps and as it requires me to go there frequently to make updates to my inventory/library. You really need to make sure you are getting out if not to clear your head but to meet others. And in turn you will find that many shared spaces exist in which to meet - including library meeting rooms and other spaces in restaurants, coffee shop and newly shared spaces set up for just that purpose.

Since blogging now has become my major "occupation" it becomes easy to spend hours at the computer but frankly the greenest things are around me in my community and I need to be a part of them to see theory into practice.

For me in the "Green" field there are some groups dedicated to that and I still go to the monthly Greendrinks and Sustainable events (sadly EcoTuesday's have died here but they still exist in other areas) but there are a wealth of conventional organizations - for me that is MBA or even some ones that you may not think of such as the GSBA- there to help you truly meet others in your community. Having that is the best way of coping in finding how to make working at home work for you.

How to Make Working at Home Work for You

By ALINA TUGEND
Published: October 7, 2011
I WAS conducting an interview from my office, which doubles as my home, and was frustrated because the loud leaf blower outside was drowning out my words and thoughts. I walked from one room to another to find some quiet, stumbling at one point over a laundry basket. All the while, I was hoping I sounded professional.

Coincidentally, I was doing an interview on the pitfalls and pleasures of working from home. While the concept is nothing new, working from home has become increasingly easier and more necessary. Easier, with computers and smartphones, more necessary for those who want to, or have to, start their own businesses.

But the transition from a traditional office to one at home can be difficult. The most common danger is unproductively whiling away the hours without anything to show for it. Will you just hang out on Facebook or watch endless “Law and Order” reruns?

The truth is most people find a way to structure their workdays so they are as productive — or more so — than they were in a traditional office. But there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

“Each of us is different, and the way we work is different,” said Peter Bregman, a consultant and author of “18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction and Get the Right Things Done” (Business Plus, 2011). “The important thing is to understand who you are and embrace that.”

I happen to find it useful to step away from my computer and do some housework or laundry, but I always return to the task at hand after a short while.

Others use cleaning as a way to procrastinate endlessly. A friend of mine writing her doctoral thesis once told me it was amazing how many filters she could find to change in her house while avoiding her thesis. So for people like my doctoral candidate friend, taking a cleaning hiatus is a bad idea.

Mr. Bregman suggests focusing on what will make it more likely that you will do the jobs you need to do, rather than simply telling yourself you should have more discipline.

Figure out what works for you and what doesn’t, he said. For example, do you find yourself distracted by constant e-mails? Then reserve certain times of the day — and only those times — to check your e-mail. Or turn off your Wi-Fi if you don’t have the discipline to stop yourself.

Years ago, Roz Chast, a cartoonist, came up with an ingenious way to trick her young son so he wouldn’t know she was working at home. She would say goodbye and walk out the door, and her husband would take her son to the back of the apartment. She would then sneak back in and up to her studio.

Another classic work-at-home question: pajamas versus work clothes.

My friend Lois, who recently left an office job and is doing public relations work at home, told me: “Even though my last workplace was casual, I liked getting dressed in clothes ‘nicer’ than I would wear around the house. I thought I would still dress nicely, but soon thought ‘why?’ So I am experimenting with clothes that are casual and comfortable and definitely steps up from my one rule — no sweatpants or my husband’s old college T-shirt.”

Besides looking professional, there is the problem of sounding professional — which can be hard when the noises we associate with home, like barking dogs, lawnmowers and the occasional child’s outburst, crop up during an important call.

“The most awkward moments in the early days of working out of the office in my barn was being in the midst of phone call with a client from, say New York, when one of our roosters decided to let go with a mighty crow,” Cliff Stepp, founder of Stepp Up Consulting, said in an e-mail. “The client stops and asks incredulously, ‘Did I just hear a rooster?’ ”

And, of course, there are children. Even if you try to get all your work done while they’re out of the house, that’s not always possible. Mr. Bregman said he came up with two solutions. One was a rule that his children must knock on his door if it is closed and wait for him to tell them to enter.

And second, a lock on his door.

“You need to make rules, and you can’t break your own rules,” he said.

A good way to quiet external noise is to install an air-conditioner, which can also act as white noise, and to invest in a good set of headphones.

Then, there’s dealing with others’ assumption that working at home doesn’t really mean working.

“First, it should be called something else. When you say you “work from home,” all people (family, friends) hear is the word ‘home,’ ” Lois said. “Better to say ‘working remotely’ or ‘working off-site.’ My husband will now say, ‘You’re working from home today, right? Can you be sure to get my shirts from the cleaners and why don’t you research that trip to Italy?’ He would not ask me that when I worked in an office.”

Of course, one of the pluses of working, ahem, remotely, is the ability to do personal business during the working day (at least without having to hide from the boss). But you also need to make it clear to family, and even friends and neighbors, that you are working just as seriously as if you commuted to a corporate office every day, said Lisa Kanarek, a consultant on home offices and author of “Organize Your Home Office for Success” (Blakeley Press, 1993, updated 2011).

“You have to say that during the day is work time,” she said.

The opposite problem is loneliness. Workplaces offer a camaraderie that’s hard to give up — chatting about sports, complaining about spouses and bosses, going out for a colleague’s birthday lunch.

“I used to be so excited just to see the U.P.S. guy because he was someone to talk to,” Ms. Kanarek said.

If your friends are around, make some breakfast or lunch dates. If that’s not possible, then use Skype and plug into webinars so you’re around people, even if it’s virtual.

Attending conferences is a way to get out and mingle and meet people, and Ms. Kanarek suggested going to local business events. You can then become acquainted with people you can later meet for lunch or coffee.

Mr. Bregman suggested arranging to eat lunch at the same time as your husband, wife or partner, assuming he or she works elsewhere. Then shut your office doors and talk on the phone for 30 minutes.

“It’s an awesome way to have an affair with your own spouse,” he said.

Finding a place to have a business meeting can be tough if you don’t have a separate home office. Some choose Starbucks or a local restaurant, but others find that too casual. Increasingly, people are renting or co-renting office space.

“I have partnered with other small businesses who have conference rooms that are infrequently used,” said Denise Altman, president of Altman Initiative Group. “I pay a small fee per hour as needed for my meetings. It helps me look more professional.”

I will leave you with a few final thoughts that seem minor but can make the difference between enjoying and hating working at home. Invest in a good chair and a computer solely for business, Ms. Kanarek said. You don’t want a virus attached to your son’s computer game to crash your client’s project.

And make sure you have a mute button on the phone. That will come in handy more times than you can imagine.

The Living Building Challenges

2011-10-05T13:52:00.000-07:00

I drive by this project daily and I have yet to think about the significance of the project in terms of either building or community.

Perhaps it is my slow burn with LEED or simply I am well exhausted living here where I can't sustain myself economically and see more and more vanity and income inequity on display to the point of where I no longer care. Whatever it is I am simply going to say that this project ultimately will be defined by its costs and its overall long range goals.

As I have commented on the Gates Foundation and their project and the Amazon campus transformation of South Lake Union comes this the Bullitt Center deemed the Greenest Commercial Building in the world seems to be another project about its investors and less about the purpose and serving the community which surrounds it.

I hope this succeeds and that is where I will leave it. (Now if I could leave Seattle to places less green I might actually find work!)

The Self-Sufficient Office Building
By BRYN NELSON
Published: October 4, 2011

SEATTLE — One of the most highly anticipated development projects in the Pacific Northwest is still little more than a grid of concrete and rebar at the edge of the Capitol Hill neighborhood here. When completed near the end of next year, though, the six-story office building may be the greenest commercial structure in the world.

The building, the $30 million Bullitt Center at 1501 East Madison Street, is expected to set a new precedent for environmentally friendly design and construction and in doing so would reinforce Seattle’s reputation as a global leader in sustainable development.

As the future home of the environmentally focused Bullitt Foundation and other like-minded tenants, the Bullitt Center is designed to produce as much electricity as it uses, making it both energy- and carbon-neutral. The building will supply and treat all of its own water, capturing rainwater in a 50,000-gallon underground cistern. And its construction will exclude items on a “red list” of hazardous materials like lead and cadmium, a stipulation that has required developers to compile a spreadsheet of 362 prohibited building components.

If the Bullitt Center passes the self-sufficiency test after its first full year of occupancy, it will be certified as a “living building” by the International Living Future Institute, a group based in Seattle that has established a green building standard, called the Living Building Challenge, widely viewed as the world’s toughest.

“The story is that this building is pushing the boundaries of performance in all categories, not just in one or two,” said Jason McLennan, the chief executive of both the certifying institute and the Cascadia Green Building Council, a chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council that administers the better-known LEED rating system. “For this building type and this scale, it’s the first in the world to go this far.”

So far, only three modestly sized buildings have been fully certified as “living buildings,” a phrase Mr. McLennan coined in the ‘90s for structures that could operate “as elegantly and efficiently as flowers.” Joining the exclusive group means meeting expectations in seven areas, or “petals,” including water, energy, health, materials, site, equity and beauty; projects also may attain certification in individual petals.

Although the concept has not yet attained the popularity of movements like the primarily European Passivhaus, about 100 other “living building” projects are in development.

Denis Hayes, the president and chief executive of the Bullitt Foundation and a national coordinator of the first Earth Day in 1970, said his foundation’s future home had benefited from an integrated design process involving architects, engineers, developers and contractors.

Rising above an adjacent pocket park lined with gnarled sycamores, the building will be capped by a rooftop “sombrero” of photovoltaic panels expected to produce enough energy in the summer to overcome wintertime deficits and break even over an entire year.

The idea that solar energy alone could meet the needs of a multistory office building in overcast Seattle might strike some as wishful thinking.

But that will be accomplished through a combination of increased panel efficiency and a decrease in energy demands. The Bullitt Center is expected to use less than one-fourth the energy of a typical building its size; conventional usage would have dictated a 64,000-square-foot solar panel canopy that would have shrouded the block.

Even so, the solar panel array will extend out like a brim over the sidewalk, requiring a special permit from the city. Minimizing the building’s energy footprint has also required higher ceilings and windows to let in as much natural daylight as possible, tacking an additional nine feet to the building’s overall height and prompting an ultimately unsuccessful zoning challenge from a neighboring apartment building.

Meeting strict water usage rules could prove more onerous. As planned, the Bullitt Center will collect and treat rainwater for its showers, sinks and drinking fountains, then filter the used “gray water” through a lower-level green roof and a strip of landscaping. The building’s raw sewage will be composted and decontaminated before being shipped offsite to be converted into fertilizer.

The Washington State Department of Public Health requires urban public-use buildings that obtain their potable water from anything other than a municipal supply to chlorinate it. But chlorine would run afoul of the Living Building Challenge’s prohibitions on toxins, and the Bullitt Center’s backers are pushing instead for ozone purification, a less toxic method used elsewhere around the world.

