Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Holiday Lighting Tips To Keep You In The Green

English: Decorated House, Lonsdale Drive, Enfi...
(Image: Wikipedia)

‘Tis the season to make spirits bright with holiday lights- but that doesn’t mean you have to go broke paying high energy bills this winter! While decorating the tree, house, or garland, a whole section of lights can go dark – along with holiday spirits, and light outages can be frustrating and time-consuming to repair.

To help reduce the frustration of decorating, the LightKeeper Pros have produced a list of holiday lighting tips- which we’ve reproduced, below. Plus check out these great ways to winterize your home and maximize energy savings via Green Living Ideas.


Holiday Lighting Tips

Measure: To estimate the number of lights needed for your tree, plan on an average of 100 lights per every foot of tree height.

LED vs. Incandescent: LED lights are more expensive than incandescent, but typically last longer. Due to their low voltage, more sets of LED lights can be strung together end-to-end than traditional sets. Be sure to use lights that have the label of an independent testing laboratory such as Underwriters Laboratory (UL).

Inspect: Before stringing lights check for broken bulbs and sockets, frayed cords, burned out lights and loose connections. Replace and repair any damaged light sets. For sets with bulb outages, use a light tester to find and fix the problem in seconds.

Connect: Connect no more than three strands of mini string sets and a maximum of 50 bulbs for screw-in bulbs. Read the manufacturer’s instructions for the safe number of LED strands to connect. Use no more than three light sets on any one extension cord.

Indoor vs. Outdoor: Some lights are only for indoor or outdoor use. Outside lights are exposed to water, so they should be rated for outdoor use. Wrap connections with electrical tape when two or more light strands are being used. Outdoor lights should be plugged into circuits protected by ground-fault-interrupters (GFCIs).

Live and Artificial Trees: To string lights on an evergreen tree, begin at the top of the tree and wind the strands through its center, widening with the tree’s shape. For deciduous trees, work your way up. Wrap lights around the base of its trunk, moving upward in a spiral formation. If you use an artificial tree, choose one that is tested and labeled as fire resistant. Artificial trees with built-in electrical systems should have the UL label.

Replace and Repair Lights: To get the most out of your light sets, do occasional visual checks for any bulbs that are no longer working. Replace those bulbs as soon as possible. If a light set stops working or a section goes dark, use a light string tester to find and solve the issue in seconds.


For those who need more help or have a specific question, Ulta-Lit Technologies, maker of the LightKeeper Pro and LED Keeper testers, has set up a hotline for your pressing holiday lighting questions that’s available 7 days a week between Thanksgiving and Christmas at 888-858-2548.

Source: Green Building Elements. Original article by Dawn Killough.

Friday, December 5, 2014

Missing Ingredient in Energy-efficient Buildings: People

Building 1. Credit: Washington State University
More than one-third of new commercial building space includes energy-saving features, but without training or an operator’s manual many occupants are in the dark about how to use them.

Julia Day recently published a paper in Building and Environment that for the first time shows that occupants who had effective training in using the features of their high-performance buildings were more satisfied with their work environments. Day did the work as a doctoral student at Washington State University; she is now an assistant professor at Kansas State University.

Closed blinds open research path

She was a WSU graduate student in interior design when she walked into an office supposedly designed for energy efficiency and noticed that the blinds were all closed and numerous lights were turned on. The building had been designed to use daylighting strategies to save energy from electric lighting.

After inquiring, Day learned that cabinetry and systems furniture throughout the building blocked nearly half of the occupants from access to the blind controls. Only a few determined folks would climb on or under their desks to operate the blinds.

“People couldn’t turn off their lights, and that was the whole point of implementing daylighting in the first place,” she said. “The whole experience started me on my path.”

Ventilation indicators mistaken for fire-alarm lights

Working with David Gunderson, professor in the WSU School of Design and Construction, Day looked at more than 50 high-performance buildings across the U.S. She gathered data, including their architectural and engineering plans, and did interviews and surveys of building occupants.

