Reporting on Sustainably Built Environments from Bricks to Cities
Opening windows is the easiest way to reduce formaldehyde concentrations in homes. The best option is to use only building products that emit little or no formaldehyde. However, when conventional building materials are already in place and emitting formaldehyde, the problem will remedy itself with time. Materials that are several years old emit far less formaldehyde than new products.
Through natural building, there are many ways to prevent global warming. Conventional suburban houses are large, poorly designed, and inefficient, and the manufacturing and construction processes are big contributors to global warming. Natural building is a sustainable design approach that promotes low impact homes built with natural and recycled materials. I will highlight two different [...]
One of my favorite web comics is xkcd‘s “Duty Calls,” where the stick figure can’t tear himself away from the computer because “Someone is WRONG on the internet.” Unfortunately, too often discussions on environmental topics devolve into “You’re wrong” – “No, you’re wrong” and we lose sight of what we are trying to accomplish, namely, [...]
One of the most sustainable ways to acquire materials for building a house is to collect parts from soon-to-be demolished homes. You can save money from buying new lumber, which in turn will prevent deforestation, and you can recycle other materials like doors, windows, and bricks that would otherwise continue to fill up landfills. But [...]
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