Chris Rogers, of the building’s developer, Point32, said the project’s team was negotiating with state authorities over how to have the Bullitt Center’s water independently tested to prove that it would meet quality standards. Even if it does, the Bullitt Center will remain connected to the city’s water supply as a backup.

The project ran into another snag over financing. The Bullitt Foundation challenged a design firm, the Miller Hull Partnership, and their collaborators to develop a core of steel, concrete and timbers with a life expectancy of 250 years, a nearly unheard-of number in an industry that typically uses 40-year life spans in appraising the value of commercial buildings. With no comparable structures to point to, banks were at a loss for how to value many of the building’s central features, including its expected longevity and its energy and water self-sufficiency. Most balked at lending. Meanwhile, the upfront costs have run about one-third higher than for commercial structures of comparable size.

”Candidly, we had to put more equity into this building than we expected,” Mr. Hayes said. “We found only a very, very, very limited number of banks that would even consider making a loan, and the most generous of them gave us a construction permit for about 50 percent of the cost of constructing the building.”

Mr. McLennan said the difficulties in financing the project, however, could ease the strain on future efforts by providing a template for the added value of a living building. “How do you find comparables for a building that’s never been built like this before?” he asked. “You can’t.”

The project has won some important victories. Earlier in its development, it was a catalyst for the passage of a 2009 Seattle ordinance that set up a pilot program offering new flexibility in the city’s land use code for up to 12 potential “living buildings.”

After the developers selected highly energy-efficient windows from Schüco International, a German company, it agreed to set up its first American assembly plant, in the Puget Sound region. And Point32’s team persuaded Building Envelope Innovations, of Clackamas, Ore., to reformulate its Wet-Flash sealant, a liquid spray that creates watertight and airtight barriers, to exclude phthalates, compounds that mimic some human hormones and have been linked to disruptions in the endocrine system.

The Bullitt Center has early lease commitments for four of its six floors. The building’s general contractor, the Schuchart Corporation, will be a principal tenant, joining Mr. McLennan’s Cascadia Green Building Council in staking their reputations on the structure’s success. The foundation says rents will be comparable to those for other newly constructed, LEED-certified buildings in the area, and it eventually expects a positive return on investment.

Mr. Hayes said the project team was talking with behavioral economists on incentives to encourage tenants to practice environmentally responsible habits. Immediate feedback on energy use may be one. Competition among floors may be another, as well as making each tenant’s consumption public.

Designers also are not beyond a little bribery. At the site’s high point along East Madison Street, a glass-enclosed stairwell will connect the upper four floors. Those who choose to walk rather than take the elevator will be rewarded with spectacular views of the Space Needle and downtown skyline.

VA Home Loans

2011-10-04T12:06:00.000-07:00

Are you a Veteran seeking financing? There is a Military VA Loan program available for those both active duty and prior service veterans who already have an existing VA loan on their current residence.

VA loans are standard second mortgages often called Home Equity Loans made by private lenders (including banks, credit unions, or mortgage brokers)and are secured under the current VA benefit packages available to Veterans.

To see if this is a program you may be interested take a look to see if you qualify; Applicants may be required to provide a credit history, income documentation, job verification as well as appraisals (all standard requirements) but with rates low and, additional tax credits available to make your home energy efficient, the time may be right.

If you are looking for tips for efficiency and how you can find ways to make improve your home then check out how you might qualify for a VA Home Loan Refinance package.

Our service personnel are our greatest asset and your home is in turn your greatest asset. Maintaining its value, improving its energy use will in turn reduce your long term operating costs while increasing the home's overall value in the future.

Check out Military VA Loans for more information on this program and if you qualify.

Stay at Home Mommy

2011-10-04T12:02:00.000-07:00

Welcome Guest Blogger and Sponsor of today's entry

Stay at Home Mommy

The article written by Landon Gilbert

When we bought this house my husband finally told me I could quit my teaching job and stay home with the kids. I was ecstatic! I’ve been waiting for years to be a stay at home mom and I guess the only thing I was nervous about was being really firm with the kids when I spent all day with them. After I did all the moving stuff like unpacking and going to www.cabletvadvisor.com I decided to sit down each day and meditate over what I was going to do for myself to make myself a better mother. I know that sounds super new agey but it really worked and I feel like I’m stronger and a better mom than ever before. Setting tangible goals really helped me and although my kids or husband have no idea I feel better able to really stick to my guns when it comes to discipline. I love being the lady of the house and getting to spend so much time with my now well-behaved kids!

Nature Trust

2011-10-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

As we look to public and private partnerships in creating green building spaces we must also look to what they are doing with regards to our environment.

On that note today I received word of this collaboration to fill in the gaps that local Governments are hard pressed to do, such as cleaning up our water and land.

David Evans and Associates has partnered up with the Nature Conservancy to restore the natural historical washes in the watershed that had been altered for agricultural use along the San Pedro River in the Mexican state of Sonora up to the Gila River in Arizona. It is one of only two major rivers that flow north out of Mexico into the United States and is one of the last large undammed rivers in the Southwest.

David Evans and Associates is a national leader in sustainable design and management solutions, and has consistently provided its clients with award-winning approaches to transportation, energy, water resources, and land development design, planning, and management. As a result, the company has consistently ranked among Engineering News Record's Top 100 Pure Design firms in the U.S. and among the leaders in many of its local markets.

Engineers from David Evans and Associates are working with the Nature Conservancy and Mexican partners to decommission a berm and ditch system, allowing the hydrologic system to return to its natural pattern. The plan is to create a state of equilibrium for the river system, which will help minimize erosion in the area. According to The Nature Conservancy, the watershed provides refuge to federally endangered plant and animal species as well more than 100 species of breeding birds, and, seasonally, more than 250 species of migratory birds.

Gold Standard

2011-10-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

Seattle is now considering requiring any building for public purposes or using public financing to seek LEED Gold status as a minimum. Already requiring buildings here to attain LEED silver most buildings seeking LEED credentials usually as a matter of course pursue higher levels as a way of assuring a certification. So in the case of this it would mean a building would have to actually work towards Platinum level to make the Gold standard requirement.

As I have said before and will continue to do so the excessive fees and "requirements" to make a building LEED qualified are often not necessary, expensive and have no real values other than those of a marketing standpoint.

And in a time of very tight budget constraints paying a third party for a credential for a PUBLIC building (meaning its not exactly marketed or managed as a private building is) to me is the most egregious demand on a strapped tax base.

The USGBC is a non profit institute yet it earned last year $60 Million dollars from the fees associated with the LEED program. That seems small in comparison to the $60 Billion dollar green building industry but USGBC is also a very large and influential lobbyist in both Federal and Local Governments to the point of creating a monopoly in the Certification options in Green Build.

I think that has now demonstrated that they are no longer a non profit when generating significant influence in both the public and private sector.

This was the basis of Henry Gifford's since dismissed lawsuit against LEED asserting they were in violation of antitrust and racketeering laws. Since that time he now advocates that USGBC and their LEED program participate in "deceptive trade practices"

Hard words but in a recent article in Mother Jones, Gifford is quoted as saying: There are no objective empirical support for the claim that LEED buildings consume less energy and that the USGBC's false advertisements mislead the consumer"

Gifford has long been a critic of the program and feels that many of the LEED showy details such as solar panels installed in shadowy locations, etc overlook the basics of solid build - insulation, thermostats and water temperature.

Gifford has made it his business to examine LEED reports and analysis to find its flaws in measurements and found the claims that LEED buildings use less energy to be disingenuous.

To verify the claims of Gifford, Mother Jones, sent the analysis to John Scoffield a physicist at Oberlin who concluded that LEED certified buildings were not sufficiently superior to their standard build counterpart with regards to energy use. He is quoted as saying "there appears to be no scientific basis for encouraging LEED certification." When asked by Mother Jones, Dr. Scoffield is quoted as saying "its like requiring people to wear copper bracelets for arthritis!"

The USGBC responds by commenting that building energy use is dependent on well "use" and the long term operation and maintenance of said building. In other words hey we gave you a good building what you do with after that is your problem.

What was interesting was a note that Gifford had been recently hired by a USGBC board member to improve her homes' heating system. Upon contact for the article he was summarily fired. Said Gifford "With LEED, image is more than measured results."

As I have said I cannot afford to provide third party verifications and mostly because of the onerous costs to me personally, my risks professionally and since I don't do LEED I also don't do any others to not reflect a bias or make a call that one is "better than another."

I advocate Build Smart. I keep current on all the certification programs out there (and more come daily) but without LEED I am at a severe disadvantage. So if that is not a monopoly what is it?

Get Energized

2011-10-03T08:40:00.000-07:00

Currently there are many programs that are offering free to reduced loans for home weatherization programs thanks to a Government Grant focusing on improving home performance.

One company that can assist you with in finding out if your home is in need of home energy audit is the Home Energy Team. The do so through local home energy performance contractors in your own community.

Home Energy Team members possess certifications , the Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET), and the Building Performance Institute (BPI). They’re expert home energy survey professionals, home energy raters, building envelope professionals, building analysts and EnergySmart Contractors.

Home Energy Team provides a whole house solution to help you discuss the kinds of options you may need from energy efficient windows to damp basement solutions.

It begins with an assessment that provides you with a detailed report with recommendations for improving your home’s energy efficiency. Within that it includes cost estimates, expected energy and dollar savings, and the estimated "simple payback time period" that these costs will then pay for themselves. Home Energy Team provides a list of recommended home insulation contractors and even home repair grants for which you might qualify.

And Contractors: Home Energy Team are seeking qualified contractors to perform audits and improvements. Take a look at their site to find out if you can join their referral network in your area.

Now is a great time to take advantage of the types of grants and loans available to get your home ready for winter and Contractors this is also a great time for you to get working.

***this blog entry was brought to you by Homer Energy Team***

Living Green

2011-10-02T12:46:00.000-07:00

To live green is well a challenge. That is the whole reason the Living Green Challenge came to be.. to make buildings a fully living organism that is independent of energy use from sources they cannot easily produce and utilize in house.

Easier said and yes yes easily done. The rise to that challenge has to begin with the integration of that public/private partnership I have been writing about of late. Canada is ahead of the curve as in this project. The Okanagan College Center of Excellence. The firm of CEI Architecture clearly collaborated with the University system to pursue both purpose and function yet permitting design and thoughtfulness often ignored in public buildings. Sustainable design should not sacrifice either regardless of use or budget.

Beyond Being a Living Classroom, the Okanagan College Centre of Excellence, One of the Greenest Buildings in the World: Sets its Sights on the Living Building Challenge

Imagine an educational facility that is as much a teacher as the instructors standing at the front of its classrooms; a building powered by the resources of its surrounding environment; a building as full of potential as the students learning inside. That building is Penticton’s Okanagan College Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Building Technologies and Renewable Energy Conservation, a world-class educational facility that will train British Columbia’s next generation of tradespeople in green construction.

