Check out the prefab community blooming online these days! Tiny House Village is trying to connect communities of creative small dwellings. Ideas are abound for these eco communities with Resources For Life’s Small House Society.
Tiny House design has a great set of resources all linked here as well. Check out the plethora of architectural resources, Read the rest of this entry »
Did you know that if you install a Biomass Stove – wood, pellets, etc. that you can nab a 30% tax credit ($1,500 max) up until 2010? Who knows that homeowners can get a 30% tax break for installing Solar Hot Water Heating until 2016? Maybe the new American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which was signed into law by President Obama in February 2009 isn’t as complicated as the IRS tax code but does anyone really want to delve into the 400 pages of legislation to figure all the ins and outs about how to qualify for the green tax credits available to homeowners?
In a Cliff’s Notes version of the myriad incentives, rebates, and tax incentives GREENandSAVE has created a Federal Tax Incentive Decoder and condensed the material to 11 bite sized pages. Best of all, this resource does not cost a dime and can be downloaded at: http://www.greenandsave.com/homecheckup/free_federal_tax_incentive_decoder
Welcome to the Carnival of the Green! This is the 182nd edition of Treehugger’s weekly roundup of eco links from around the blogosphere.
Welcome to Green Building Elements where home owners and LEED accredited professional alike can learn about advances in green and renewable building materials, current projects in sustainable architecture and progressive urban planning, and local guidelines for creating green structures in different regions of the U.S.
Here’s what greenies worldwide submitted for this round:
Many thanks to last week’s host, The Green Phone Booth. And since Carnival of the Green, always promises to bring fresh, new content, make sure you check out Ooffoo next week for the June 8th edition!
For more information about how to participate in Carnival of the Green, please visit http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/11/treehugger_to_b.php
Happy Monday to you all!
BrightTALK is hosting a five-day green business summit this week, featuring several free webcasts on green building. The webcasts run from April 21 to 24. Each day features a different topic related to green business:
Some of the highlighted speakers include:
• Peter Williams, CTO of IBM Big Green Innovations - “Water and Information Management” at the Water Management Summit
• Barry Hooper, San Francisco Private Sector Green Building Program - “Building & Operating Green in 2009 - Challenges and Successes in SF” at the Green Building Summit
• Pat Tiernan, Executive Director of Climate Savers Computing Initiative - “The IT Power Problem, simple actions to improve your business” at the Green IT Summit
• Joel Makower, Chairman and Executive Editor of Greener World Media - “Save the Buyosphere! Selling Green in the Age of More, More, MORE” at the Green Marketing Summit
FairGreenTrade.com recently launched its green product and service directory. The site covers many green topics, from organic foods, green living, and, of course, green building.
Consumers can now get all their green information in one stop. Even with the newness of the site, there are many resources already listed. A quick browse of the green construction area led to links for various materials, including flooring, wall coverings, windows, etc. The book selection, tied in with Amazon, is also quite extensive (as I found many books that I’m sure I can’t live without).
We want to start the New Year off with an eco-bang, and so we’re launching a new Green Home Contest. Low Impact Living and Joie de Vivre Hotels challenge you to make your home as green as you can! We’re going to reward the greenest home of all with a luxurious 3-night stay at the very environmentally-friendly Hotel Carlton in San Francisco. More on the hotel and the prize in a minute!
Low Impact Living will identify the single family home (and its proud owners) that has the lowest Low Impact Living Index (calculated using our Environmental Impact Calculator), and we’re going to share with you what that family has done to get there. Don’t worry if you haven’t done big projects like installing solar panels or a wind turbine - as the calculator shows, many of the best green home projects are simple and inexpensive. We’ll show you how to identify projects to make your home more eco-friendly. The contest will close on February 15, 2009. So you have time to make green changes!
What you have to do to enter
1. Visit our Household Environmental Impact Calculator and calculate your base LILI (Low Impact Living Index). It will only take you five-ten minutes to use the calculator and create your account.
2. Once you have entered all of your base inputs, move on to the “select projects” page of the calculator. Make sure you only check projects that you’ve finished (or will finish by February 15th) before you log out.
3. Make sure that you log out or save your profile before leaving - if you just move on to another web site without logging out, your inputs could be lost.
4. If you’ve already created an account through our calculator, then you need to return and, log in again. We’ve added some new features recently, and they won’t work unless you refresh your account.
5. The calculator isn’t all-encompassing yet, so there may be projects that you’ve done that don’t show up. If this is true, send us an email at contest@lowimpactliving.com describing what you’ve done. Low Impact Living staffers will review your efforts and award up to a 5% additional deduction for compelling projects.
How we’ll select the winner
The contest closes on February 15, 2009, and we will announce the winner on March 1. This will give us time to check with the finalists to make sure that they’ve completed all of their checked projects. (Past entrants to our green home contests are not eligible.)
