Rather than releasing its final report on LEED and other rating systems, the agency posts recommendations and asks for more feedback.

A victory for lobbyists? It should be easier to pitch the industry status quo to individual federal agencies that don't specialize in buildings.

Want to have a say in whether federal agencies keep using LEED? Here’s your chance.

Following up on a 2012 report, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) is requesting public comments on its long-awaited recommendations about green building certification systems. Here’s our quick-and-dirty summary of the committee’s findings. You have sixty days to get back to GSA.

Green building ratings systems = good

The first finding is that green building rating systems are a good thing. They “maintain robust, integrated frameworks of performance metrics, standards and conformity assurance.” And using them saves taxpayers money “by eliminating the cost to Government of developing its own standards.”

Agencies should pick what works for them

The GSA isn’t going to tell you whether LEED, Green Globes, or the Living Building Challenge is the best rating system for each agency’s mission. But they want agencies to keep these things in mind:

• There should be specific guidance about which credits to pursue (we might call this the “bike rack clause”?).
• For efficiency, agencies should use one rating system across their portfolios.
• Each agency’s guidance should make it possible for the same rating system to be used for all building types.
  

Treating wastewater onsite can save owners money, but there are other good reasons too.

The Living Machine at Port of Portland features both indoor and outdoor plant beds for filtration.
Photo Credit: Eckert & Eckert, courtesy ZGF

Living Machines and other types of constructed wetlands are beautiful, but they’re not ideal for every client. Onsite wastewater treatment might make sense for your next project, though, depending on factors like the site, the local infrastructure, and the owner’s mission.

Here’s a quick guide to figuring out when and where onsite wastewater treatment makes sense. For a deeper look at the topic, read this month’s EBN feature article, “Waste Water, Want Water” (BuildingGreen member link).

Lower the flow first

Potable water has a massive energy footprint, even in water-rich areas. We don’t pay anything like the true cost of this nonrenewable resource, so most of us don’t think twice about polluting it just so we can make our own pee and poop go “away.”

Transporting and treating wastewater has energy and other environmental costs as well, but before you start doing the payback analysis on that membrane bioreactor, you first need to look at the water budget for the project holistically. What else can you do to reduce your use of potable water?

Top-performing quad-glazed windows from Alpen installed with three low-e coatings and krypton gas fill

R-12 windows from Alpen with three low-e coatings and krypton gas-fill. Click to enlarge.
Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

Having written about windows and emerging window technologies for longer than I care to admit (since before low-e coatings even existed), I must say that it’s incredibly fun to be building a house and having an opportunity to try out some of the leading-edge stuff I’ve been writing about.

In my effort to create a “demonstration home,” we are actually installing two very different types of windows in the 1812 farmhouse rebuild that’s underway. On the north and west facades we’re installing state-of-the-art, fiberglass-framed casement and awning windows from Alpen High Performance Products. These windows, which we ordered from Pinnacle Window Solutions in Maine, are the subject of this blog.

On the south and east facades (which you see from the road) we’re doing something very different that I’ll describe in a future blog.

My struggle to find reasonably energy-efficient exterior doors for our new house

The wood-like fiberglass door we found for our farmhouse. Click to enlarge.
Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

Despite the chilly (seasonable) weather, work is progressing on the renovation/rebuild of our house in Dummerston. Last week, the three exterior doors were installed. Which brings me to one of my pet peeves: the lack of really good choices for highly energy-efficient exterior doors.

We ended up with a solution that I think will be okay, but there is a huge void in the world of truly high-performance doors. Here, I’ll describe the three doors we put in. I hope you can put up with my whining.

The front door

The purpose of front doors, I’m told, is to look nice. But I also wanted a front entrance door that would remain stable and airtight over many years or service and that would provide reasonable insulating value. Oh, and I didn’t want to spend more than about $2,000 for it. That proved a challenge.

I would have loved to install one of the gorgeous custom entrance doors made by Steve Benson’s company, J.S. Benson Woodworking, in Brattleboro. They are custom-fabricated of durable and highly stable triple-laminated mahogany (sustainably produced wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council is available), but as solid wood, there is very little insulating value: maybe R-3 for a 2-3/4”-thick door.

With an unusual keynote and tracks on resilience, systemic thinking, and cutting-edge pro tips, you’ll be lucky to catch BE13.

Photo Credit: NESEA.org screen capture

It’s always fun and educational to connect with friends and colleagues from afar at Greenbuild, AIA Convention, and the Living Futures “Unconference,” but the BuildingEnergy conference in Boston, slated for March 5–7 this year, has a special place in our hearts.

Hosted by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA), BuildingEnergy is an annual pilgrimage for top designers, builders, and building science geeks from New England, New York, and Ontario—and beyond. The NESEA website says 4,000 people will attend this year, from 31 states and 14 countries.

Keynote speaker: NPR’s Alex Blumberg

Alex Blumberg, a National Public Radio commentator on Planet Money, will present the keynote talk on economics for environmentalists at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday, March 6.

As contractor Paul Eldrenkamp puts it, “Alex presents and explains complex economics ideas with real wit and clarity.” Eldrenkamp also identifies economics as a “weak point” for the typical BE13 audience. (For a taste of how economics and green building intersect, see our primers on Discount Rates and Ecosystem Services.)