Okanagan College’s Centre of Excellence, which will mark its grand opening this fall, is designed to the standards of the Living Building Challenge, the most rigorous sustainability program on the planet. The challenge requires projects to meet a stringent list of qualifications, including net-zero energy and water consumption, and address critical environmental, social and economic factors. Successful Living Building Challenge projects are only certified if they prove they meet program requirements after 12 months of continued operations and full occupancy. At 6,780 square metres, the Centre of Excellence is currently one of the largest buildings to pursue Living Building certification.

“From the educational community to the design team to the various government offices involved, we came together to set the sustainability bar for the Centre of Excellence extremely high,” says CEI Architecture’s Tim McLennan. “The entire team worked incredibly hard to bring the building to life and the final result is perhaps the most innovative sustainability effort ever realized in the region. Designing to the standards of Living Building Challenge demanded a truly integrated design process, and buy-in from everyone involved.”

Innovative sustainability components throughout the building add up to make the Centre of Excellence one of the greenest educational facilities in the world. These include net-zero energy and water consumption made possible through features such as an in-floor radiant heating and cooling system, using an on-site water source drawn from 61 metres below the building; the largest array of photovoltaic solar panels in Western Canada; and composite concrete/wood panels in the gymnasium that contain piping for heating and cooling and are the first of their kind in North America. Nearly 100 per cent of the wood in the building is B.C.-sourced, including local pine from beetle-infested forests in the Okanagan.

The Centre’s planned educational programming includes Sustainable Construction Management Technology, Carpentry, Applied Ecology and Conservation, and Green Building Design and Construction, as well as the research and development of alternative and renewable energy sources.

The Okanagan College Centre of Excellence is a building that will help teach and spread the latest ideas and innovations in the green building movement, and that is so powerful,” says Jason F. McLennan (unrelated to Tim McLennan), CEO of the International Living Future Institute, the organization that created and oversees the Living Building Challenge. “It’s an exciting project and it will be very interesting to see how it influences others in the region, and around the world.”

Sign This!

2011-10-01T18:30:00.000-07:00

I received an interesting notice about a signage company that is not only committed to Sustainability in both its internal business but in its external products as well.

Impact Signs are committed to ensuring all signage they design and produce are done with a focus on a green and sustainable future. Impact Signs are also members of the U.S. Green Building Council which ensures they are informed on all current green building issues and LEED qualifications.

A pioneer in using 3form architectural sign materials in addition to a myriad of other Eco friendly materials; such as glass and reclaimed hardwood panels.

All metals used on projects from creation to disposal including any bronze lettering jobs are recycled.

In addition all lit signs include LEDs and they lead the way in solar panel technology, powering exterior lighted signs with a zero-net-effect on use.

LEED point(s) can be earned if the signage is used to communicate the green efforts of the building.

So if you are looking to sign up check Impact Business Signs.

Lock and Go

2011-09-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

I just received notice of a new flooring line called FreeStyle Commercial is an interlocking flooring that is adhesive-free and easy to install. It has a durable top layer that comes in a variety of decorative styles and colors. Best of all, FreeStyle is made with a resilient recycled plastic that is resists moisture and installs easily over a variety of problem subfloors.

The company calls it Place N Go™ Interlock System. Place directly over... Problem subfloors - cracks, high moisture, irregular surfaces; Existing floors - without removing asbestos & asphalt tile, resilient, wood, VCT, or concrete.
We are a green, environmental flooring company manufacturing inter-locking, modular, hard surface tiles from recycled materials. We’ve patented a process that eliminates the need to clean and pelletize plastic flake, thereby eliminating wastewater and reducing energy consumption. In addition, we will take back used tile and grind it up to make new tiles, making it 100% “cradle to cradle”. The flooring is eligible for LEED points and our FreeStyle flooring recently co-won the Massachusetts division of the USGBC’s Innovation in Green Design award for Technology/Product.

In addition to being green, our tiles require no adhesive or underlayment/padding. Its flexible composition, combined with its unique interlocking system allow FreeStyle Flooring to be installed over many problem subfloors, including high-moisture concrete, stained, cracked, and irregular subfloors, and old flooring. FreeStyle is attractive and water-proof.

The flooring is unique as it can appear to look as if its Cork, Bamboo or Wood. It can be used in either residential or commercial settings. The prices are reasonable run at $6.33 sf and perusing the website there are some sale bargains as well. Add the savings by not having to remove and dispose of old flooring (particularly if its has hazardous chemical in it - an expensive and arduous process) and the ease of labor installation the choice of Freestyle seems to be an easy one.

No Sex in this City

2011-09-22T12:50:00.000-07:00

As in my prior blog entry "A Tale of Two Cities" I discussed how projects in Bellevue a suburb not known for its accessibility has seemingly blossomed into a very green one without much fanfare or notice.

I wrote about the Elements project that incorporated retail, work and live spaces into an urban park environment. Green, visually interesting and user friendly it is something any private space should aspire when trying to encourage use and traffic but also making sure its maintainable - which translates into sustainable.

So now let's look at its rival - the South Lake Union area of Seattle. A once neglected inner city neighborhood of light industrial, cheap housing and hodge podge retail it was purchased a decade ago by Paul Allen under the delusional concept of turning it into Seattle's version of Central Park.

Well 10 years and Seattle's very typical NIMBY approach to that (the long debated Monorail project now officially closed, the debated light rail and the maligned Streetcar proves nothing comes to Seattle nice and easy) the park idea was scrapped and instead Vulcan (Allen's property development company) decided to build commercial buildings both Condos, Apartments and Buildings to attract burgeoning tech and bio tech firms. The biggest "get" was having Amazon agree to consolidate and build their headquarters in the area. And like all projects that have "tech" money linked to it the Carpetbaggers, the opportunists, the entrepreneurs and others flocked to partake in this "urban renewal" project.

The Seattle Streetcar (originally with the amusing if not appropriate acronym SLUT) was built to run ostensibly 5 blocks from the Seattle downtown core to the South Lake Union area (on a good day walking briskly I beat it). This was to harbor the "commuters" who would be coming down to the newly created hood and the adjacent and still existing Restaurants and Lake Union harbor area - it too had an appropriate nickname seemingly in perfect sync with the streetcar - the "Herpes" Triangle. Now ironically a large Hospital Cancer treatment area. Which in turn would benefit from the nearby Bio tech firms.. some long there - and the new ones expected.

All of this began before the economic downturn and in turn some of the Condos became Apartments and some tenants - Microsoft - pulled out leaving the buildings without tenants but gradually the neighborhood began to take shape shoving out the older less shiny tenants both residential and commercial.

I lived there briefly when I first returned to Seattle and I liked its convenience and urban quality but that was gladly before the new tenants arrived and with it rent and traffic increases. It was not for the better in my estimation and today 3 years later I see I was right to leave.

The apartments in the area have such high rents and fees that they turnover annually, the parks and the nearby stores once funky are now replaced with expensive shops. The greenest LEED project in the area was Perkins + Will building an exciting Architecture business that at one point became the smallest tenant dropping staff levels to under double digits. And with that other buildings were done with that credential in mind so you see a mix of old restorations with modern access and whimsy.

But the area's prime focus are the Amazon Buildings and they are the ugliest buildings yet. The only thing I can see green is operable windows. Undoubtedly they are energy efficient but aesthetically they are unapproachable as the plazas that surround them. They "own" the largest portion of the block and they in turn own the egress and area which Amazon is clearly to remind you with a series of signs stating Codes of Conduct and restrictions of use. Parental, condescending and seemingly unnecessary in an area that is mostly only for Amazon's use. Signs for restaurants and coffee shops indicate a public access but only upon entry do you find out you are in a 'private" coffee shop for only Amazon employee use. The doors to all the buildings are open while all staff walk about with key cards. Truly Amazon has managed to illustrate why Seattle is notorious for having a passive aggressive reputation.

The plazas and surrounding areas have no running water or grass which is ironic that Amazon allows staff to bring their dogs to work. So all the Amazon employees have to take their dogs to the PUBLIC parks in the area to relieve themselves. I am not sure its ironic, hypocritical, arrogant or a combination of all the above. As then the Amazon employees leave for the day and leave the dogs memories behind as well. While the neighbors and residents are on careful restrictions when on Amazon property.

The South Lake Union area has all the marks of what makes a bad neighborhood and all the marks of what is a good neighborhood but its not neighborly in the least and that is largely due to the Amazon culture.. its akin to Stockholm Syndrome, the affectation of Hipsters or just simply ignorance. But its the worst thing Seattle has to offer that isn't coffee. And some of that coffee you can't drink as it is reserved for Amazon use "only"

When Public Meets Private

2011-09-20T14:04:00.000-07:00

As I am right now focusing on the melding of public and private enterprise to retrofit and upgrade America from its infrastructures to its buildings I am looking at what is being done "right" vs "wrong" as I see how the public reacts and responds to the change and how it affects the community as a whole.

When public and private work it should be seamless it should be open and more important accessible. With the private market the end result is profits, with the public market it is affordable. When you merge the two it doesn't always work that way as I will demonstrate in my next blog about South Lake Union - a dynasty emerges and that is where the scale tips in favorite of one vs the other. And when its profit it usually means the public are losers as they pay twice - first in taxes and then in fees or restrictions of use.

So on that note another project that came to my attention via the New York Times this morning. The article caught my eye as I recognized the first building in the picture of a private live/work/retail space built in Emeryville a few years ago. It appears that it is going to be upgraded along with other projects throughout California.

A project that uses tax credits available - or what is called "submerged" programs that Government provides both individuals and businesses to do everything from attend school, get tax deductions and other programs not necessarily thought of as "socialist government programs." All the Energy Star credits of late are just such programs encouraging home owners to make their homes more energy efficient for the future.

And now comes the Green Build ones for commercial structures. As you can read in the article below what the long range ideas are for this plan. What it could mean is not only are buildings get what they need and communities are getting what they need to be green it hopefully builds both the construction and the renewable industries/trades. Although unfortunately I suspect much of the solar materials will be Chinese produced there may be a move to "build" America. Its possible and let's hope that idea catches on as well.

Tax Plan to Turn Old Buildings ‘Green’ Finds Favor
By JUSTIN GILLIS
Published: September 19, 2011

A business consortium that includes Lockheed Martin and Barclays bank plans to invest as much as $650 million over the next few years to slash the energy consumption of buildings in the Miami and Sacramento areas. It is the most ambitious effort yet to jump-start a national market for energy upgrades that many people believe could eventually be worth billions.

Focusing mainly on commercial property at first, the group plans to exploit a new tax arrangement that allows property owners to upgrade their buildings at no upfront cost, typically cutting their energy use and their utility bills by a third. The building owners would pay for the upgrades over five to 20 years through surcharges on their property-tax bills, but that would be less than the savings.

The consortium is led by a company called Ygrene Energy Fund of Santa Rosa, Calif., which has already won an exclusive contract to manage a retrofit program for a half-dozen communities in the Miami area, with the city expected to join in a few weeks. It is in the late stages of completing a contract with Sacramento, and is seeking deals in other cities.