She examined how people were being trained in the buildings and whether their training was effective. Sometimes, she learned, the features were simply mentioned in a meeting or a quick email was sent to everyone, and people did not truly understand how their actions could affect the building’s overall energy use.

One LEED gold building had lights throughout to indicate the best times of day to open and close windows to take advantage of natural ventilation. A green light indicated it was time to open windows.

“I asked 15 people if they knew what the light meant, and they all thought it was part of the fire alarm system,’’ she said. “There’s a gap, and people do not really understand these buildings.’’

Efficient commercial space expanding

According to CBRE Research, the amount of commercial space that is certified as high-performance in energy efficiency through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star or U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED has grown from 5.6 percent of commercial space in 2005 to 39.3 percent at the end of 2013.

Yet in many cases, the corporate culture of energy use in buildings hasn’t caught up. While at home our mothers nagged us to turn off the lights when we left a room or to shut the door because “you don’t live in a barn,” office culture has often ignored and even discouraged common-sense energy saving.

Educating for an energy-focused culture

Day found that making the best use of a highly efficient building means carefully creating a culture focused on conservation. In buildings with an energy-focused culture, workers were engaged, participated and were satisfied with their building environment.

“If they received good training, they were more satisfied and happier with their work environment,’’ she said.

She is working to develop an energy lab and would like to develop occupant training programs to take advantage of high-performance buildings.

“With stricter energy codes, the expectations are that buildings will be more energy efficient and sustainable,’’ she said. “But we have to get out of the mindset where we are not actively engaged in our environments. That shift takes a lot of education, and there is a huge gap right now.”


Source: Washington State University. Original article by Tina Hilding.


Saturday, November 22, 2014

Greywater Reuse at Home

From our media partners at Earth Talk and E-Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: I know that some large buildings filter some of their wastewater to irrigate exterior landscaping. Is there an affordable way to do this at home?                    -- Bill P., Salem, OR

Now that solar panels are so commonplace on rooftops across the country, reusing so-called greywater—that is, the waste water from sinks, showers, tubs and washing machines—for landscape irrigation may be the next frontier in the greening of the American home, especially if you live in an arid region where water use is restricted. In fact, reusing your graywater may be the only way to keep your lawn and garden healthy without taking more than your fair share of the community’s precious freshwater reserves.

Credit: Jeremy Levine, courtesy Flickr
"Using water from sinks, showers and washing machines to irrigate plants is a way to increase the productivity of sustainable backyard ecosystems that produce food, clean water and shelter wildlife,” reports Greywater Action, a California-based non-profit dedicated to educating and empowering people to use water sustainably. According to the group, a typical U.S. single family home can reduce water use by as much as 30 percent by installing some kind of greywater reclamation system while simultaneously reducing pollution into nearby water bodies by filtering out contaminants locally. Capturing and reusing greywater can also be part of the battle against climate change, given that you’ll be helping grow plants that sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide while reducing demand on a regional wastewater treatment facility that’s likely powered by fossil fuels.

The simplest way to get into home greywater reuse is to install a “laundry-to-landscape” system that sends washing machine wastewater outside via a diversion tank and hose that can be moved around to irrigate specific sections of the yard. Equipment costs for such a set-up max out at $200, but labor and expertise may tack on another few hundred dollars. Handy homeowners can do much of the work in setting up such systems themselves, though those without much home repair or plumbing experience might at least consult a professional. Greywater Action suggests one way to reduce costs is by digging trenches for diversion pipes and mulch basins yourself -- or enlist friends who want to support the effort and learn about residential greywater reuse in the process.

A more comprehensive system can draw wastewater from sinks, showers and tubs, too—and then filter and distribute it to backyard landscaping via a drip irrigation network. Getting such a system professionally installed can run upwards of $5,000.