Stop procrastinating! Submissions for the 2013 COTE Top Ten Awards close on January 25.

The Woods Hole Research Center and many others have set a high bar for AIA COTE Top Ten awards. Does your project have what it takes?
Photo Credit: McDonough+Partners

Woods Hole Research Center. Sidwell Friends School. Vancouver Convention Center. What do these projects have in common, besides leadership in design and environmental measures?

They are all past winners of the Top Ten Green Project Awards sponsored by the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment, or COTE. (BuildingGreen is also a sponsor, providing technical and editorial support.)

If you want a chance to add your project to that list, you’ve got till 8 p.m. Eastern time on January 25 to submit.

What it takes

From their origins in 2000, the awards have come a long way. “The bar has been raised,” noted members of the jury about the 2011 awards. Having a beautifully designed and energy-efficient building is fantastic, but winning projects in recent years have done even more, like:

• Repair damaged communities
• Creatively embody an organization’s mission
• Focus on materials and whole-building life cycle
• Repurpose a historic structure
• Regenerate a site
• Recycle “waste” as a resource
  

Ease off on the gas — and other behavioral changes to reduce energy for transportation

A no-idling sign in my home town to remind residents not to idle their cars.
Photo Credit: Stan Howe

Before the holidays I wrote a blog on how to save energy in the home by changing our behavior. This week we’ll take a look at some of the ways that we can save energy by changing our driving behavior. Below are some simple measures—most cost nothing and some even save money—to reduce your energy use for transportation.

Drive less

Leaving the car at home when you could walk of ride a bike is perhaps the most obvious way to save energy in our transportation. These options aren’t always possible, due to where we live, the weather, or the seasons, but when it is possible to walk or bike instead of driving huge savings are possible—not to mention the health benefits. The same applies at work; if you’re going out to lunch or need to run an errand, consider providing a little extra time and walking.

A proposed change to the residential building code (International Residential Code) would eliminate the need for halogenated flame retardants in many applications

For this Passive House in New York's Hudson River Valley, 12 inches of XPS were installed beneath the concrete slab. With proposed changes to the IRC, subslab insulation wouldn't need to be treated with flame retardants. Click to enlarge.
Photo Credit: Jordan Dentz

As readers of this blog know, I’ve come down fairly hard on certain types of foam insulation over the years. The downsides include the blowing agents used in extruded polystyrene (XPS) and most closed-cell spray polyurethane foam and the flame retardants that are added to all foam-plastic insulation to impart some level of fire resistance.

Now there’s an effort afoot to change building codes in a way that would allow manufacturers to remove the hazardous flame retardants. This is the subject of a just-published feature article in Environmental Building News (log-in required).

This is a significant energy issue, because layers of foam insulation provide the easiest way to achieve the level of energy performance needed to approach net-zero-energy performance. If we’re going to add a lot of foam insulation to our homes, we want that to be safe for the occupants and the environment.

An early-morning photo on the West River Trail in Brattleboro. With planned improvements, this will become a great commuting route for bicyclists. Click to enlarge.
Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

A carbon tax, increased awareness of resilience, and more of us leaving the car at home are among my wishes for 2013.

With snow gently falling as the holiday season winds down, I find myself reflecting on the New Year and what we might hope for. World peace of course, and solving the poverty conundrum would be great. But what about energy and the environment? Here are some thoughts:

We will finally put a value on carbon

In mid-2012 the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) made headlines by sponsoring strategic meetings about the merits of a carbon tax. While not fully embracing the idea, AEI seems to be open to carbon taxes—generating ire among their conservative brethren. Also in 2012, former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis of South Carolina, launched an organization promoting carbon taxes, the Energy and Enterprise Initiative.

I have long favored some form of tax on carbon or nonrenewable energy, rather than the more complex cap-and-trade approach that is being tried in a few places, most notably California. As Al Gore said in his 1992 book, Earth in the Balance, we should tax things we want to discourage, like resource consumption and waste generation, and not tax things we want to encourage, like earnings and savings. With elevated concern about climate change generated by Superstorm Sandy, perhaps 2013 will be the year to finally consider sensible ideas like carbon taxes.

Turn off the lights, turn down the thermostat, and take shorter showers.

Remembering to turn off the lights is easy and it saves a lot of energy.
Photo Credit: Alex Wilson

We live in a world of gadgets and stuff. When it comes to saving energy, we look to high-efficiency light bulbs or dishwashers. Or we use the advanced weatherstripping to seal our windows or add insulation in our attics. And hopefully we’ll look at fuel-economy ratings when shopping for our next car.

Those are important things to be doing—and we should continue paying attention with all of our purchases. But we should also recognize that behavior is a big part of our overall energy consumption.

The fact is, you can build two identical homes, right next to each other—with the same insulation levels, the same windows, the same appliances, and the same lighting—and the energy bills for those homes can differ by a factor of two, because they are operated differently.

Operating houses in a more energy-efficient manner

So how can homeowners modify the energy performance of their homes? There are lots of ways—many of them so obvious one might be tempted not to even list them. But we sometimes overlook the obvious.