If you are a finalist (in our top 10 lowest LILI scores), we may ask you to verify that your projects are actually completed, via photos or receipts / invoices for work performed. We’ll also ask for your address (not to be published!) so that we can verify entered information about your home. If you are a winner, then you have to be willing to let us share your projects and process with everyone via our blog, and to provide us with the photos and project descriptions necessary to do that. You’ll become a green star overnight!
What you could win!
The greenest homeowner will receive three nights at Hotel Carlton in San Francisco. The Hotel Carlton is a member of the Joie de Vivre chain of hotels, which is deeply committed to making sustainability part of its core business operations. In fact, their mission is to “adhere to the strictest environmental standards, engage in sustainable practices and maintain an impeccable quality of guest experience.” The JDV Hotels environmental program includes hotel-wide recycling programs, composting, use of renewable energy, use of recycled paper products, energy-efficient lighting and much more. To learn more about Joie de Vivre’s commitment to sustainability, click here. To learn more about the Hotel Carlton, click here.
So, good luck, and get to greening!
Can your hardwood floors contribute to global warming? Which hardwoods are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council? Are some types of bamboo greener than others? Eco Timber’s Eco-Friendly Flooring Guide is a valuable source for information on sustainable hardwood flooring and a must read for any green builder. The Richmond, California based company has promoted responsible harvesting of timber and sustainable practices such as reclaiming and salvaging wood (their guide tells you the difference between reclaimed and salvaged wood) since 1992.
Topics in the guide range from legal and illegal logging and responsible forestry to the presence of formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds in the wood and adhesives. Eco Timber tackles every step in the process from subfloors to floor pads to the panels themselves. Looking for a specific hardness of wood? They’ve got a scale. Do you already have a hardwood floor and want advice on green care and maintenance? Eco Timber has a section on maintenance, surface scratching, and refinishing. Read the rest of this entry »
Just over a year ago, Philadelphia developer Postgreen undertook an ambitious project, to build a modern green home for $100,000. Not only are they seeking to shatter the myth that green homes are unaffordable, but they are documenting every step on their site, 100KHouse.com. Located in the New Kensington area of Philadelphia, the house will be a roughly 1,000 square foot two bedroom one and a half bath modern style home - and will not be a prefab; rather it is being built from the ground up according to LEED for Homes guidelines using such affordable energy saving materials as SIPs (structurally insulated panels.)
Documenting the progress of the 100K House are Postgreen President Chad Ludeman and PR Director Nic Darling. Both are convinced that affordable green building is not only possible, but necessary to bring about true environmental change. Their blog posts are not limited to the progress of the 100K House; they write about a range of interesting green topics. Read the rest of this entry »
John Wiley & Sons, the leader in architecture/engineering/construction publishing, is now offering WileyCPE (www.wileyCPE.com), an online continuing education system created specifically for A/E/C professionals. WileyCPE.com courses are approved by the American Institute of Architects and enable design professionals to earn the credits they need to satisfy membership and state licensing board requirements. The online courses are developed and delivered by Wiley’s expert editorial and author teams, and focus on sustainability or health, safety, and welfare (HSW) topics.
How do you determine if a green project you are considering is worth it? There are so many things to consider - the up front costs, savings over time, rebates and tax credits, and the savings to the environment.
A tool is available to help assess the financial costs and benefits of several green projects. GreenandSave.com provides an ROI (return on investment) table that lists the added costs, annual savings, projected savings over 10 or 20 years, and the ROI for a given improvement. Improvements include Tune-Ups (small projects or changes that can be made to green up a home or building), Remodeling, and Advanced (larger projects or decisions for a new building).
An example of a Tune-Up project is installing an Energy Star approved programmable thermostat. The average cost is $115.00. The projected annual savings is $180.00, yielding an ROI of 156.5% and a payback of 0.6 years.
One of the Remodeling projects is to replace windows with Energy Star Low-E windows. According to the GreenandSave Remodeling Table: the payback time in years is 2.3, the added cost is $700.00, the annual savings is $300.00, ten year savings is $3,000.00, and the ROI is 42.9%.
Advanced projects include doubling the insulation factor (R-value) of the exterior walls from R-19 to R-30. The added cost for this improvement is listed as $900.00, annual savings of $120.00, ROI of 13.3%, and a payback of 7.5 years.
While the costs and savings may vary according to the area of the country or world a project is located in, this tool certainly gives an owner some hard data to use to when making a decision on whether to pursue a project or not. Some projects, such as adding a programmable thermostat, pay for themselves quickly, so they become almost “no-brainers.” Others, like the added insulation example above, require more thought. Tools like GreenandSave.com’s ROI table give owners the data they need to make an educated choice.
Green Building Elements
At Green Building Elements, home owners and LEED accredited professional alike can learn about advances in green and renewable building materials, current projects in sustainable architecture and progressive urban planning, and local guidelines for creating green structures in different regions of the U.S.
Subscribe via email
Green Building Elements is a Green Options Media Production.
Some Rights Reserved