Either way, once the greywater diversion system is in place, you’ll need to be careful about what goes down the drain, given how it might affect the plants and soils right outside. “In any greywater system, it is essential to put nothing toxic down the drain — no bleach, no dye, no bath salts, no cleanser, no shampoo with unpronounceable ingredients, and no products containing boron, which is toxic to plants,” adds Greywater Action.

For more information on installing a greywater reuse system yourself, check out the resources section of Greywater Action’s website, where you’ll find diagrams, written instructions and even videos to make the job go smoother. Those more inclined to hire a professional can browse through listings of qualified installers across the country. And if you want to see how it’s done first-hand, sign up to attend one of Greywater Action’s one-day workshops on how to install a greywater catchment and diversion system in a residential setting.

CONTACT: Greywater Action, www.greywateraction.org.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com


Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Cradle to Cradle Provides Material Health Certification for Building Materials




English: A 3D-snapshot of the mkSolaire (or &q...
(Smart House. Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute has announced it will offer a Material Health Certificate, a tool for manufacturers across industries to communicate their work toward chemically optimized products. The Material Health Certificate marks the first time the Institute has offered reporting of its comprehensive methodology in only one category.

Established in 2006, the multi-attribute Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Product Standard has been widely recognized for its depth, rigor, third-party auditing, and ease of reporting via the certification label. Cradle to Cradle Certified products are assessed in five categories: Material Health, Material Reutilization, Renewable Energy, Water Stewardship, Social Fairness. Now, companies have the option to pursue only the Material Health assessment.

"The high standards are the same, but focusing solely on Material Health allows manufacturers to step on the Cradle to Cradle Certified path more readily and encourages more transparency in their products," said Bridgett Luther, President at the Institute. "We heard from manufacturers across industries that wanted a depth of understanding in what's in their product, and how safe those ingredients are for humans and the environment. We answered the call to fill this market need with a well established, rigorous methodology that requires continuous improvement. It's time to take an aggressive approach to making our products safer for human and environmental health."

The requirements for the Material Health Certificate are identical to those of the Material Health of the Cradle to Cradle Certified Product Standard Version 3.0 which is governed by the Institute's Certification Standards Board. The standard requirements for Continuous Improvement and Optimization and Site Visit of the Production Facility must also be met. Accredited assessment bodies that have been trained and audited by the Institute will conduct the assessment; and the Institute will administer the certificates. Once granted, the certificate will be valid for two years and listed on the Institute's new Material Health Certificate Registry.

Industry groups, nonprofits, governments and companies of all sizes and industry are prioritizing the identification and elimination of chemicals of concern, driving manufacturers to know more about the chemicals in their products and supply chains; be more transparent about the chemicals in their products; avoid chemicals of high concern and shift to inherently safer chemicals; and commit to continuous improvement toward greener chemistry in their products. The Material Health Certificate guides them through this process and offers an easy reference for specifiers to understand where the product is on the path to being safe for humans and the environment.

Several companies are pursing the new certificate, including Owens Corning and ThyssenKrupp Elevator Americas. Owens Corning, a leading global producer of residential and commercial building materials, glass-fiber reinforcements and engineered materials for composite systems, is in the process of pursuing the Material Health Certificate on three product lines while having already earned Cradle to Cradle certification on a product line.

"We are thrilled to be one of the first companies to pursue the Material Health Certificate. Safe ingredient chemistry is in such critical demand in the building movement right now, and the certificate will help us communicate our efforts toward safe and healthy products," said Gale Tedhams, Director of Product and Supply Chain Sustainability at Owens Corning. "Our sustainability strategy is multi-faceted as evident in the products we make and the way they are made, and no program is truer to our mission than that of the Cradle to Cradle Certified products methodology. While we are starting with Material Health Certificates on these product lines, we are committed to pursuing full Cradle to Cradle certification in the coming year."

As ThyssenKrupp Elevator Americas worked to achieve complete environmental and material transparency, the leading industrial and engineering company determined it was not able to provide clear direction for improving its product through existing programs.

