The most recent blogs at Green Building Advisor

In the green-building community, we talk a lot about how essential an integrated design process is to achieving a really green project. I’ve been thinking about that more and more over the last two years, ever since after I retired from chairing the USGBC’s LEED for Homes development effort.

The NAHBNational Association of Home Builders, which awards a Model Green Home Certification. Research Center has just announced its “Green Approved” certification for product manufacturers, and the first seal of approval has been issued to Weyerhauser for its iLevel structural wood products. This is an interesting development that comes hot on the heels of the ANSIAmerican National Standards Institute. National nonprofit membership organization that coordinates development of national consensus standards. Accreditation by ANSI signifies that the procedures used meet the Institute’s essential requirements for openness, balance, consensus, and due process. -approved National Green Building StandardNational Green Building Standard Based on the NAHB Model Green Home Building Guidelines and passed through ANSI. This standard can be applied to both new homes, remodeling projects, and additions. , also a product of the Research Center and a group of industry professionals.

Vice President Biden led a task force recently on creating green jobs.
Among the opportunities: weatherization.
Among the challenges: connecting people to jobs.
Some questions: the role of organized labor, business, and of public/private partnerships.

Scammers continue to use exaggerated R-valueMeasure of resistance to heat flow; the higher the R-value, the lower the heat loss. The inverse of U-factor. claims to peddle inferior insulation products, in spite of the existence of strong consumer protection laws. Year after year, naïve builders fall prey to Web-based marketing pitches for “miracle” products like “insulating” paint and 1-inch-thick R-10 foam.

Wood is a renewable fuel and, assuming that new trees grow up to replace those cut for firewood, it is carbon-neutral, meaning that it doesn’t have a net contribution to global warming. That said, wood burning also churns out a lot of air pollutants, some of which are highly visible as smoke. Fortunately, there’s a lot we can do to reduce the pollution generated by wood burning—and boost the efficiency.

A moisture meter is a simple, easy-to-use tool for evaluating moisture and mold problems

Moisture meters help you figure out whether your building materials are too wet. They typically use electrical conductivity between a couple of metal pins to assess moisture content; the more moisture in the material, the greater the electrical conductivity. The moisture content is measured as a percentage of total weight.

At a press conference at IBS, Devon Hartman of HartmanBaldwin Design Build described his introduction to green building. Pointing out that he had been doing high quality design build work for over 25 years, he told the group that when he learned about home performance and building science, he suddenly realized that much of what he had been doing so far in his career was wrong.

Building codes are ambitious documents that do a lot while offering flexibility in how they’re satisfied.

“The purpose of this code is to provide minimum requirements to safeguard the public safety, health and general welfare through affordability, structural strength, means of egress facilities, stability, sanitation, light and ventilation, energy conservation and safety to life and property from fire and other hazards attributed to the built environment.”
— Section 101.3 of the International Residential Code (IRCInternational Residential Code. The one- and two-family dwelling model building code copyrighted by the International Code Council. The IRC is meant to be a stand-alone code compatible with the three national building codes—the Building Officials and Code Administrators (BOCA) National code, the Southern Building Code Congress International (SBCCI) code and the International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO) code.)

It took me 20 years to get my business running smoothly. Books like this have helped a lot.

There are a small number of books that have been so important to me that I buy them in quantity to give to friends. To new parents I give Kids Are Worth It by Barbara Coloroso, and to new employess, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Among the books I give to my fellow green builders is The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber.

It's big, it's green, but is it really a good thing?

The new NAHB-ICC National Green Building Standard (NGBS) guidebook hit mailboxes on Friday. I arrived home to this delightful picture in my in-box (see picture at right), along with an equally playful e-mail from my fellow shelter nerd, Bill Beasley.