State and city officials are optimistic they may have found a way to tackle one of the nation’s biggest energy problems — waste in older buildings — without new money from Washington. If enough building owners sign on, private capital would be put to work paying for retrofit projects that promise to save local businesses money while creating thousands of new construction jobs.

“We are so used to reaching our hand out and saying, ‘Washington, we need this,’ and ‘Tallahassee, give us that,’ ” said Edward MacDougall, the mayor of Cutler Bay, Fla., a Miami suburb that took the lead in setting up the deal in that region. “This is really a home-grown mechanism where we don’t need to do that.”

The consortium was put together by the Carbon War Room, a nonprofit environmental group based in Washington set up by Richard Branson, the British entrepreneur and billionaire, to tackle the world’s climate and energy problems in cost-saving ways. With the United States government nearly paralyzed on climate policy, he said, his group is seeking a way forward.

“We see this as the first of hopefully many, many, many projects, and a big step in the right direction,” Mr. Branson said in an interview last weekend in New York.

In the past three years, half the states have passed legislation permitting energy retrofits financed by property-tax surcharges, and hundreds of cities and counties are considering such programs. While the situation poses some risks, and programs aimed specifically at homeowners have run into a snag, many jurisdictions are moving forward with plans to focus on commercial properties.

Environmental groups have lauded the trend as one of the most exciting developments in years regarding climate change. They point out that wide use of such programs could cut emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from power plants by reducing electricity demand.

“It’s a big deal,” said James D. Marston, head of energy programs for the Environmental Defense Fund, a group that has worked with Carbon War Room in developing the approach. Over the long haul, he said, “we’re talking about tens of billions of dollars in investments, and energy savings that are 10 times that amount. If you do this correctly, you would be able to shut down a third of the coal plants in the country.”

While that may take a while, there seems to be little question that the new approach could draw substantial private capital into the market for energy upgrades, which have historically been difficult for many midsize and smaller businesses to finance.

As envisioned for Miami and Sacramento, the plans will work like this:

Ygrene and its partners will gain exclusive rights for five years to offer this type of energy upgrade to businesses in a particular community. They will market the plan aggressively, helping property owners figure out what kinds of upgrades make sense for them. Lockheed Martin is expected to do the engineering work on many larger projects.

The retrofits might include new windows and doors, insulation, and more efficient lights and mechanical systems. In some cases, solar panels or other renewable power might be included. For factories, the retrofits might include new motors or other gear.

Short-term loans provided by Barclays Capital will be used to pay for the upgrades. Contractors will offer a warranty that the utility savings they have promised will actually materialize, and an insurance underwriter, Energi, of Peabody, Mass., will back up that warranty. Those insurance contracts, in turn, will be backed by Hannover Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurance companies.

As projects are completed, the upgrade loans, typically carrying interest rates of 7 percent, will be bundled into long-term bonds resembling those routinely issued by governmental taxing districts. Barclays will market the bonds. Retirement funds have expressed interest in buying these bonds, which will be repaid by tax surcharges on each property that undergoes a retrofit.

Perhaps the most serious risk is that fly-by-night contractors will be drawn to the new pot of money, pushing energy retrofits that are too costly or work poorly.

“Contractors are cowboys,” said Dennis Hunter, chairman of Ygrene. He promised close scrutiny of the ones selected for the Miami and Sacramento programs.

Ygrene is one of about a dozen start-up companies around the country pursuing such deals. The company appears to have substantial momentum, but some of its competitors have already stumbled, telling property owners they qualified for retrofits but then failing to deliver the necessary short-term financing. Still, many people are optimistic this approach will get off the ground.

“This is a game-changer,” said John D. Kinney, whose company, Clean Fund of San Rafael, Calif., has raised $250 million to invest in such projects. The company just used the technique to help finance a large solar installation at a development called Sonoma Mountain Village in Rohnert Park, Calif.

Experts point out that, with modern techniques and equipment, a retrofit can typically cut a building’s energy use so much that the project pays for itself in as little as five years. The most famous recent example was the refurbishment of the Empire State Building, which cut energy use by nearly 40 percent, turning it into one of New York’s greenest buildings.

The new financing approach is called Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE.

For decades, cities and counties have created special taxing districts to finance improvements that benefit private property, such as street lights or sewers. Bonds are issued to pay for the projects, then repaid with surcharges on tax bills. If an owner sells, the surcharge stays with the property.

Several years ago, the city of Berkeley, Calif., hit on the idea of using that approach to finance energy upgrades on private homes. The idea took off, and 25 states and the District of Columbia soon passed PACE legislation. One of the most successful programs to date has been in Sonoma County, Calif., where retrofit projects exceeding $50 million have been financed.

While the initial focus was on homeowners, those programs slowed last year when an arm of the federal government that oversees the mortgage market took a hostile stance toward such projects on residential property, on the grounds that they add risk to mortgages. In most states, a lien associated with a retrofit project would have to be paid ahead of the mortgage if the property went into foreclosure.

A legal and political battle is under way to try to force the Federal Housing Finance Agency to reverse its stand. So far, it appears that PACE programs for commercial properties pose fewer legal complications.

A Tale of Two Cities

2011-09-20T12:51:00.001-07:00

This past month has brought me across the bridge to Bellevue a once sleeper commuter suburb of Seattle now becoming more of a city in its own rights thanks to the growth and development of an "urban" community surrounding its beautiful and green City Hall.

Now struggling to become part of the urban cities light rail if it goes through it will make Bellevue very much part of a larger destination and place to commute to vs from. Bellevue is adjacent to Redmond - home of one of the larger industries in the area - not Boeing - but Microsoft. Redmond has tried to become something more trying to build an urban village called Redmond Town Center - a hybrid of housing units and retail in which to attract young Microsofties to both live and work. An idea duplicated in San Jose in their downtown city core and Santana Row... they have struggled due to the economy (the Sunnyvale project failed) so I cannot be sure what they currently are but when I lived there it was primarily high end shopping (Gucci, Burberry, Tod's) and expensive rental/condo units. From a tour of the website it has gradually incorporated less elite brands and more diversity in style. As for rents they are standard for the area -high but these are "luxury" homes catering again to the tech elite market.

Redmond Town Center now a decade old originally began on a similar note and since then is now much more decidedly downscale and as a result not quite the "suburban" village it aspired. Bellevue too tried that with their Bravern project of high end condos mixed with high end shopping - Neiman Marcus, Hermes, etc. Early on a restaurant pulled out and many of the shops are vacant, the condos now are apartments but it has a nice public area with fireplaces and lounging chairs throughout with sadly few people to populate it.

Immediately adjacent is another more downscale and in fact also public private village called Elements. While still in its nascent stages it has great live feel work to it and its easily open and accessible to the other apartments and residences nearby.

As you can see by the photos it is highly open, airy and mixes urban park with industrial practicality. Two words come to mind: Approachable and Affordable. The French Bakery provides outstanding breads, small spas, work out facilities from a Pure Barre to a Yoga studio and more retail outlets that enable those who live and work variety.

I like the idea of the urban suburban landscape and the focus on green building in Bellevue has been low key yet their City Hall a block away is easily greener than even the famed Seattle City Hall across the bridge. Why? Because its not just asphalt. I will blog further about the two buildings in the future.

I am not against the idea of an urban live/work village and my personal favorite is the 19th street area of Oakland that revitalized what ostensibly was a neglected area of a city often neglected itself to its more famous cousin across the bay - San Francisco. What Oakland did right and San Francisco did wrong (as discussed in prior blog) is the focus on live/work/retail being again affordable and approachable.

And like another failure I believe is Seattle's South Lake Union. I will devote another blog to that neighborhood as I do believe its a public/private partnership that fails on the count of being both what determines success - being affordable and approachable.

As we look to making cities work I wonder why Seattle and San Francisco failed and why Bellevue and Oakland (two very distinctly different cities as well) succeeded. I believe its largely due to one factor - politics. The type of municipality that dictates the needs of its community and its clear that the City of Seattle failed where Bellevue (however no more affordable but not more than Seattle rental wise) is trying not to.

Ray Anderson - The Grandfather of Green

2011-09-12T07:07:00.000-07:00

I did not realize Ray Anderson the CEO of FLOR had passed on August 8th. I had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Anderson speak at the 2008 West Coast Green Conference and he was still passionate and positive about the role of green in design and build despite what at that time an immense economic shift was happening.

This morning the Economist provided an excellent eulogy about Ray Anderson, his work and influence in the Sustainable community. The man may be gone but the legacy of his vision and his role in green will live on. As a customer of Flor I can only say that is a fine one to leave.

The carpet-tile philosopher
Ray Anderson, America’s greenest businessman, died on August 8th, aged 77

Sep 10th 2011 |

WHEN Ray Anderson first encountered the concept at an international conference, it took his breath away. It was so smart, so right. It was flexible, practical, beautiful, and made perfect sense. He knew right then that modular soft-surfaced floor coverings (carpet tiles, in other words), could change the world.

Others thought he was round the bend. When he decided to give up his job at Milliken Carpet in LaGrange, Georgia to set up a 15-person carpet company, and was clearing out his desk that February of 1973, two colleagues looked in. “We don’t think you can do this,” they told him. He replied, in his languid, ever-courteous southern lilt, “The hell you say.” Fifteen years later his company, renamed Interface, was the biggest carpet-tile maker on the planet.

This also made Mr Anderson a considerable plunderer of the earth. He never thought about that at first. To his mind he was no more a thief of Nature than when, a country boy during the Depression, he had hooked 20-pound channel catfish, now long gone, out of the Chattahoochee River. His business complied with government regulations. His product, too, was much less wasteful than broadloom carpet, since you could easily cut the tiles to run cables underneath, and replace them one by one as they wore out. They were, it was true, almost entirely made of petroleum in some form or another. Some pretty bad stuff was used in the dye and the glue. More than 200 smokestacks blackened the sky to produce them. But boardrooms laid with Interface carpet tiles looked and felt a million dollars.

The turning point, his “mid-course correction”, came in 1994. He was 60, but not yet ready to retire to the mountains or chase a little white ball. Under pressure from customers to produce some sort of environmental strategy for his company, he got a small task-force together. Someone gave him a book, Paul Hawken’s “The Ecology of Commerce” to help him prepare his first speech on the subject. Thumbing vaguely through it, he chanced on a chapter called “The Death of Birth”, about the extinction of species. Reading on, he came to a passage about reindeer being wiped out on St Matthew Island in the Bering Sea. Suddenly, the tears were running down his face. A spear-point had jammed into his heart. It was the very same feeling, he said later, as when he had first seen carpet tiles, but orders of magnitude larger. He was to blame for making the world worse. Now he had to make it better.

Interface, he decided, would leave no print on the green-and-blue carpet of the world. By 2020 it would take nothing from the earth that could not be rapidly replenished. It would produce no greenhouse-gas emissions and no waste. That meant using renewables rather than fossil fuel; endeavouring to make carpet tiles out of carbohydrate polymers rather than petroleum; and recycling old-carpet sludge into pellets that could be used as backing.

