Geysir Hardwood Floors

Geysir Hardwood Floors, located in Mamaroneck, has added a green floors page to their website. They include environmentally friendly wood flooring information and interesting facts about the wood flooring industry.

From GeysirFloors.com:

Forest Industry and Development:
14.4% of the United States is forestland
70% of the forestland here today was here in 1600
737 million acres
Forest volume increases 5.27 billion cubic feet annually
even after harvests and mortality
There is 82% more hardwood growing stock today than in 1952
15% of hardwoods harvested are dead
Each year, 6 trees are planted for one harvested
274 million acres of forestland are wilderness
no forest management – no roads, no boats, no bikes, etc.

Another Take on CFLs

New Green Products

I received an email from Marilena Serradas today. She’s a product rep from Green Man Resources. She wanted me to see two new products she’s offering. I thought I’d share them with you.

Breathe Easy® Cabinets

Cabinet boxes are constructed using Environmentally Preferable “green” solid ¾”plywood. This plywood has no formaldehyde in its binding agents and is durable as well as moisture resistant. Both sides of the plywood are maple veneered and finished with a durable UV, low VOC water borne lacquer.

Cabinet doors and drawer fronts are constructed from rapidly renewable bamboo, solid woods from managed forests or sustainably designed, wood veneered MDF board. The stains and water based paints are low VOC and Green Guard or Green Seal certified. The pre cat, clear top coat is also water borne, very low VOC and certified.

Lithistone

Lithistone has low embodied energy. All products have an embodied energy factor. It’s a measurement, typically in British Thermal Units (BTU’s), that accounts for all of the energy needed to create a product from its natural state, through production, transportation, and installation. Portland cement products have a very high embodied energy factor, while Lithistone has a low embodied energy factor. In short, it takes far less power and fuel to make a Lithistone sink, than it does to make a concrete or porcelain sink.

Lithistone does not off gas. Many products, particularly, Portland cement and certain resin-based products release harmful fumes into the air, both in production and throughout their life. Indoor air quality is an important factor when choosing products for your home.

Lithistone products all contain a certain percentage of recycled content. Our innovative mix designs all incorporate our highly engineered eco-ceramic-cement binder which contains recycled fly ash and in many cases, recycled glass.

The production of Portland cement contributes an enormous amount of carbon emissions to our atmoshphere. The firing of the raw minerals releases harmful gases and heat into our fragile environment, forever changing the chemical structure of our atmoshpere.

The mineral combinations in Lithistone create an end product that has an electro-magnetically balanced chemical structure. The material has what’s called ‘magnetic breathability’ and it actually absorbs CO2 during it’s life.

Depending on the selected Lithistone finish, our products contain between 25% and 75% recycled and post-industrial waste that allows for eligibility for LEED points from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC).

Powered by Wind

Last week, Bloomberg.com posted an article about the Castle on the Hudson. You know it. Its the big stone castle you see up on the hill as you cross the Hudson on the Tappan Zee. In April, the Castle started buying its power from Juice Energy, a wind power provider.

From Bloomberg.com:

Perched in the hills of Tarrytown, 25 miles north of New York City in Westchester County, the Castle on the Hudson hotel is a tremendous Normanesque pile of crenellated granite, built as a private residence between 1897 and 1910.

This giant anachronism isn’t stuck in the past when it comes to meeting its energy needs. In April, the hotel began buying wind power from Juice Energy Inc., which costs about three percent more than conventionally generated electricity. The hotel can afford the eco-friendly ethic thanks to a pricing deal in which it pays a locked-in rate for 90 percent of its energy needs and the fluctuating market rate for the remainder.

Read more.

Greensburg, Kansas

On May 4, 2007, an EF5 tornado leveled the city of Greensburg, Kansas.

So, much like other towns devastated by a natural disaster, they started to rebuild. But they are not just rebuilding. They’re going green. The Greensburg City Council has approved a resolution that all city building projects will be built to LEED Platinum level standards. If they reach their goal, they’ll be the first city in the nation to do so.

The whole town is following the Council’s lead. Encouraged by an educational program offered by the city, it is predicted that 50% of the residents will participate in the green building efforts too.

Even the city’s power is going off the grid. Kansas has an abundance of wind, so the city will install four 300-foot, 1.5-megawatt wind turbines. That will be enough to power the entire city, but they’re not stopping there. They are looking into hydro and solar power as back ups. They are determined to be “100% renewable, 100% of the time”.

Even their name is green. It will be very interesting to follow their progress.

Factory Built Housing

From AIArchitect This Week:

Over the past century, factory-built housing has occupied a unique niche for architects. In the early years of Modernism, the factory-built house promised to achieve what for some Modernists was the epitome of a new architecture: buildings that looked like machines, made by machines. The expansion of the U.S. economy after World War II was a boon for factory-built housing. It seemed as though everyone, sooner or later, would be living in a factory-built house in the suburbs, delivered by truck or on a trailer. Lustron Homes, the Acorn House, and other factory-made abodes captured the optimistic ideal of quick, affordable, state-of-the-art housing.

Read more…

It’s Official, I’m a LEED AP

After an immersive two-day training workshop and weeks of intensive studying (which explains the lack of posts), this past Monday I passed the official USGBC exam to become a LEED Accredited Professional. I’ve learned more in the last two weeks than I have in the past two years.

Although, the LEED Green Buildings Rating Systems are an energy and environmentally based program, I feel that, having gone through the training and accreditation process, LEED simply helps one be a better architect. From site selection through indoor air quality, LEED addresses each critical element of a well-designed building.

Stay tuned for lots more.

Green Building at Living Well

I have been posting to Living Well in Westchester since December 2006. Many of my posts over there are dedicated to green buildings, materials and technologies.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for here. Take a look over there.

ENERGY STAR Downlights

Lightolier offers a selection of ENERGY STAR qualified downlights. Check them out here.

USGBC New York Chapter

A great resource for green building is your local chapter of the USGBC. Members are from all disciplines; architects, contractors, engineers, consultants, building owners…anyone interested in advancing the industry of green building.

Our local here in Westchester, USGBC New York Chapter, is mostly NYC firms. I’ve heard rumors that AIA Westchester / Mid-Hudson may soon be the “greenest” AIA chapter in the nation (more on that when its official), so I hope a local Westchester / Mid-Hudson USGBC chapter may soon be chartered.

USGBC NY is doing a great job. Check out their LEED stats for buildings certified in NYC.

The photo above is the Bronx Library Center, which earned LEED Silver in 2006.