Green Building News

American consumers are increasingly aware of green construction programs. This increasing awareness is being driven by rising energy costs as well as marketing by builders and building material manufacturers. Moreover, consumers perceive green buildings to be of higher quality than buildings that barely meet code.

Fort Bliss – whose 1.2 million acres stretch from West Texas, near El Paso, into New Mexico – is the U.S. Army’s largest post by land area, and it faces a commensurately large conservation challenge: severe reductions in the base’s energy and water use, and a 90% reduction in trash headed for landfill.

Action-Housing, an affordable-housing developer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, recently celebrated the opening of Pittsburgh Green House, a 110-year-old home that has been renovated to serve as a training facility for weatherization and residential construction contractors.

There has been no shortage of discussion lately about modifying the PassivhausA residential building construction standard requiring very low levels of air leakage, very high levels of insulation, and windows with a very low U-factor. Developed in the early 1990s by Bo Adamson and Wolfgang Feist, the standard is now promoted by the Passivhaus Institut in Darmstadt, Germany. To meet the standard, a home must have an infiltration rate no greater than 0.60 AC/H @ 50 pascals, a maximum annual heating energy use of 15 kWh per square meter (4,755 Btu per square foot), a maximum annual cooling energy use of 15 kWh per square meter (1.39 kWh per square foot), and maximum source energy use for all purposes of 120 kWh per square meter (11.1 kWh per square foot). The standard recommends, but does not require, a maximum design heating load of 10 W per square meter and windows with a maximum U-factor of 0.14. The Passivhaus standard was developed for buildings in central and northern Europe; efforts are underway to clarify the best techniques to achieve the standard for buildings in hot climates. standard to make it more adaptable to, and address more precisely, regional climate conditions.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced last week that it had imposed fines for three violations the Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule (RRP), which is designed to ensure that renovation activities that can create lead dust are conducted properly by trained and certified contractors or individuals.

On March 28, the International Code Council released the 2012 International Green Construction Code (IgCC), aimed at helping state and local governments provide direction and oversight of green design and construction.

The ICC notes that the 2012 IgCC is written to offer flexibility to jurisdictions that adopt the code by establishing several levels of compliance, starting with the core provisions of the code, and then offering requirement options that can be customized to fit the needs of a local community.

In the U.S., plenty of money, care, and calculation goes into the installation of photovoltaic systems, solar collectors, and wind turbines. People invest in these renewable-energy devices to trim the operating cost of a home or commercial building, draw less from the grid, and reduce their carbon footprint — all worthy goals.

But for some people, reducing energy use doesn’t really factor into their interest in renewable-energy systems. The systems do, however, improve their lives in dramatic ways.

There is something to be said for playing fast, if not loose, with the facts when it comes to presenting the essentials of a building project. Or at least that’s the driving concept behind the 10x10x10 Green Building Slam, scheduled for Wednesday at the Magic Lantern Theatre in Spokane, Washington.

UPDATED 4/5/2012 with new blog links

Product names, program names, brands, and logos can be potent symbols of identity, so much so they’re often at the center of all kinds of marketing initiatives, corporate litigation, and cultural iconography. For people in the building industry, the term “passive house” – or Passivhaus, as we call it here – has come to mean a specific performance standard, and some say that if the criteria behind the standard are loosened to accommodate, say, climate conditions, a name other than Passive House (or Passivhaus) should be used.

Because they can be expensive but also critical to the comfort and performance of a house, windows tend to be selected and installed carefully, particularly in custom projects aimed at a high level of energy efficiency.