Some of the technologies Mr Anderson hoped for (and half-envisaged, as a graduate in systems engineering from his much-loved Georgia Tech) had not been invented when he started. Several colleagues thought he had gone round the bend again. He had to bring them along slowly, in his quiet way, until they “got it” by themselves. But by 2007 the company was, he reckoned, about halfway up “Mount Sustainability”. Greenhouse-gas emissions by absolute tonnage were down 92% since 1995, water usage down 75%, and 74,000 tonnes of used carpet had been recovered from landfills. The $400m he was saving each year by making no scrap and no off-quality tiles more than paid for the R&D and the process changes. As much as 25% of the company’s new material came from “post-consumer recycling”. And he was loaded with honours and awards as the greenest businessman in America.

Most satisfying of all, sales had increased by two-thirds since his conversion, and profits had doubled. For Mr Anderson always kept his eye on the bottom line. He could be sentimental, ending his many public speeches with an apologetic poem to “Tomorrow’s Child” written by an employee after one of his pep talks, but he was only half a dreamer. His company was his child, too. Profits mattered. This made some greens snipe at him, but it also made Walmart send two of its senior people round to his factory in LaGrange to see what he was doing right. As a success, he could powerfully influence others.

The forest floor

He never dreamed of giving up carpet tiles. Their beauty and variety delighted him, just as Nature’s did. In his office in LaGrange they were laid out like abstract art on tables, while hanks of yarn hung on the walls. His company introduced Cool Carpet®, which had made no contribution to global warming all along the supply chain, and multicoloured FLOR for the home, “practical and pretty, too”. He was proudest, though, of Entropy®, a carpet-tile design inspired directly by the forest floor. No two tiles were alike: no two sticks, no two leaves. They could be laid and replaced quite randomly, even used in bits, eliminating waste. And when you lay down on them you might almost be in Mr Anderson’s 86-acre piece of forest near Atlanta, listening to the sparrows in the long-leaf pines, rejoicing in being a non-harming part of the web of life, like him.

Summer Daze

2011-09-09T12:47:00.000-07:00

The end of the summer is approaching for some and its time to think of the things you need to do before winter approaches.

For my pool owner friends (can I come by for a late dip?) its time to think of the maintenance routines you will need to close the pool for winter.

If you are looking for Automatic Safety Pool Covers" go to PCpools.com they have either the PowerTrak and/or the ManualTrak system available and either are the most affordable automatic safety covers on the market.

Are you in seasonable climate that allows you to swim year round? (I'll be right over) and looking for a safety pool cover to protect the pool when not in use and to make sure no uninvited guests use it when you are not around.

Try PCpools for your swimming pool needs. They have free shipping and a customer service person willing to help you determine what you need to keep your pool working all year round.

*******this blog post was brought to you by your friends at PCpools.com***********

Blu the New Green

2011-09-09T11:26:00.001-07:00

BluHomes is making a big splash on pushing forward the pre fab home concept. I was once deeply in love with them and then over time thought that the costs simply cannot be sustainable in building affordable green homes.

BluHomes seems to be on a course to change that. They purchased Michelle Kauffman (pre fab's greatest cheerleader and perhaps the mother of its revival) and are working on moving forward; however, I was surprised that given the recent Building Science conference in Denver they had no representative there to provide a discussion about where pre fab fits in the future of building but here is an article from Forbes that addresses their future and role in building affordable and green..

Blu Homes' Apple Approach to Building Green Prefab Houses
Todd Woody, Forbes Staff

In the Sept. 12 issue of Forbes, I write about Blu Homes, a Massachusetts startup that makes green prefab houses that fold up in the factory for shipping and are unfolded on site and bolted to a foundation in a day (see video at end of this post). The company aims to mass-produce environmentally friendly homes like Priuses, taking the cost and hassle out of custom home building.

Prefabricated or modular homes are nothing new – think doublewides. But about a decade ago they began to go upscale as architect-led firms started designing beautiful energy efficient abodes. The idea of so-called modern prefab was to shed manufactured housing’s down-market image as well as the waste and inefficiency of traditional “stick-built” homes constructed on building sites by a slew of subcontractors.

It didn’t quite work out that way. While modern prefab succeeded architecturally, it mostly failed in the factory. Firms often subcontracted manufacturing to different factories and achieved neither economies of scale nor the standardization necessary to mass-produce green homes, according to Allison Arieff, a former editor in chief of Dwell magazine and an influential figure in the modern prefab movement.

“The state of modern prefab is not good at all,” Arieff told me when I interviewed her for the magazine story on Blu. “If you figure it’s already a niche market, and it never claimed to be otherwise, you already have a small percentage of an overall housing market that is crummy.”

Blu’s founders – Bill Haney, a serial entrepreneur, environmentalist and filmmaker (The Last Mountain), and former venture capitalist Maura McCarthy – think they can succeed with an Apple approach to modern prefab: Combine drop-dead design with sophisticated software and control the entire home buying and building experience.

“We’re a technology company that builds homes,” says McCarthy, 31.

Blu has raised $25 million from angel investors like Abby Disney – Walt’s grandniece – and Haney has a 40% stake in the company. Blu used the funding to first solve a conundrum that has long bedeviled prefab firms. As Haney, 49, puts it, “The reason houses don’t get built in factories now is that to transport them they need to be narrow, but to live in them they need to be wide.”

Anything wider than 8.5 feet won’t fit on a standard tractor-trailer and thus shipping costs become exorbitant. Blu’s seven models are framed in recycled structural steel and equipped with hinges that allow a 21-foot-wide home to be folded up in a box and placed on a truck.

But it is software that makes the hardware a reality. Blu licenses an industrial-grade engineering software system called CATIA used by Boeing to design airliners, Virgin Galactic to build its suborbital space ship and automakers to create cars. When changes are made to a Blue model in CATIA, the algorithms not only make the necessary engineering adjustments but also calculate the cost and send the changes and a bill of materials to the machines and workers on the factory floor.

At Blu’s 120,000-square foot factory outside Springfield, Mass., McCarthy showed me the interface for the software that lets customers see models in 3D and choose and preview thousands of options, everything from the type of kitchen cabinets they want to the location of the kitchen.

Every item in the virtual house is a 3D replica of the actual product – down to the flanges in the Anderson windows – so that if client moves a door or chooses a more expensive appliance package, the software makes the necessary structural changes to the plans and updates the cost of the house. CATIA then tells machines on the factory floor how the steel frame should be stamped and where the holes for wiring and plumbing should be drilled.

That allows Blu to control construction costs – which have been halved over the past two years, according to Haney – while maintaining quality. For the customer, it means no endless meetings with subcontractors and visits to the construction site.

“We can give you something that is beautiful, we can give you something that’s done in a much more healthful way and it’s economic performance can be unusually good compared to a reasonable alternative,” says Haney. “We integrate design, engineering and construction and transport it to your site and put it up for you.”

Out on the factory floor, where houses are placed on giant rollers and moved from station to station, a 1,650-foot model called the Glidehouse is in the last stages of assembly, with workers installing sustainably produced wood cabinetry, low-flow toilets and other features that cut Blu homes’ energy consumption by 50%.

Later in the day, I head out to Pittsfield, Mass., in the Berkshires to take a look at an Element model that has been set up on a wooded lot for an 80-year-old customer. The light-filled 1,008-square-foot house clad in yellow siding has 13-foot ceilings and two bedrooms. The current version of the home starts at $160,000. Other Blu models are priced up to about $500,000 (land not included).

While the house offers minimal storage space, what sold her on Blu could be the company’s sweet spot: Sustainability, energy savings and minimal hassle getting a house built. “One of the things that I loved about modular is that they gave me a contract price and that is something I can control,” she says. “What I liked about Blu was that they were starting from a position of sustainability.”

But given the continuing housing meltdown, is there really a mass market for upscale mass-produced green homes beyond the coastal creative class that is Blu’s primary market?

Arieff is doubtful. “I think it’s impressive that Blu Homes has gotten the investment they have but much is stacked against them,” says Arieff, who thinks the key to creating a sustainable modern prefab industry is to focus on multi-family dwellings.

But Haney, who is set to open up a second factory north of San Francisco this year, believes there’s a cultural shift underway born of the excesses that begat the Great Recession that will spark wider demand for modern prefab.

“McMansion is now a joke and Hummer is now a punch line,” argues Haney, who invokes traditional Yankee values when discussing sustainability. “When we began this, we had this notion that the dominant ethic of American culture from 1670 to 1970 was pragmatism and self-reliance and since then we’ve become about materialism and self-indulgence.”

“The general notion that we want to be greener, we want to conserve, we want to be healthier – that’s a cultural trend that has not been thwarted by the economic downturn,” he adds.

And in a nod to more traditional architectural values, Blu’s latest model is a departure from the contemporary California esthetic of its other homes. The new model, called the Lofthouse, resembles a classic New England home, pitched roof and all.

Building Better Cities

2011-09-05T16:32:00.000-07:00

I read the recent book by Edward Glaeser, Triumph of the City, discussing the importance of cities in the American myth and legacy. And he argues that cities even those in downturn - such as Detroit - serve too significant an importance to be overlooked when it comes to creating Sustainable cities. And many of them have already the infrastructure and design in place that need upgrading or modification to rebuild and renew. The Greenest City perhaps is one that changes as the world around it changes.

Trendwatching.com reports that 180,000 people move into cities daily and in turn requires innovation and ideas to meet the diverse needs, economics and long term plans of what makes the city livable. One way many cities are doing so are by trying "pop up" concepts that require little infrastructure or tax commitment. If they work they are then incorporated into the landscape for the long term.

In my recent trip to Denver I loved the bike rental stations dotting all over the city and the parks that can be used for recreation and transportation. No wonder it has the reputation of the healthiest city in the U.S.

And on that note its important to realize that how a city defines itself and its needs will enable growth but more importantly ECONOMIC growth for its residents.

The article below discusses in cities that neglected the needs of such long term planning led to housing costs that skyrocketed and in turn created a massive exodus out of the cities. That brain drain leads to less innovation and of course diversity at all levels.

San Francisco is a classic example. A city of NIMBY advocates it has become a city of two incomes. The poor and the very rich living side by side and a community that is divided with severe income inequality is not a city worth living in for the long term.

I left San Francisco for that reason and its why I am planning on leaving Seattle - I can see the affects it has on my way of living but more importantly on the city overall and despite the efforts to enhance density here there is just no real work either and that cannot enable me to remain here for the long term.

One Path to Better Jobs: More Density in Cities

By RYAN AVENT
Published: September 3, 2011

Ryan Avent is an economics correspondent for The Economist and author of the Kindle Single “The Gated City,” from which this essay is adapted.
Related in Opinion

“HELL is other people,” wrote Jean-Paul Sartre. He nonetheless spent much of his life in Paris, the better to interact with other French intellectuals. Cities have long been incubators and transmitters of ideas, and, correspondingly, engines of economic growth.

