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Green Building Myth #3: Green Products Don't Work as Well as Standard Products

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The last couple weeks I've written about two of the common myths of green building: that it has to cost more to build green and that green building is mostly about materials.

Doing LEED SSc8? Light pollution reduction in a nutshell.

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The following is a video that we recorded at our booth at the 2009 Greenbuild conference, when we transformed BuildingGreen's booth into the "Ask LEEDuser" experience, including talks on specific credits from LEEDuser's "guest experts"--the top LEED minds on specific LEED credits.

There IS a certification for hazard-free products!

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Go figure I'd finish a feature article (Chemistry for Designers: Understanding Hazards in Building Products) saying there's no certification in the USA for products that are hazard-free and immediately a label gets launched.

Green Building Myth #2: It's All About Materials

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Last week I wrote about one of the common myths of green building: that it has to cost more to build green. This week, I'll tackle another myth: that green building is mostly about materials.

Knoll Provides FSC Wood as a Standard Feature

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We've been writing about the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in Environmental Building News since the organization was created in 1993. We've watched as FSC pushed the mainstream forest products industry toward more responsible forestry practices even as that industry fought to prevent or slow the adoption of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED Rating system because it awarded points for use of FSC-certified wood exclusively.

Green Building Myth #1: Does Green Building Have to Cost More?

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Even if a small house has lower levels of insulation than a larger house, it's likely to cost less to heat. 1. R-19 walls, R-30 ceilings, double-low-e (U=0.36) vinyl windows, R-4.4 doors, infiltration of .50 ACH, and R-6 ducts in attic; 2. R-13 walls, R-19 attic, insulated glass vinyl windows, R-2.1 doors, infiltration of .50 ACH, and uninsulated ducts; 3. Natural gas at $0.50 per therm; 4. Electricity at $0.10 per kWh.

Having written about green building for more than twenty years now, I've encountered lots of misperceptions.

Fiber-Optic Daylighting from Parans

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Simple is good, but high-tech can be really cool. In the case of the Parans fiber-optic daylighting system (distributed in the U.S. by HUVCO), high-tech lets you distribute daylight up to sixty feet via optical cables--bringing full-spectrum natural light to various spaces within a home or commercial building.

Here's how it works: Sunlight is collected by one or more Swedish-made Parans solar panels mounted on the roof or a wall.

LEED AP Credential Maintenance: Cracking the Code

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I'm a "Legacy LEED AP"--one of the 150,000 or so people who became LEED APs before the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) retired the old exam and overhauled the LEED AP program in 2009.

I've got questions. Is it worth opting in to the new system of LEED AP + a.k.a. LEED AP "with specialty"?

Chemical Hazards: The Devil's in the Details, and the Answers Are Not

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I've wanted to write a practitioners guide to addressing chemicals in building products for a while now, and with new developments like the Perkins+Will Precautionary List, The launch of Pharos, The EPA's announcement on a new approach to chemical policy, the time finally seemed right.

Cree's Par 38 LED Lamp a Winner (but expensive)

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Back in 1990, when I built a new garage and office space at my home in Dummerston, Vermont (where BuildingGreen started out), I installed two sections of Lightolier lighting track with dual switching for use of whatever screw-in lamps I wanted to use in can-type fixtures as well as exposed sockets. During the twenty years since, this has been my little testing laboratory for state-of-the-art energy-saving lamps.

Ground-Source Heat Pumps

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The most common configuration of a ground-source heat pump has tubing laid in a horizontal trench--often as a series of coils.

Despite being highly efficient at turning kilowatt-hours of electricity into heat or chilled air, ground-source heat pumps have a significant drawback and usually aren't the best heating system choice.

Exciting Developments at Marvin Windows

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I was at Efficiency Vermont's Better Buildings Conference in Burlington, Vermont last week. It's a great conference each February to learn about energy-efficient construction and find out about innovations in energy-conserving products, from lighting to heating systems.

Wandering around the trade show at Better Buildings, my attention was caught by several cut-away window corners at the Marvin Windows & Doors booth.

Home Wind Power

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The Skystream 3.7 is rated at 2.4 kW in a 24-mph wind. This system is in Mullica Hills, New Jersey.

The 30% federal tax credit for residential wind turbines (with no upper limit) opens the door to scams, which could tarnish the reputation of the wind energy industry

SafeTouch Polyester Batt Insulation from Dow

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Update: We have learned that SafeTouch was discontinued by Dow in spring 2011 due to poor sales. More detail in the comments below. We have confirmed that EnGuard polyester insulation, from Vita Nonwovens, remains available. – The Editors I gotta say, I was pretty surprised to come across this product recently. I make it a habit of keeping up with new products as they come out--especially insulation materials.

From Grease Traps to Green Kitchens: Reflections of a Recovering Food Service Professional

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Over the years I've held a lot of job titles and have done most kitchen jobs, from cleaning a large supperclub's grease traps in mid-July after the obligatory upper-Midwestern Friday fish fry (I don't recommend that as a career path) to picking herbs and edible flowers from the garden that I'd use in lobster salads at a Relais & Châteaux restaurant (that was a pretty good job). So when I started writing the article Commercial Kitchens: Cooking up Green Opportunities for

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