Are Home Builders Going Green?

With the announcement in February by the National Association of Home Builders about the launch of their national green home rating system some people are questioning if this program will work or fail. In a recent article published on iGreenBuild.com green building consultant and author Jerry Yudelson explains his thoughts on this subject and gives some professional insight into NAHB's program. Read the full article here.

How do you feel about NAHB's rating system?

CaGBC's 'Shifting into the Mainstream' Event June 11 & 12.

Keynotes by David Suzuki & Ray Anderson

Register before March 31st to save $100 for Shifting into the Mainstream, the Canada Green Building Council's summit for industry decision-makers on June 11-12, 2008 in Toronto.

You will learn how the CaGBC is evolving LEED® Canada certification to a 'life-cycle building performance management system for any type of building, new and existing.'

Find out about:

• real building performance
• economic opportunities
• GHG reduction potential
• best solutions for high-performance buildings in Canada

National pilot project reports for K-12 schools, commercial offices and public administration buildings will demonstrate the next generation of LEED, including:

• rating system enhancements
• proposed distributed delivery model

See how these initiatives will enable the CaGBC to achieve their impressive goals:

• certifying 100,000 buildings and 1 million homes by 2015
• reducing energy and water consumption by 50%
• lowering GHG emissions by 50 Megatonnes

Register now. Don't miss this groundbreaking event.

Landscaping & the Environment Video Clip

Watch this new video on the home page of iGreenBuild.com compliments of Building Green TV. Learn some interesting and shocking statistics about water usage for domestic gardening, listen to some tips about how to conserve water and plant smart in your home, rooftop or business landscaping.

Here's a link to the iGreenBuild home page. The video is to the right ready for you to click play.

Send us your video or green building article. Contact Matt Banes, Publisher at (714) 374-6969.

Environmentally Friendly Paint Video

Interested in learning about non-toxic paints for your green home or office? This video clip from BuildinggreenTV is a quick guide.



See other green building videos on the iGreenBuild.com video page here.

Video Clip Tour of Green Building

Want to walk through a green building with architect Scott Kelly and learn about his sustainable building design? This video clip is a great educational tool if you are a novice or even an experienced green builder or designer. The video runs on iGreenBuild.com and you don't need a special player to watch it. Go to the video page here and press play on the video player.


"We have been featuring user created video content on iGreenBuild.com and promoting it through a new publication we call Friday's Green Video," said iGreenBuild.com Publisher Matt Banes. "Our readers seem to really like watching a few minutes about green building subject matter before and even over the weekend."

Watch this video clip and others on www.iGreenBuild.com and get back to us with your feedback.

A Bit About Solar Power

Here's a quick read about solar power published on our website iGreenBuild.com. If you are like most of us here in the office you can sense that Solar is finally gaining the momentum and acceptance it truly deserves. If so, its time to get knowledgeable about active solar and passive solar, this article will help.

Read Affordable, Low Maintenance Solar Energy on iGreenBuild.com.

After The Green Building Is Built

Here is a great article featured on iGreenBuild.com by Green Syndicated Columnist Dr. Hina Pendle about the social aspects of sustainability. Now that we are not just building for building's sake it's time to focus on how we live and work together.

Read the full article here.

How Cool Roofs Lower Energy Costs

By: Scott Kriner - Sunday, December 9, 2007 Source: The Metal Initiative

In the United States, buildings are responsible for almost two-thirds of national electricity consumption and more than one-third of total primary energy use. As a result, the current energy crunch has made conservation measures within these structures more important than ever.

Heating and cooling costs are generally the major expenses associated with the operation of a building. Therefore, any reduction in these costs through the use of energy efficient building envelope components makes sense. Unfortunately, the roof can be the least energy efficient component of a building envelope. Is it any wonder, then, that cool roofing has become such a hot topic?

Cool roofing is gaining in popularity due to its ability to reduce cooling and heating energy usage. Utility companies are also interested in cool roofing because it can help reduce the peak demand in electricity during the afternoon hours of summer months, preventing power disruptions. And, from an environmental point of view, cool roofing can also help to mitigate a phenomenon known as the heat island effect.

Read the full article published on iGreenBuild.com.

Some Facts & The Future of Solar

Back in the 60’s or 70’s (too long to remember exactly) there was this myth that if the Pentagon would cover all their facilities with PV the price would drop enough that the average citizen could cover their dwelling unit. The simple answer to this question is price. The not so simple answer is thinness.

While California has 73% of the U.S. solar market is it price or efficiency holding back exponential growth. Efficiency means packing more silicon wafers into each cell. How can you do that? There is another issue, that of brittleness of the wafers. The thinner they get the harder it is to connect the poles to the edges of the wafer.

Read the complete article on iGreenBuild.com here.

Will the Electric Grid Stay On?

Going far beyond explaining the usual problems with biofuels, the video of David Fridley's June 2007 presentation "The Myths of Biofuels" explains why cellulosic ethanol won't come to the rescue anytime soon, how much biomass could possibly be grown in North America and exactly how poor ethanol really is. David is a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory staff scientist specializing on biofuels.

Read this page and learn more quick and dirty insights into the future of Energy from some very reliable sources.

Read the complete article here.