That has never made the crowds less annoying. Maybe that’s why people try to tame the city by chaining it down and limiting who can build what where along its quieter streets. We lobby leaders to fight development, aiming to protect old buildings and precious views, limit crime and traffic, and maintain high-quality schools. But what makes a city a city and a not-city a not-city is the fact that a city is dense and a not-city isn’t. The idea of it may chill a homeowner’s heart, but the wealth supported by urban density is what gives urban homes their great value in the first place.

And when it comes to economic growth and the creation of jobs, the denser the city the better.

How great are the benefits of density? Economists studying cities routinely find that after controlling for other variables, workers in denser places earn higher wages and are more productive. Some studies suggest that doubling density raises productivity by around 6 percent while others peg the impact at up to 28 percent. Some economists have concluded that more than half the variation in output per worker across the United States can be explained by density alone; density explains more of the productivity gap across states than education levels or industry concentrations or tax policies.

Put two workers with similar skill levels in cities of different densities and the one in the denser place will be more productive, according to two decades’ worth of research from economists. The resistance to greater density slows job creation in productive places. Take, for instance, the San Francisco Bay Area, a beautiful place, blessed with outstanding climate, scenery and culture. It’s also an economic juggernaut, hub of the country’s tech industry and home to some of America’s highest wages. In 2009, the average Silicon Valley household earned about $85,000. Despite this, over 500,000 residents of the Bay Area moved elsewhere in the 2000s. Many of them left for places like Phoenix, which attracted over 500,000 residents from other American cities, despite wages 40 percent below Silicon Valley levels.

Factors like taste and taxes account for some of the migration, but the biggest reason for the shift is housing costs. The average Phoenix home is worth about 30 percent of the price of a house in San Jose. The difference in prices is mostly due to differences in building. In every year from 1992 to 2009, Phoenix granted permits for two to three times as many new homes as did the San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas combined. Around the San Francisco Bay, neighborhoods dead set against change successfully squeezed the housing supply, just as OPEC limits the supply of oil when it wishes to raise its price.

The “Not in My Backyard” philosophy sometimes, though by no means always, supports a high quality of life. Yet the effect is to raise housing costs and make rich cities more exclusive. Real trouble occurs when the idea-generators in cities with that NIMBY approach become so protective of their pleasant streets that they turn away other idea-generators, undermining the city’s economic role. And that is happening. Entrepreneurship rates in Silicon Valley were below the national average during the tech boom because firms couldn’t attract enough skilled workers.

Productivity and wages are rising in these growing Sunbelt cities, but not as fast as in the denser cities that workers are leaving. The average wage per job in Phoenix rose $10,700 from 2000 to 2009, while in San Francisco the increase was $14,500. But, while wages are growing in San Francisco, they would be growing faster if the city allowed the construction of more housing. More workers would be able to take advantage of the good job opportunities in the Bay Area, and the metropolitan and national economies would function better.

DENSITY isn’t a magic elixir. One can’t create wealth just by crowding people together; otherwise the super-dense metropolitan areas in emerging Asian countries would be richer than American cities. Density simply facilitates interaction. Interactions translate into wealth when a population is educated and local institutions support private enterprise and entrepreneurship.

The world’s richest places tend to be dense, with well-educated residents and a free-market-orientation (or tax havens or oil-rich) — think of New York and the Bay Area, of Singapore, Hong Kong and the Netherlands. Without a stock of skilled workers and a relatively open marketplace, density’s impact on growth and productivity will be limited.

What is it exactly that dense cities are doing? Consider a simple example. Suppose that within a population one person in 100 develops a taste for Vietnamese cuisine, and suppose that a Vietnamese restaurant needs a customer base of 1,000 people to operate profitably. In a city of 10,000 residents, there aren’t enough people to support a Vietnamese restaurant. The only restaurants that can operate profitably are those appealing to considerably more than one in 100 people — restaurants offering less daring fare. In a city of 10,000 people, there is little room for specialization, and less for experimentation.

A city of one million people, by contrast, can support multiple Vietnamese restaurants. Not only will this larger city enjoy a specialty cuisine unavailable in less populous places, but its ability to support multiple producers of this cuisine allows for competition, improving the price and quality.

A city with multiple Vietnamese restaurants may attract sellers of the fresh ingredients used in Vietnamese cooking, who then invest in distribution of those products in the larger city. This, in turn, attracts the sort of discerning eaters who favor authentic, high-quality Vietnamese food, reinforcing the concentration of Vietnamese eateries. The larger market facilitates competition, which again boosts quality and reduces prices. This is good for consumers. But competition also means better service from suppliers and growth in the consumer market, which is good for the restaurants. The result is a stronger, more productive and higher-quality microeconomy than in the city of 100,000, where only one Vietnamese restaurant can survive, or the town of 10,000, where there is none at all.

Density doesn’t work without talent. A small market may only support restaurants producing food that caters to a broad range of tastes. These restaurants will have to hire generalists — cooks who can produce a broad range of cuisines. Specialization and fine-tuning of one’s skills aren’t rewarded; too few patrons will have the specific taste for the particular cuisine to appreciate the quality. Time spent nailing down the nuances of one cuisine is time a chef isn’t using to maintain a good-enough command of a broad range of dishes.

In the larger market, supporting multiple niche cuisines, the calculus is different. Because there may be multiple Vietnamese restaurants competing for patrons, mastery of that specific style is necessary to maintain an edge against the competition. This is particularly true as the concentration of Vietnamese restaurants is likely to attract devotees of the cuisine with a well-developed knowledge of and taste for it. Hence, the larger marketplace pushes for, rather than against, specialization.

Meanwhile, a worker hoping to make a living as a Vietnamese chef will have a much easier time of things in the larger city. Labor turnover may be greater — if there’s only one Vietnamese restaurant in a town, then head-chef spots may only rarely open up — and so the odds of finding employment are higher. The larger city also provides insurance against bad fortune. If you’re a Vietnamese chef working at the one Vietnamese restaurant in a town and the one Vietnamese restaurant goes bankrupt, then you’re obviously in a tough economic situation. You must either take another job for which you’re less qualified, which may mean a reduction in compensation, or move. In the larger city, by contrast, competing restaurants can absorb and reemploy the labor and resources of defunct competitors.

This insurance function is important. It reduces the risks associated with specialization and therefore encourages more of it. By allowing workers to focus on tasks at which they’re relatively better than others, specialization helps drive economic growth. It’s also an engine of innovation. As workers focus on a specific task, they may well find better ways to do it. They might better schedule their days or invent something entirely new — software code written to expedite repeated tasks, or a machine that automates portions of a task. Of course, existing companies can be resistant to innovation. Dense cities, by acting as a source of insurance, enable workers with good ideas to take risks and start new businesses. If these workers fail, they have a good chance of finding employment elsewhere in the city. And if they succeed, the task of staffing the company is made easier by the existing pool of talent, and odds are good that customers and suppliers are close to hand, as well. Big cities provide a climate in which innovation can flourish, and in which innovators have the resources they need to exploit new ideas.

WHAT’S true for Vietnamese cooking is true of skill-intensive industries. The American economy’s famous upward mobility rested in part on middle-class access to rich, entrepreneurial cities. This machinery is breaking down, however, mostly because upward mobility strikes too many residents of rich places as too messy a pursuit to accommodate. During the Industrial Revolution, for instance, millions of workers flooded into fast-growing cities. This produced slums, but it also allowed poor workers to take advantage of opportunities in new industries, a process that helped create the middle class.

Rapid urban growth would mean denser neighborhoods, which makes many Americans uncomfortable. Preventing this density, however, denies workers access to the best opportunities, constraining the mechanism that helps support a strong middle class.

We can hope that as the Phoenixes and Houstons grow and attract skilled workers, their wage levels will converge with those of the slow-growing, high-wage coastal cities. Yet that may simply encourage their residents to pull up the ladder after them as coastal residents have. Eventually, Americans will learn that if they can’t harness their cities as tools of growth and mobility, they’ll have to find costlier ways to address the country’s lingering economic ills.

Green Build - America

2011-09-05T15:33:00.000-07:00

Today I read a great article about a builder's challenge to himself.. to build green and to build by using only American made products to accomplish this means.

And what is great about this? Well that a builder is still pushing energy efficiency, green build and still why staying true to his roots. Mr. Lewendal is not a green liberal latte drinker and yet here he is espousing very green views but more importantly views anyone on any side of a political fence can agree - building for America with American products.

And while the challenge has been that he is finding costs are negligibly higher but with that quality and time saved. Shocking? Not really as anyone who has worked with many of the poorly constructed Chinese products of late.

Can this be done? Absolutely because that is something we are definitely not short of commitment and innovation.

I look forward to hearing more about this very Green American Build.

All-American, Floor to Roof? Not So Simple

By KIRK JOHNSON
Published: September 4, 2011

Kat Quinn owns the house Mr. Lewendal is building, and she has reasons of her own for liking his all-American approach.

He is trying to do just that with a new home here on a side street a few blocks from downtown. But it is not as easy as it sounds.

Some things are simple enough. Wood literally grows on trees, of course, especially here in forested western Montana. And no one ships cement or concrete mix any farther than needed.

After that it can get tough. In a global economy, even American-assembled appliances probably have at least some foreign made or mined components, Mr. Lewendal said.

Tiny components like nails, screws and light bulbs, mundane but crucial, are significantly cheaper if bought from China or other developing nations. High-end frills — which tend to be imported, like Italian marble or mahogany — may be doomed to stay on the dock or in the showroom.

And all that does not even address the question of whether using illegal immigrant labor, a mainstay of the construction industry around the nation, counts as foreign.

“Part of the impact of the recession has been healthy, in making people rethink what housing is for,” said Mr. Lewendal, who conceded that perfection in his goal is probably not possible. The locally made cement, he suspects, could have some imported chemicals, for example, and the recycled glass from Yellowstone National Park that he laid down as a base layer under the garage could well have contained an imported beer bottle or two. As for his workers, he said, they are all here legally.

“The point is that little things can add up,” he said. “I think we could solve this recession if everyone shifted just 5 percent of their purchases to U.S.-made products.”

In some ways, it is an old idea, echoing a hard-hat refrain from the 1970s or earlier: Buy American. In other ways, though, it is as current as the environmental message that hangs over every urban farmers’ market: Buy Local.

Mr. Lewendal said that because the 2,280-square-foot, three-bedroom house he is building will conform to high energy-conservation standards — more points are awarded for materials obtained close to the site — the economic and social implications all blur. And in a brutally competitive local market, he added, pitching all-American could also be a marketing niche in tune with the times.

“I don’t see any politics to it at all,” said Mr. Lewendal, 51, who described himself as a conservative and is the chairman of the local homebuilder association’s green building committee. “It’s about jobs.”

The house’s owner, Kat Quinn, also has a complex agenda. For health reasons, she wanted a house built to strict environmental standards, and after she met Mr. Lewendal and heard about the all-American home idea, she became convinced that buying American could put pressure on foreign companies to raise wages for their workers.

