Workshop

This is natural clay plaster over compressed earth block, I left a small amount of block showing. This brown coat is a mixture of 1 part straw, 1 part clay, 2 parts sand... ad water makes it's own sauce. It is easily applied with a mud trowel and then smoothed with a wood float, however it is very labor intensive, but a lot of fun. You can cover it with a natural clay plaster color coat, clay paint or leave it raw.

We applied this plaster mixture over raw compressed adobe / earth block, as well as drywall that we primed with a BBS plater primer. we then used the air hose to blow sand on the freshly primed surface and allowed it to dry. This Natural Clay Plaster over Adobe / Earth Blockcreates great grab for the fresh plaster coat and increased production. Solstice Develoment Group www.SolsticeDev.com

The need to conserve energy must start with each of us as individuals. The market can only function efficiently if we exercise our perogative within the system and demand building materials, technologies and systems that promote green building objectives and conserve energy.

Only 52% of windows used in new construction have windows that maximize energy conservation beacuse builders and consumers are unaware of the technologies that are available or fear that they are too costly. Some are, but glass technology has come a long way over the last 30 years and the cost of making energy efficient windows has come way down as the technologies have gained ground. There are also now rating systems and standardized tests developed by independent private associations and governmental agencies to guide the Architect, Builder and Consumer in selecting the window that will perform the best for the given locale you are building in.

Chief among these are the Energy Star Qualified products registry and the National Fenestration Rating Council. Energy Star ratings are supported and maintained by The U.S. Department of Energy. The NFRC registry is maintained by an non-profit industry organization that mandates testing protocols standards and designates independent labs to certify the performance of the windows of the participating manufacturers and Consumers and Building professionals can visit the sites to learn the specific attributes of a glazing system are most desirable for their location (what Zone they a are living in) so they can select a window that has been designed and engineered to best attain the desired levels of performance for their zone.

Each Energy Star Zone has specific minimum U-Values and Solar Heat Gain Co-efficients (SHGC) that they must meet in order to be listed as "Energy Star Qualified". There are also suggestions for specific optimum perfromance criteria there so that an individual can select windows that exceed the minimums and select the best combination of attributes for the windows in their home.

In general, those living in the Southern zones need to be more focused on SHGC measures because in these zones, cooling loads use the bulk of energy to regulate the homes temperature inside. In the Northern zones, U-Value is more important because heating uses more energy for keeping the home comfortable. If you live in Miami, it is more critical that you reduce the amount of heat gain coming through the glass and if you live in Detroit, it is more important to reduce the amount of heat loss through the glass. Fine tuning the glazing is important and can lead to reductions in heating or cooling costs of up to 30%.

Now most builders will choose the least expensive window they can to hold the price of the house down. It is up to the end consumer and local building codes to begin to consider life-cycle cost instead of initial cost in designating window performance levels. New technologies that make windows optimally efficient can be had for and average cost as low as $ 15.00 per window (source: Cardinal Industries, Inc.). The payback for a cost like this is less than a few years and has become very easy to consider given the rise in energy costs over the last few years.

So learn for yourself. Go to Energy Star Zones or Efficient Window Collaborative to learn what is the best combination of attributes and find a window that is best for your home.

Many people understand that their homes or commercial buildings will leak energy. They also understand that over time it will hurt the environment. The problem is that it isn't a big deal to them because they can't see it. It is like telling a 16 year old that the sun can damage their skin. They don't see it happening so they don't worry about it. The easiest way for me to let people know that stick building, even if it does have decent insulation, is not efficient is with a picture. Building with Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) is the best way to reduce energy leaks.

SIPs are a strong structural system consisting of Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) insulation which is laminated to oriented strand board (OSB) forming a structural panel.

Now let me show you why. These two buildings are almost identical, located in West Virginia each has about 6,000 sf of roof. The photo on the top will show the thermal imaging while the photo on the bottom will show you what we are looking at with the naked eye.

The building on the left was stick built while the building on the right had a roof constructed of Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) You can see the roof has multiple large "hot spots". The building on the right is a nice consistent purple showing that there are little to no leaks. The parking lots and road retained heat so they show up as yellow and orange.

