Part 12 of our 15-part Q&A series on all aspects of green building from the publishers of HealthyHouseInstitute.com. Click here for the introductory post and furthur details.

Question: Why don’t you like certain types of carpeting?

Answer: Some carpets are high emitters of VOCs. Choose low-VOC types.

Question: What’s the best kind of carpet to buy?

Answer: Look for those rated by the Carpet and Rug Institute's Green Label Program. Otherwise, the best advice we can give is to look for a product with as little odor as possible. It’ll help to take someone along with you who has a good sense of smell when you go shopping for carpet and padding. This is imperfect advice because some of the chemicals outgassed don’t have an odor. If you can’t find a low-odor carpet, you can roll it out in an uncontaminated garage and let it air out there before you bring it indoors for installation. Furthermore, you should install the carpet with tack strips rather than an adhesive.

Many people believe natural-fiber carpets are inherently healthier. Sometimes they are, but that’s not always the case. Natural fibers are often chemically dyed or treated and wool carpet is routinely treated with mothproofing chemicals. Actually, some 100%-nylon carpets are less bothersome than some natural carpets. Whatever kind of carpet you choose, we highly recommend using a central vacuum cleaner to maintain it.

Area rugs may offer advantages over carpet. First of all, you can often find them locally made of cotton or other natural fibers at reasonable prices. Some may even been dyed using natural plant dyes. If they have any odor when new, they can usually be laundered in a washing machine or hung outdoors until odor-free. As a result, they're much easier to keep clean than wall-to-wall carpet. If a larger area rug won’t fit in your washing machine, you can take it outdoors and beat it over a line—but be sure and wear a good dust mask.

Question: Wood floors are always a healthy flooring choice, right?

I'm ruminating on the kitchen.
Maybe I'm just hungry.

For our kitchen, we decided to move it from David Day's west placement to the center. This really is how our family lives and I see that island being central to breakfast requests, snacks, and pipsqueaks and guests keeping me company while I cook.

We sit down for dinner each night, so it made sense to put the dining table in a nice area by itself where we could linger and recount the exciting adventures of the day. Romantically I envision the sun setting west as we pop open a nice bottle of wine and prepare to enjoy a seasonal meal with friends and family.

But let's get back to the kitchen.

We struggled over honestly asking ourselves how we really would use the stove/oven systems. I imagined balancing out a wood cook stove that would provide a secondary source of heat for the house (solar being primary) yet could be cooked upon in the cool months with the solar cooker in the warm months. But the reality was not so apt- as much as I adore solar cooking, I have yet to successfully make pasta in the solar cooker, and honeychile, we eat a LOT o' pasta. Despite the free wood fallen on the land, burning wood is not the most efficient, green solution.

Scott Kyle of Full Scale Architecture points out that really, "Using raw wood is not desired. Instead, consider propane and solar alternatives for heating. If you must burn, pelletized fuel is more efficient than raw wood. For cooking, I recommend propane for the range, and electric for the oven. Whole house heating off grid can be accomplished of course by solar hot water/radiant heat."

My nimble sailor side asked, "Well why not just reuse a marine stove?" Marine stoves are modernly minimalist, in my mind would be efficient *and* quite stylish in a casa ti. And, dur, being made for a boat, they run off grid.

But free, fallen wood is a hard option to bypass. Plus I was in LOVE, in love with the wood burning Amish-made Baker's Choice cook stoves. So practical, happy, homey, so efficient, so... me, I want it I want it I want it and I want it NOW! I would wear an apron for that stove!

But it seems not to be.

My always-too-sensible husband pointed out that with the efficiency of design and construction materials in our zero energy home, my kitchen dream would easily overheat the house. Kitchen dreams dashed by prefab efficiency! DAG!

So here's a compromise: See that area on the right for a modest but efficient wood stove? Let me tell ya about that stove. Growing up, it was in the rec room of our home, helping to heat but also dry our ice and snow drenched selves, coats, and mittens after a rosy-cheeked day of play. It will be recycled into the casa ti, reused for another generation in our family, and converted to burn pellets.

I guess I shouldn't complain- instead of a choice, I will have it all! The recycled, converted wood stove will be a secondary source of heat on which to simmer stews as I please, the solar oven used seasonally when it's appropriate, and the marine stove to fall back on for quick breakfasts or pasta.

Coming soon: The Kitchen Part 2: The Fridge, Freezer, Philosophy.

This symbol could soon become as common and EPA’s other conservation program--Energy Star. The EPA launched its WaterSense program in 2006. The program seeks to “enhance the market for water-efficient products and services by building a national brand for water efficiency.”

WaterSense is a program for water-only products like toilets, faucets, and irrigation systems. It does not include appliances like dishwashers or clothes washers that use both water and energy; these remain under the Energy Star program. In 2007, the EPA released WaterSense specifications for high efficiency toilets and bathroom sink faucets. Specifications for showerheads are currently being developed.

WaterSense is poised to become very popular in the green building community. In its proposed changes to several LEED rating systems, the U.S. Green Building Council removed some specifications for water saving credits and replaced them with “WaterSense-certified fixtures and fixture fittings should be used where available.”

Could this symbol become as ubiquitous as the Energy Star symbol? Only time will tell.

Part 11 of our 15-part Q&A series on all aspects of green building from the publishers of HealthyHouseInstitute.com. Click here for the introductory post and furthur details.

Question: I’ve heard that plaster is a healthy material. What are its advantages and disadvantages?