"We identified what chemicals were in our product as red-listed by comparing multiple lists but didn't exactly know how they were harmful or what the next step was to minimize or eliminate the problematic foes," said Brad Nemeth, VP of Sustainability at ThyssenKrupp Elevator Americas. "Working with a toxicologist and accredited material health assessor helped target the ingredients of concern from human and environmental perspective throughout the manufacturing, use and end-of-use scenarios, plus gave us direction for next steps on how we can substitute ingredients at the supply chain level. The material assessment provides a logic-based methodology to fund research and development projects, placing us on a path for continuous materiality improvement, and the certificate helps us illustrate to customers we have worked with experts in assessing and improving our product."

The Institute will offer an enhanced reporting format to the Material Health Certificate that will include the achievement level (Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum); an Avoiding Chemicals of Concern Summary based on the various levels; a summary of the assessment results, and additional elements, such as the number of materials assessed and percentage assessed by weight.
Healthy buildings are at the forefront of conversation this week at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo where the Institute's leadership is joined on various panel discussions with a multitude of experts; but the Material Health Certificate offering extends past the built environment and into all industries, including fashion, personal care products, electronics, consumer goods, and more.

For more information on the new Material Health Certificate, please visit C2CCertified.org/material_health_certificate.

About Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute
The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute is a non-profit organization whose mission is to turn the making of things into a positive force for people, the economy, and the planet. They steward the Cradle to Cradle Certified Product Program, which is a system for assessing and constantly improving products based upon five categories: material health, material reuse, renewable energy, water stewardship, and social fairness. The Institute is headquartered in San Francisco, California with satellite offices in Amsterdam, NL, Venlo, NL and Raleigh, NC.

SOURCE Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute and PR Newswire

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

New Thermal Bridging Guide Provides Solutions for Energy Efficient Homes

Solar Umbrella002
Solar Umbrella002 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Morrison Hershfield announced last week that the book Building Envelope Thermal Bridging Guide – Analysis, Applications, and Insights is now public and can be downloaded. The guide aims to overcome obstacles confronting the industry with respect to mitigating thermal bridging to reduce energy consumption in buildings.

According to the guide, “thermal bridging is caused by highly conductive elements that penetrate the thermal insulation and/or misaligned planes of thermal insulation. These paths allow heat flow to bypass the insulating layer, and reduce the effectiveness of the insulation.”

The Guide was developed by engineering firm Morrison Hershfield in collaboration with co-sponsors and industry partners.  Co-sponsors include BC Hydro Power Smart, Canadian Wood Council, Fortis BC, FPInnovations and Homeowner Protection Office (a branch of BC Housing).  Industry partners helped extend the scope of the guide to include many additional details.

The principle goal of these collaborating organizations is to promote energy-efficiency in buildings by increasing awareness of the impact of and methods to mitigate thermal bridging.  To meet these goals, the Guide addresses a number of obstacles currently confronting our industry by:

  1. Cataloging the thermal performance of common building envelope assemblies and interface details.
  2. Providing data driven guidance that will make it easier for the industry to comprehensively consider thermal bridging in building codes and bylaws, design and whole building energy simulations.
  3. Examining the costs associated with improving the thermal performance of opaque building envelope assemblies and interface details, and forecasting the energy impact for several building types and climates.
  4. Evaluating the cost effectiveness of improving the building envelope through more thermally efficient assemblies, interface details and varying insulation levels.

The Guide, which is broken into three main sections for ease of use, contains helpful information for technical committees for energy standards, regulators, utilities, architects, mechanical designers, building envelope consultants, energy modellers, developers, manufacturers and trade organizations.

The Building Envelope Thermal Analysis (BETA) Guide outlines how to effectively account for thermal bridging and is backed up by an extensive catalog of thermal performance data.  This information is essential for practitioners evaluating building envelope thermal performance.
Researchers and regulators will be interested in the sections focused on market transformation, which includes an evaluation of cost effectiveness and energy savings in common large building types.