Below are the same picures from the other side.

Again the stick built building (now shown on the right) has obvious hot spots while the SIP roof (now shown on the left) has no heat loss.

The use of SIPS greatly reduces energy loss. The direct benefit of using SIPs is that there is less energy loss and in turn there are less greenhouse gases being let out into the atmosphere. So while you can't always see the effect our choices have there are consequences, short term and long term. People can help the environment and themselves if they choose green building materials.

Italian food has firmly staked its claim as one of the world's most popular cuisines. A treat for the eyes, nose, and taste buds, it's easy to see why the kings and queens of pasta live such happy and healthy lives.

The sights and smells of the Italian countryside serve as inspiration for California based Nomine's line of soy candles. Pronounced "noh-mi-neh", Nomine "simply means 'name' in Latin and was chosen to celebrate the power of the meaning behind names."

Started by Nancy Covello as part of her dedication to alternative health therapies and a vegetarian lifestyle, all of Nomine's burning beauties are made from only soybean wax and essential oils - 100% free of petroleum ingredients found in "traditional" paraffin candles.

Our wax burns longer, cooler, and clearer than paraffin candle waxes, with little to NO carbon build-up. Soy wax does not produce black soot, which can leave residue on furnishings and walls. The wax is made predominantly from domestically grown crops supporting U.S. farmers and the economy.

Available in both jars and as tea lights, there are four scents in the Nomine collection, each representing one of the four seasons. You can buy each candle individually from the Nomine website, or as set of all four seasons (shown above, includes a box of matches). Each of the candles in the "Botanical Jar Collection" feature a beautifully applied image on their glass jars, adding both pleasant smells and sights to your own eco-abode.

After the blue jean insulation is fitted, the low-VOC paints have dried, and the solar panels are functioning, it's time to focus on the inside of your new home. With air quality indoors being rated as 4 to 5 times worse than outdoors and the fact that we spend 3/4th of our day indoors, the items that we choose to decorate are rooms with are just as important as our home's basic building elements.

Sunny days call for open windows and screen doors, allowing the outdoor breezes to flow freely and temporarily remove many of the toxins captured indoors. When the temperatures drop, sealing cracks around doors and windows help to keep those breezes out (in turn, keeping us from cranking up the heat).

When the sun is out and the breeze is blowing, a funky chicken or mouse doorstop from Refab UK adds a nice hint of color to any home. If the temperatures are low, a psychedelic snake will keep out those nasty drafts.

Made from vintage, reclaimed, and organic fabrics, each of Refab's items are unique. Refab UK's creations come flat, allowing you to fill them with rice, beans, herbs, or any personally-chosen mixture (the snakes are already filled with buckwheat). Very soon, Refab will be offering cushions, bags, and accessories on their website, all of which they already sell each weekend at the Greenwich Market.

Preparing to install your first set of solar panels? Wondering if you are harnessing all the sun's energy that you possibly can? A new device from California-based Solmetric stands to help both residential and commercial solar power users get the most from their investment.

Also useful when designing the layout of new construction or remodeling projects, the Solmetric SunEye is a "hand held electronic device that allows users to instantly assess total potential solar energy given the shading of a particular site. Identifying the shading pattern early in the process reduces the expense of system and home design and improves the efficiency of the final system or house," according to the Solmetric website.

Release just last year, the SunEye was recently chosen as one of BuildingGreen's Top 10 Products for 2007. Chosen from over 200 products being reviewed by the website, the SunEye joins fellow BGTV favorite LED light from LLF Inc.

An easy-to-use interface and USB connection for data transfer to your computer makes the SunEye simple for all users. What else does this swank little device do? Here are a few more of its efficient features:

+ Integrated electronics plot solar exposure at that location.

+ Users can edit images, simulating the removal of obstructions such as trees or structures.

+ Shading percentages in monthly, seasonal, annual, and multi-skyline averages can be determined in the field or uploaded to a personal computer via USB data cable for further analysis, reporting, and printing.

+ The Solmetric SunEye automatically generates reports for sales quotes and solar rebate applications.

“The inventions of central heating and air conditioning coupled with cheap and apparently abundant fossil fuels would free building designers from considering the external environment and allow them to use brute force heating and cooling solutions to overcome building designs totally inadequate for their local climates.”