Answer: You buy plaster as a powder, mix it with water, then apply it to a surface where it hardens. Once completely cured, the plaster is very inert and rock-like. Although most people can’t detect any odor after a few days, a few sensitive people have said that they’re bothered by a slight odor for a month or so.

In the past, 2-3 coats of plaster were commonly applied on top of thin strips of wood lath. In some commercial applications it’s still applied in a similar manner, but it’s usually put over to metal lath instead of wood. However, the most common way to use plaster today involves skimming one or two thin coats over a gypsum-board material. The gypsum board has a blue paper face, so it’s usually called blueboard.

Most of the time, plaster walls are painted. For sensitive people who are bothered by paint, plaster has the advantage of being hard, durable, and scrubbable enough that you can actually leave it unpainted. While most plaster is white, it can sometimes be tinted (before its applied) with the same kinds of mineral pigments that bricklayers use in mortar.

As far as drawbacks, plaster is more brittle than drywall and, if it ever cracks, it’ll no longer be airtight. Plaster costs more than drywall, primarily because of the skilled labor required. In some parts of the country, plaster is widely used. But, in other areas, it’s been totally replaced with drywall.

Question: What makes drywall different from plaster?

This week we feature two projects by Nobbs Radford Architects of Sydney, Australia. We are also releasing the first of our interviews with Ned Engs principal of the firm E4 of Los Angeles.

Babylon, New York has enacted an extensive program to work with citizens to pay for energy efficiency upgrades for every home in the town. Under the Long Island Green Homes Program, Babylon will loan residents up to $12,000 at a 3% interest rate to pay directly for energy efficiency improvements to their homes.

Under the program, which has been funded with $2 million in town funds, residents get home energy audits that include recommended actions for renovations, including adding more insulation, changing out the HVAC system, etc. The town pays for the renovations and the homeowner then makes payments to the town based roughly on the reduction in payments caused by having a more efficient home. The homeowner assumes no debt and, should the house be sold, what is remaining of the obligation is assigned to the new homeowner. Homes that go through the program are expected to reduce energy consumption by roughly 20-40%.

Babylon has approximately 65,000 single family homes which collectively emit 1.6 million lbs of carbon on a daily basis. The program will help reduce carbon emissions by 65,000-130,000 tons, reduce energy costs for homeowners and create 6,600 new green collar jobs. Under the program, the average resident will reduce his or her energy costs by approximately $1,160 per year and reduce his or her carbon footprint by 20-40%. The program is a primary initiative of Babylon's soon-to-be-released Climate Protection and Sustainability Plan which will outline measures to reduce the town’s emissions by 12% by 2012.

This program is an interesting model for municipalities on the local, state and national level. We're watching to see if it catches on elsewhere!

Part 10 of our 15-part Q&A series on all aspects of green building from the publishers of HealthyHouseInstitute.com. Click here for the introductory post and furthur details.

Question: Won’t a good air filter remove all the pollution in my house?

Answer: In most cases, filtration isn’t the single answer, but it can be part of the answer. To have good indoor air quality, you first need to apply the three Healthy-House Design Principles of eliminate, separate, and ventilate. Once that’s been done, the indoor air should be pretty good, and you can use a filter to remove any minor pollutants that are left. A good filter is not a substitute for ventilation because filters can’t remove moisture from the air and they can’t supply oxygen.

If you want to try and use filtration to clean up the air in a problem house, you’ll need a very powerful system that will filter the air several times an hour. This will be expensive, breezy, and noisy, and it won’t be as effective as applying the three healthy-house design principles first.

If you decide to use a filter, there are three ways to do so. First, you can use a portable room-sized filter unit. There are a number of companies that offer these free-standing units.

Portable filters work best in a single room, with the door closed, and the filter left running continuously. Second, for whole-house filtration, you can let the fan on your forced-air furnace or central air conditioner run continuously so its filter will remove pollutants passing through the system. Third, you can use a filter with a general ventilation system to filter the incoming air—air that isn’t always as clean as we’d like it to be. In some cases, it can make sense to combine a forced-air heating/cooling system with a ventilation system. That way, one filter (and one set of ducts) can serve both systems

Question: My furnace already has a filter. Isn’t that good enough?

In May, the U.S. House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming convened a hearing to discuss how green buildings can curb climate change and reduce energy costs.

Chairman Edward Markey (D-MA) observed in his opening statement that the building sector is responsible for up to 48% of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions and noted that some cities like Boston--which attributes 78% of its greenhouse gas emissions to buildings--are even higher. He noted that only 7% of participants in a recent survey identified buildings as a major source of emissions. This hearing was intended to change that perception.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom also testified at the hearing, detailing San Francisco's recent adoption of the most aggressive green building standards of any major American city and recommending the reauthorization of the renewable tax credit to encourage the use of renewable energy systems and shifting taxes from jobs to pollution, both of which would provide financial incentives for green buildings.

Other witnesses included Michelle Moore, Senior Vice President and Market Development for the U.S. Green Building Council; Edward Norton, an actor and trustee of the Enterprise Foundation which works to bring green building practices to low-income housing development; Kent Peterson, President of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE); and Tony Stall, Vice President of Marketing for Dryvit Systems Inc., a corporation working to improve the efficiency of buildings with an energy efficient insulation system on the exterior of buildings.

While many experts believe that the private sector needs to be on board to really drive green building, many also applaud the federal government for setting forth a baseline or minimum standards of resource and energy efficiency policies and legislation to nurture the "ecosystem" of green building.