She said she does plan, though, on having a Canadian-made trampoline in the house, to use in therapy for a daughter with cystic fibrosis.

Bozeman’s economy was not devastated across the board by the recession. Montana State University, a big local employer, created a base of stability, and the proximity to Yellowstone, about 90 minutes south, kept up a flow of tourists.

But where bad times bit, they bit hard, and that was in construction. The vacation- and second-home market that plumbers, roofers and framers depended on dwindled to almost nothing starting in 2007, taking out more than a third of all the construction work here in Gallatin County in just 24 months, according to state figures.

Justin Tribbitt, a former general contractor now working in computer software, lost his company; three of his five former employees left town. Mike Wilhelm, an electrician, went from six employees to two. Rock Larocca, also a contractor, survived with the aid of a chainsaw, helping cut down trees killed by a beetle infestation.

“It’s kind of like getting a drink out of the garden hose and suddenly the valve shuts off and it’s dry,” said Mr. Tribbitt, 32. “It was gone just like that.”

Mr. Lewendal conceded that perfection in his goal is probably not possible.

Some who managed to hang on said that whether the all-American home idea is good marketing for Lewendal Construction or good economics for the country, or both, it feels right to them. Mr. Lewendal, admirers said, is taking action.

“More power to him,” said Ryan Engbretson, a builder who said that his company had survived mainly by doing repair work.

Economists say it is hard to verify Mr. Lewendal’s assertion that about 75 percent of the average American home is made in the United States already, mainly because it does not appear to be something anyone has deeply studied. His estimates that going American will add only 2 percent to 3 percent to the $265,000 construction cost of the Bozeman house by the time final purchases are done — he is still shopping for things like light fixtures — are also difficult to independently confirm.

“The truth is that we are in a global economy and it’s very interconnected, for good or bad,” said Albert Saiz, an assistant professor of real estate at the University of Pennsylvania and co-editor of the journal Housing Economics. “It’s very hard to know the impact of your purchasing decisions and the consequences of what you do.”

Professor Saiz said the fluid nature of labor markets could also make the implications of all-American more complicated. In much of the nation, for example, though less so in this working-class corner of Montana, houses are built with Mexican or other foreign-born labor, which is a kind of foreign input since a part of the wages often goes back across the border.

And if demand for, say, nails or screws made in the United States did go up, Professor Saiz said, the basic manufacturing industry jobs created — low skill and probably low pay — are the kind that American workers are often disinclined to take anyway.

But Mr. Lewendal, who earned an undergraduate degree in economics before going into construction, said costs and benefits are more complicated than a spreadsheet can convey. The nails he bought from a company in Illinois are about $5 more per box, for instance, but he said they jam the nail guns less often than the cheaper Chinese brands, which are less uniform.

“If a guy has to get down three times a day to clear the gun, that’s time wasted,” he said.

Some elements of his experiment are certain to endure, if only inside the home itself. Mr. Lewendal, in showing a reporter around the house, which he hopes to complete this fall, repeatedly illustrated his ideas with diagrams and math equations, scrawling with a black marker on the bare beams and panels — writing that will be preserved, like a time-capsule message to the future, behind the wallboard when the work is done.

Green Jobs Dying on the Vine?

2011-09-02T09:06:00.000-07:00

After Van Jones left the White House no other person has occupied the position of Green Jobs Czar and since that Mr. Jones has organized a new group that focus on restoring the Middle Class through series of ideas - green jobs only a part of that equation.

So what happened to Green Jobs - the President that promised to harness the wind, the sun and the water to generate energy and make our planet cleaner and less dependent upon fossil fuels. Well the message is a mixed one.

Currently the Keystone XL Pipeline project a 1700 to transport tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada to Texas a project Along its route from Alberta to Texas, this pipeline could devastate ecosystems and pollute water sources, and would jeopardize public health. And yet we can't have high speed light rail.

And today this was just announced: President Barack Obama unexpectedly asked the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday to withdraw a plan to limit smog pollution, handing a big win to business and Republicans who have argued the initiative was a job killer in uncertain times.

And while Obama was indeed supportive of Solar Projects this week brought devastating news to the fragile industry and economy with the bankruptcy and subsequent closing of Solyndra. And in turn defaulting on a federal loan of over 500 Million.

There is no question its failure along with two other US Solar manufacturers this year gives fuel to the fire about providing Government subsidies to risky new green industries. And the current anti bailout divisive climate does nothing to aid in growing any green business. Funny however that when it came to banks and auto makers despite their mismanagement, corruption and greed the ones who did get Government aid came through more profitable than ever. So there is more to the story as to why Solydra was "too small to succeed." The coincidence that GE (a potential competitor) is on the job committee I am sure had nothing to do with it.....

This from Bloomberg News..

President Barack Obama is standing by his support for renewable energy after Solyndra Inc., a maker of solar panels that received a $535 million U.S. loan guarantee, shut its doors, a White House spokesman said.

Solyndra suspended operations and plans to file for bankruptcy reorganization because it couldn’t compete with larger rivals, the closely held company said in a statement yesterday.

Obama had touted Solyndra as part of the U.S. effort to aid development of alternative energy sources, and its failure was cited by Republican lawmakers who say the subsidies are misguided. It’s the third U.S. solar company to go under in a month, as plunging panel prices and weak global demand drive a wave of industry consolidation.

“While we are disappointed by this particular outcome, we continue to believe the clean-energy jobs race is one that America can, must and will win,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said today in an e-mailed statement. Obama visited the Fremont, California-based company in May 2010, and said the U.S. was in competition with China and Germany for supremacy in renewable energy.

The Energy Department’s portfolio of dozens of other government-backed investments “continues to perform well and is on pace to create thousands of jobs.”

Solyndra is likely to file for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware on Sept. 7, as it evaluates options including selling itself or licensing its technology, David Miller, a spokesman for the Fremont, California-based company, said in an e-mail. About 1,100 full-time and temporary employees have been dismissed. The company didn’t say how much it owes creditors.
Couldn’t Compete

“Solyndra could not achieve full-scale operations rapidly enough to compete in the near term with the resources of larger foreign manufacturers,” the company said in the statement. Its problems were exacerbated by a global glut of solar panels and slowing demand “that in part resulted from uncertainty in governmental incentive programs in Europe.”

The company may have trouble finding a buyer, said Adam Krop, an analyst at Ardour Capital Partners in New York.

“I don’t see anyone swooping in,” he said in an interview. “I don’t see this technology as very viable in the long-term. I see someone maybe buying the facility.”

Solyndra produces cylindrical panels that convert sunlight into electricity using copper-indium-gallium-diselenide thin- film technology. Standard solar panels are flat.

“Manufacturing and assembly costs associated with a Solyndra module aren’t particularly scalable,” Krop said.

The company has borrowed $527 million of the $535 million covered by the Energy Department loan guarantee, Damien LaVera, a department spokesman, said in an e-mail.

Solyndra plans to include the Energy Department loan guarantee in its bankruptcy filing.

‘Dubious Investment’

Solyndra’s failure calls into question Obama’s renewable energy policies, according to two Republican House members.

“It is clear that Solyndra was a dubious investment,” Representatives Fred Upton of Michigan and Cliff Stearns, of Florida, said in a joint statement yesterday. The company “is just the latest casualty of the Obama administration’s failed stimulus.”

Investments in start-up companies inevitably involve some risk, Dan Leistikow, director of the Energy Department’s Office of Public Affairs, said in an article on the agency’s website. “The changing economics have affected a number of solar manufacturers in recent months, including unfortunately, Solyndra,” he said. “We have always recognized that not every one of the innovative companies supported by our loans and loan guarantees would succeed.”

Ceding to China

Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, said the U.S. must continue to support renewable energy. Recent bankruptcies of U.S. solar companies are a warning and “we should be doing everything possible to ensure the United States does not cede the renewable energy market to China and other countries,” he said in an e-mailed statement.

SpectraWatt Inc., a solar company backed by units of Intel Corp. (INTC) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), filed for bankruptcy protection Aug. 19, and Evergreen Solar Inc. (ESLR) did so Aug. 15.

SpectraWatt of Hopewell Junction, New York, received a $150,000 grant in June 2010 from the National Science Foundation, and a grant of $500,000 in June 2009 from the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Solyndra canceled in June 2010 plans to raise as much as $300 million in an initial public offering.

Solyndra’s backers include Argonaut Private Equity, GKFF Investment, CMEA Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Rockport Capital Partners LLC, US Venture Partners, Virgin Green Fund, and Artis Capital Management LP, according to the company’s December 2009 IPO filing.

Despite what is a surplus of technology to China regarding Solar Technology the US is slowing losing ground on the actual production and manufacturing of solar products. Once again not because China is superior on innovation or even cheap labor its the amount of Government funding that is building and sustaining this industry. As this article in today's New York Times discusses. (Below for your review)

As GE is claiming to be a foreward thinker on alternative energy and Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO who uses China as a noun, adjective, verb and adverb as often as he can is ironically Obama's current "job czar" no color provided. I wonder if that means GE brings good things to light in China by developing the technology they need to build what in turn they will sell back to us.

Even Solyndra realized that despite their setback the technology itself is valuable. But for job creation the value is lacking

China Benefits as U.S. Solar Industry Withers

Workers install solar panels at a power station in Hami in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.

By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: September 1, 2011

HONG KONG — The bankruptcies of three American solar power companies in the last month, including Solyndra of California on Wednesday, have left China’s industry with a dominant sales position — almost three-fifths of the world’s production capacity — and rapidly declining costs.

Some American, Japanese and European solar companies still have a technological edge over Chinese rivals, but seldom a cost advantage, according to industry analysts.

Loans at very low rates from state-owned banks in Beijing, cheap or free land from local and provincial governments across China, huge economies of scale and other cost advantages have transformed China from a minor player in the solar power industry just a few years ago into the main producer of an increasingly competitive source of electricity.

“The top-tier Chinese firms are kind of the benchmark now,” said Shayle Kann, a managing director of solar power studies at GTM Research, a renewable energy market analysis firm based in Boston. Pricing of solar equipment is determined by the Chinese industry, he said, “and everyone else prices at a premium or discount to them.”

Besides Solyndra, the other two American manufacturers that filed for bankruptcy in August were Evergreen Solar, of Massachusetts, and SpectraWatt, a New York company. Another company, BP Solar, halted manufacturing at its complex in Frederick, Md., last spring.

Those bankruptcies and closings represent almost one-fifth of the solar panel manufacturing capacity in the United States, according to GTM Research.

Solyndra and Evergreen in particular suffered because they pursued unusual technologies whose competitiveness depended on their using less polysilicon, the main material for solar panels. That has become less important because polysilicon prices have tumbled more than 80 percent in the last three years as output has caught up with demand.