Original article: Green Building Elements with materials from: PR Newswire.
Image: BC Hydro
 

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Green Roofs: Cost-Effective Means of Preventing Sewer System Overflows


Image Credit: Columbia University
Image Credit: Columbia University
Green roofs are a cost-effective means of preventing sewage system overflows, according to new research from Columbia University.

The ability to stop overflows of course stems from the fact that green roofs retain water and thus prevent said water from simply flowing into the sewers.

As an example, the green roof on top of the Con Edison building in Long Island City, Queens (investigated by the researchers) — home to around 21,000 plants — retains roughly 30% of the rainwater (on a quarter acre) that falls on it. That’s a pretty significant amount of water.

The press release from Columbia University provides more:

If New York City’s 1 billion square feet of roofs were transformed into green roofs, it would be possible to keep more than 10 billion gallons of water a year out of the city sewer system, according to the study led by Stuart Gaffin, research scientist at Columbia’s Center for Climate Systems Research.

 New York City, like other older urban centers, has a combined sewer system that carries storm water and wastewater. The system often reaches capacity during rains and must discharge a mix of storm water and sewage into New York Harbor, the Hudson River, the East River and other waterways.

The Con Edison Green Roof was built (and research on it began) back in 2008. An adjoining “white roof” was also constructed.

Previous to these new findings, the researchers had already determined that the green and white roofs were quite effective at reducing energy costs and, also, urban air temperatures.

“The information we are collecting from Con Edison’s roofs is invaluable in helping us determine the costs and benefits of green infrastructure projects,” Gaffin stated. “Without solid data from experiments like this, it is impossible for us to know which projects are the best options for protecting the environment.”

When you take into account the cost of building and maintaining a green roof, the cost of capturing rainwater works out to about 2 cents a year to capture each gallon of water.

We’ve also reported previously that green roofs and solar panels are a great fit. Green roofs help to keep the solar panels cooler, which boosts their efficiency. For more on that, see one or all of these three stories:

Green Roofs Pave the Way to Cheap Solar Power

Green Roofs & Solar Panels: The Future of Renewable Energy?

Green Roofs Boost Solar Panel Performance


In related news, a similar “simple” solution to the management of high urban temperatures was recently put forward as a solution in Australia — white roads. While the concept of using white roads to reflect light and thereby reduce temperatures is certainly nothing new, it hasn’t yet been applied on a truly large scale, something that the Cool Change Cities Project is setting out to do.

Keep up to date with all the hottest cleantech news by subscribing to our (free) cleantech newsletter, or keep an eye on sector-specific news by getting our (also free) solar energy newsletter, electric vehicle newsletter, or wind energy newsletter.

This article was written by via Clean Technica.



Friday, May 23, 2014

Green Home Building: Made in America

 
New Postmodern Solaris Green Home
Postmodern Solaris Green Home (Photo credit: Photo Dean)
People throughout the U.S. have set their sights on becoming more environmentally friendly -- especially when it comes to their homes.

Data from a recent Green Builder Media study confirms this trend with nearly 85 percent of respondents showing a positive association with the term "green" and wanting to be known for having a green life.

Whether they know it or not, when specifying U.S.-made green products, builders and homeowners are doing more than just helping the environment, they are also stimulating the economy.

One company that follows this trend of supporting green, U.S. homes is Green Builder Media. For example, its VISION House Series (www.greenbuildermag.com/vision-house) showcases homes built around the country that highlight the latest in green design, building techniques and products, and the advantages each can provide.

"Sustainability doesn't have to equal sacrifice," says Ron Jones, president of Green Builder Media and internationally renowned sustainability expert. "You don't have to give up beauty or quality when you choose a green product -- there is a wide variety of smart, sustainable and cost-effective products made in the United States that are easy for homebuilders and owners to access."