HOME HEATING IN AMERICA

For the first 100 years home heating in a heavily forested America was dominated by biomass (wood) and it was not until 1885 that the nation would burn more coal than wood. Prior to 1885 the majority of homes in America were heated with wood burning brick fireplaces and derivatives of the cast iron Franklin Stove invented in 1742.

By the end of the 19th century the invention of low cost cast iron radiators would bring central heating to America’s homes with a coal fired boiler in the basement delivering hot water or steam to radiators in every room. At about the same time, in 1885, Dave Lennox built and marketing the industry’s first riveted-steel coal furnace. Without electricity and fans to move air, these early furnaces transported heat by natural convection (warm heated air rising) through ducts from the basement furnace to the rooms above. These two methods would dominate home central heating until 1935, when the introduction of the first forced air furnace using coal as a heat source used the power of an electric fan to distribute the heated air through ductwork within the home.

To continue go to: http://sunhomedesign.wordpress.com/2007/10/26/a-brief-history-of-heating...

Hydro Wall by Virginia San Fratello

Shipbuilding Technology Brings Hydro Wall Out of the Computer

By Daniela Morell

When Virginia San Fratello won the 2006 Next Generation® Design Competition for her Hydro Wall, she told us that the biggest challenge to realizing the project would be getting it out of the computer. The complex rolling forms of the wall needed to be high functioning—harvesting rainwater to insulate the building and provide useful gray water—and they needed to look gorgeous.

Last week the first Hydro Wall panel emerged from the electronic box into the material world. At 42-inches tall this prototype is one third the scale of the final building. The mold, created in foam through the precision of rhino CAD and CNC milling, makes a finished piece that is a pristine, fiberglass object that requires no hardware or assembly.

More at: http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=3027

Photo: Virginia San Fratello

The Corrigan Rug Cleaners of Winchester, VA had a building that was 1375 square feet and was a traditional stick built structure. The building did not have air conditioning and they use heat to dry the rugs. Now they have a Structural Insulated Panel (SIP) building that is 4800 square feet with a drying room that is 80 % larger than their previous one.

What are SIPs? SIPs are a strong structural system consisting of Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) insulation which is laminated to oriented strand board (OSB) forming a structural panel. The panels resist warping and racking. They are especially cost effective when strength, comfort, performance, and energy efficiency are demanded by the building owner, designer, and builder. SIPs can be used for walls, roof, and floors. Here are the price differences of the two buildings. Keep in mind the new building is three times larger than the original building and has air conditioning which the previous building did not.

Month Electric Gas
2007 2006 2007 2006
January $109.81 $281.84 $202.40 $348.78
February $260.93 $207.14 $242.96 $370.48
March $231.73 $324.04 $151.69 $347.07
April $226.35 $202.34 $80.82 $235.34
May $205.41 $145.49 $23.47 $136.56
June $312.95 $148.26 $23.77 $69.76
July $223.38 $164.94 $17.66 $68.09
August $300.34 $177.06 $21.30 $34.76
September $281.50 $165.36 $19.14 $102.84

Total $2,152.40 $1,816.47 $783.21 $1,713.68

The new SIP building uses a two zone 3 ton and 5 ton radiant geothermal heating and cooling system and a radiant heated floor. For 2006 in a smaller building they spent $3,530.15 for gas and electricity. For 2007 in a building three times larger with air conditioning and a larger drying room they spent $2,935.61 for electric and gas. That is a savings of $594.54. The numbers were over the course of nine months for 2006 and 2007.

This is only one example of how SIPs can save on heating and cooling costs. Not to mention that the new building is amazing to look at. You walk into an open area with high ceilings. The Eagle Rigid Spans give the space an almost timber frame look. The SIPs had pure white paint applied directly to them. There are three garage doors that are only moderately insulated which open directly to the main area in the back of the building. Even after they have all been opened it takes only minutes to feel the temperature return to normal. There is a mezzanine overlooking the entrance which had decorative concrete imbedded with the company’s logo . This is a very impressive structure which has allowed them to grow their company without having to expand on their energy budget