The market for green building products offers many great eco-friendly products which are not only green and functional, but also beautiful. Building green however can be achieved with using just a few green products, if done right, or a lot of wasted energy even with more green products if done wrong. Also, it is easy to be seduced by a product’s claim to fame, when in reality a lot of times such a product is not really necessary. It is important to thoroughly consider the skeleton of …
With an abundance of building products out there, it can be difficult to know, which ones are the most suitable for your needs. Even if you narrow the field to only consider eco friendly products, the choices can still be overwhelming. One of the key building blocks for a truly energy efficient home is insulation. Good insulation prevents cold air in winter and hot air in summer from penetrating your home, therefore insulation can play a major role in reducing your heating and cooling bills. The selection …
The popular notion of designing and building energy efficient homes is that it costs a lot. But that is not necessarily so. One big aspect that is often overlooked is the life-cycle cost of building green. Sure, certain initial investments of green building can sometimes be higher than conventional building, but over time they can save you a lot of money.
This can be true for various appliances or the installation of plumbing and mechanical systems. For example, a tankless water heater costs more to install than …
Before the green movement gained ground in this country, being green was solely motivated by the effort of individuals who wanted to benefit from the environmental and financial perks of implementing green strategies for their homes. Although there is no governmental entity that sets forth guidelines for green building, the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) is the official institution to provide building owners and operators a concise framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions.
The USGBC developed the LEED program, …
Wood frame construction has always been the preferred building system for small construction projects in the United States because of its economy and availability of materials.
But under close inspection, wood frame construction requires additional structural bracing between studs and building up walls with rigid or batt insulation and may not be the most structural or economical system after all.
This is where SIPs come in. These Structural Insulated Panels consist of a core of rigid foam plastic insulation which is sandwiched between two structural skins. The default skins are oriented strand …