Dwell City Modern Tours Brooklyn
Dwell City Modern Tours Brooklyn (Photo credit: Inhabitat)
Green Builder Media is dedicated to spreading the word about sustainable living and green building to building professionals and consumers throughout North America. At center stage are two companies that are leading the way in green building materials that are made in America:

* Boral Roofing is the nation's largest manufacturer of sustainable, durable and affordable clay and concrete tile roofing systems, and the only provider of clay roof tile that is Cradle to Cradle certified. The products use recycled content and are Energy Star rated.

* Armstrong Flooring has over a century-long history of recycling, sustainable harvesting and environmental stewardship. The company's new line of genuine scraped hardwood, called American Scrape, is made in the U.S. A portion of the sales generated from American Scrape is donated to Homes for our Troops, a non-partisan organization that builds specially adapted homes for injured veterans.


To learn more, visit www.greenbuildermedia.com. The above article was made available from materials provided by NewsUSA.


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Tuesday, March 25, 2014

K-Cups and the Environment



Dear EarthTalk: What is the environmental impact of those “K-Cups” everyone seems to be using nowadays to make coffee at both home and office?                   
                                -- Chris B., Stamford, CT

K-Cups—those little one-serving coffee containers that allow people to brew one cup at a time in a specially designed Keurig brewing machine—are all the rage these days. Each K-Cup is made up of a plastic outer container with one cup’s worth of ground coffee and a small filter inside, capped off with a foil lid. They go into Keurig brewing machines which pierce the bottom of the K-Cup with a nozzle that then forces hot water through the coffee grounds and filter, and then out into the drinker’s cup. K-Cups and the Keurig brewers are convenient and require little to no clean-up while producing gourmet quality coffee for a fraction of the price that a retail coffee shop would charge.

Credit: Aaron Paxson, courtesy Flickr
Environmentalists’ beef with the Keurig system is in the single-use, non-recyclable nature of the packaging, given the implications for our waste stream. The individual parts of a K-Cup (plastic, paper and foil) could theoretically be recycled on their own, but the combination is too small and messy for recycling facilities to be able to sort. So our only choice is to throw the whole K-Cup pack, lock stock and barrel, into the garbage. Each pound of coffee consumed sends 50 K-Cups to the landfill. And with upwards of 17 million U.S. households and offices possessing Keurig brewers these days, billions of K-Cups are already ending up in landfills every year.

Keurig Green Mountain, the company behind the K-Cup revolution, is on the case about the bad environmental reputation it is developing over the issue. As a first step, it launched its Grounds to Grow On program in 2011 whereby office customers can purchase K-Cup recovery bins and fill them up with spent K-Cups. When the boxes are full, they are shipped to Keurig’s disposal partner, which turns the used coffee grounds into compost and sends the rest out to be incinerated in a “waste-to-energy” power plant. Critics point out, though, that waste-to-energy is hardly green given the airborne pollutants released from incinerator smokestacks and the fact that, in the words of Julie Craves of the Coffee & Conservation blog, recycling is the enemy of the never-ending stream of garbage needed to feed waste-to-energy facilities.

In 2012, Keurig Green Mountain, realizing it still had a lot of work to do on sustainability matters, undertook a lifecycle assessment across its product lines—and set ambitious sustainability targets to achieve by 2020. Chief among them is to make all K-Cups 100 percent recyclable. Other goals include ensuring responsible sourcing for all its primary agricultural and manufactured products, reducing life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of its brewed beverages by 25 percent compared to the 2012 baseline, and achieving zero waste-to-landfills its manufacturing and distribution facilities.

Those who love the Keurig system but are ready to forego the environmental guilt sooner than 2020 do have some options. Julie Craves reports that used K-Cups can actually be refilled with ground coffee and reused. An easier option might be buying a reusable K-Cup—most of them are made out of plastic with a stainless steel mesh filter. Still the best choice for the environment, however, might be getting the old traditional coffee pot out of storage and brewing up several cups at once—just like the old days.

CONTACTS: Keurig Green Mountain, www.keuriggreenmountain.com; Coffee & Conservation Blog, www.coffeehabitat.com.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com.


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