Analysts say that two American companies remain strongly placed. One is First Solar, the largest American manufacturer, which uses a different technology but has its biggest factory in Malaysia. The other, SunPower, is much smaller but is an industry leader in the efficiency with which its panels convert sunlight into electricity, so that they sell at a premium to Chinese panels.

But with Beijing heavily supporting its industry, the Chinese companies are forging ahead.

“There is no question that renewable energy companies in the United States feel pressure from China,” said David B. Sandalow, the assistant secretary for policy and international affairs at the United States Energy Department. “Many of them say it is cheap capital, not cheap labor, that gives Chinese companies the main competitive advantage.”

China’s three biggest solar power companies — Suntech Power, Yingli Green Energy and Trina Solar — have all in the last two weeks announced second-quarter sales increases of 33 to 63 percent from a year earlier.

Yingli and Trina were also profitable in the quarter. Suntech posted a loss, mostly because it broke a longstanding agreement to buy solar wafers — critical components in the manufacturing process — from a Singapore affiliate of MEMC Electronic Materials of Missouri. Suntech aims to make more wafers itself.

Shares in large and small Chinese solar power companies have mostly rallied in the last two weeks on the New York and Hong Kong stock markets, as investors have welcomed their strong quarterly results and the prospect of dwindling competition from Western rivals. Besides the bankruptcies in the United States, solar power companies in Germany, another big producer, have been laying off workers and retrenching.

The recent strength of Chinese stocks “truly reflects the low cost base of the Chinese solar manufacturers, and it is great to see their positioning, particularly relative to their American and European counterparts,” said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a Chinese clean energy investment company based in Beijing.

He attributed the Chinese industry’s low costs not to inexpensive labor in China — high-technology solar panel manufacturing is not labor-intensive — but rather to free or subsidized land from local governments, extensive tax breaks and other state assistance.

Solar panel prices have plunged by 30 to 42 percent per kilowatt-hour in the last year as manufacturers have sharply increased capacity, particularly in China. Meanwhile, demand has been somewhat weak in the main markets in the United States and Europe.

Costs for electricity generated by utility-scale solar installations now approach costs for natural gas in some markets, like California’s, when subsidies of as much as 30 percent of the price are included. However, costs remain well above the cost of electricity from coal.

The United States and the European Union have tried to build demand for solar power by subsidizing the buyers of solar panels. But increasingly those subsidies are being used to buy solar panels from China.

The Chinese government has pursued a different policy course. Instead of subsidizing the purchase and use of solar power, China has focused on building the competitiveness of the country’s manufacturers. As a result, China exports 95 percent of the solar panels it produces. The United Steelworkers union filed a legal complaint a year ago with the United States government, asking the Obama administration to investigate China’s clean energy subsidies and other policies and to bring cases against them at the World Trade Organization. The organization’s rules strictly prohibit export subsidies, to prevent countries from buying market share in foreign markets for their producers.

The administration did challenge one Chinese government practice: giving subsidy grants of $6.7 million and $22.5 million to Chinese wind turbine manufacturers that agreed not to buy imported components.

China agreed in June to discontinue the practice, but by then it had already built the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturing industry over the last five years and now has highly competitive Chinese producers for almost every component.

Nkenge L. Harmon, a spokeswoman for the United States trade representative’s office, said on Thursday that the agency’s investigation continued into whether other Chinese green energy policies might violate W.T.O. rules.

Saving For a Rainy Day

2011-08-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

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Green is Not Just A Color

2011-08-22T10:54:00.000-07:00

Despite the downturn in the market Green Building sells.. but at what cost and is this just another form of luxury build?

From Eco Home Magazine they found that homes "certified" green sold faster and at higher rates. The study done by a Certification group - Earth Advantage is highly selective and flawed. This was done only by Real Estate Agents giving them the information (a group I find duplicitous in the best of times) and is on averages - not compatibles and is done in Portland, Oregon an area of the country that is notoriously green and doing well economically to support the price variations. But this is what they found...

The study from Portland-based nonprofit Earth Advantage Institute, which analyzed sales data for May 2010 through April 2011 from the Portland Regional MLS, found that green-certified new homes, on average, sold for 8% more than non-certified ones. In one of the six counties reporting figures, the premium was more than 23%. Certifications came from Energy Star, LEED for Homes, Earth Advantage, or an Earth Advantage/Energy Star combination.

The difference in sales price was even higher for existing homes: an average of 30%, with one county reporting a premium of more than 61%. This is the fourth year in a row that the institute has done the analysis and found certified homes selling for more than conventional ones.

The information was supplied by real estate agents and is based on averages—not comparables—but even so, the study’s authors noticed a consistent trend, even while home sales in general were down: Third-party certification results in a higher sales price, says Dakota Gale, sustainable finance program manager at the Earth Advantage Institute.

Can this information used to greenwash or to manipulate customers to think this is just another feature like a granite counter top? I am not sure but given how hysterically people bought homes and were misled by many of those they presumed were being honest and working on behalf of their best interest I have concerns.

Add to that the appraisal value may not take into account the actual efficiency measures put into the home that distinguish them and having a ERV or Geothermal heat vs having Bamboo flooring and Eco-friendly counter top are hardly equivalents in determining what makes something green.

We have a lot of work to do in clearly understanding what defines "green" and makes a home unique and what it also takes to maintain and insure the property properly. That too must be taken into account when looking at green build - maintenance, upkeep and replacement value is inherently different and I rarely see that mentioned in any article on the value of green.

Bits and Pieces

2011-08-22T09:41:00.000-07:00

Being away for a week and coming home I am just catching up on some Green news.

First up the lawsuit against the USGBC has been thrown out of court.

The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has dismissed Henry Gifford's lawsuit (PDF) against the US Green Building Council.

Gifford originally filed a class action lawsuit for $100 million dollars based on the alleged false advertising by the USGBC. The lawsuit was later amended to only cover four plaintiffs but the allegations remained the same -- the USGBC was falsely claiming that LEED certified buildings were energy efficient.

A plaintiff that brings a lawsuit must show standing in order to prove that the right person is bringing the lawsuit. Since Gifford's allegations of false advertising fell under the Latham Act, he had to satisfy two tests to show standing:

(1) The Strong Categorical Test
"The strong categorical test provides that 'the plaintiff must be a competitor of the defendant and allege a competitive injury.'" The court held that Gifford, a building energy efficient consultant, and the USGBC, which certifies buildings, were not competitors because Gifford does not certify buidings.

(2) The Reasonable Commercial Interest Test
Under the reasonable commercial interest approach, a plaintiff must demonstrate "both likely injury and a causal nexus to the false advertising." In holding that Gifford failed this test, the court explained that owners could hire any consultant they wanted for a LEED building. Furthermore, the court posited that even if Gifford could show one owner that would only hire a LEED Accredited Professional consultant, it could not be proven that the owner's decision was based on the alleged false advertising.

The crux of the suit was regards to the "false advertising" made by USGBC and their LEED programs to declare unfair competition to those not LEED consultants and in turn claiming as a result of their efforts the building was superior to a non-LEED certified building.

Sounds as if the court threw it out with just cause but then again our current court system is pro business as the recent Supreme Court rejections of the class action cases against Wal-Mart and AT&T were based.

I do believe that whatever the result is provides an important element in making sure when you claim something, sign your name to something that all the claims made can be demonstrated. And as one individual signing such a document to such a complex material as a building I frankly would be cautious as to what that means. And its why I don't do third party verifications for any organization (despite my involvement, education and support of any build program).

The next up is San Francisco moves to making all homes Green labeled. As in Boulder this program is targeting the entire city in making homes energy efficient. How its administered and of course financed will be determined. But in already expensive and still booming housing market I am sure it will add costs and in turn push more working class people and the poor out of the market entirely.

This is from the SF Gate:

S.F. 'green-grade' home program may boost value

David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Energy-efficient homes in San Francisco may soon receive an official certification from the city, potentially boosting their resale value.

San Francisco officials are developing what they call the "green grade," a designation that the city would place on the property records of homes that meet certain efficiency standards.

The certification could help homeowners charge more for their property when they decide to sell. Potential buyers would know up front that green-grade homes have up-to-date equipment, low utility bills and a relatively light impact on the environment.

City officials see the green grade as an incentive for homeowners to improve the efficiency of their houses, taking such steps as adding insulation and upgrading their heating systems. Those upgrades help curb the state's energy demand and lower greenhouse-gas emissions, bit by tiny bit.

"This is a great way to encourage people to make that investment," said Phil Ting, San Francisco's assessor-recorder. "Obviously, when the house sells, we think the price will be higher with the green grade."

Ting, who is also running for mayor, is developing the green-grade program with the city's Department of the Environment. He points to the success of LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, an internationally recognized certification system for energy-efficient buildings. Created in 2000 by the U.S. Green Building Council, LEED has become the standard for new commercial buildings. Ting wants to see a similar shift in the residential real estate market.

"Now, if you build an office building and it isn't LEED certified, people look at you and ask, 'Well, why not?' " he said.

The green-grade program could start later this year.

Several organizations already offer efficiency certification for homes. There is, for example, a 3-year-old residential version of LEED, although it mostly applies to new construction. With the green-grade program, however, San Francisco would place the certification on a home's property record.

"We would be very supportive of that effort, because existing homes really are the lowest-hanging fruit for reducing (greenhouse-gas) emissions from the built environment," said Nate Kredich, vice president of residential market development for the U.S. Green Building Council.

Although details have not been finalized, San Francisco would likely base the green grade on some of the certification systems that already exist.

Barry Hooper, green-building specialist with the Department of the Environment, said the program would probably start with LEED and GreenPoint Rated, a certification system developed by the Build It Green nonprofit in Oakland.

"Those two would be the baseline, because they're the most widely used in the market," Hooper said.

Under a law passed in 2008, San Francisco already requires new residential construction to meet one of those two standards, Hooper said. The green-grade program would likely include other ways for owners of older homes to participate. For example, homeowners in the San Francisco Home Improvement & Performance program (SFHip), which gives rebates for efficiency upgrades, might also qualify for green-grade certification, Hooper said.

"It'll have to be a comprehensive set of approaches that are made available to the local market," he said.

And Passivhaus becomes Passive?

The founder of Passivhaus and director of Passivhaus Institute PHI, Dr. Wolfgang Fiest, has just sent word that the Passive House Institute United States (PHIUS) will no longer be able to provide building certifications, and will no longer be considered a partner of the program. While the news comes as a blow to the effort to make inroads for Passive House in the US – a market very much on the radar for super-efficient building standards — it also reflects the commitment the Passivhaus Institute has to the quality of its certification process.

The Northwest Chapter of Passivhaus is meeting in September to discuss expanding the program to include more multi family and commercial developments into the mix. I wonder how this will change the course of the program.

And given the fact that the complexities of climate in the United States and our very typical way of co-opting concepts to more suit the needs of well builders, markets and demand I was concerned that Passivehaus rigid conformity to an established metric was leading some to greenwash the concept and in turn not truly embrace it holistically. I expect to hear more about this in the usual green building channels.