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Homebuyers today are increasingly concerned about the indoor air quality of their homes.

Issues like mold, radon, carbon monoxide, and toxic chemicals have received greater attention than ever as poor indoor air quality has been linked to a host of health problems.

To address these concerns, builders can employ a variety of construction practices and technologies to decrease the risk of poor indoor air quality in their new homes.

EPA created the Indoor Air Package to help builders meet the growing consumer preference for homes with improved indoor air quality and energy efficiency. By constructing homes that meet EPA's stringent specifications, forward-thinking builders can distinguish themselves by offering homes that have earned this designation.

EPA's Indoor Air Package specifications were developed based on best available science and information about risks associated with indoor air quality problems, and balanced with practical issues of cost, builder production process compatibility, and enforceability. The initial specifications were piloted in several cities and revised based on input from the field.

Energy Star Builders Offer the Indoor Air Package

The Indoor Air Package is now available for all interested ENERGY STAR Partners. The current Indoor Air Package specifications (330K), dated April 19, 2007, supersede all previous versions of the specification. ENERGY STAR qualified homes that comply with these specifications and are verified with a completed Indoor Air Package Verification Checklist can earn the Indoor Air Package label.

ENERGY STAR qualified homes offer homebuyers all the features they want in a new home, plus energy-efficient improvements that deliver better performance, greater comfort, and lower utility bills.

To earn the ENERGY STAR, a home must meet strict guidelines for energy efficiency set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These homes are at least 15% more energy efficient than homes built to the 2004 International Residential Code (IRC), and include additional energy-saving features that typically make them 20–30% more efficient than standard homes.

ENERGY STAR qualified homes can include a variety of "tried-and-true" energy-efficient features that contribute to improved home quality and homeowner comfort, and to lower energy demand and reduced air pollution.

Energy Star green building guidelines,

Build It Green is a non-profit membership organization whose mission is to promote healthy and efficient building practices in California.  Headquartered in Northern California, Build It Green has expanded into Southern California.

Not only does Build it Green provide extensive training and educational forums, their green home rating system, GreenPoint Rated provides a new 3^rd party verification program for homeowners searching for an alternative to LEED.  

The Certified Green Building Professional Training course takes you through a step-by-step analysis of all systems, materials, and technologies involved with building or renovating a home.  All of the discussion focused on buildings that embrace energy-efficiency and health.

An important tool in the effort to build greener buildings and live greener lives is the selection of products that were made using environmentally friendly processes and are used in environmentally friendly ways.

They are energy or water efficient; they use healthy, non-toxic materials; they are made from recycled or renewable sources; they make current products you use more efficient or more durable; and they are recyclable or biodegradable, among many other things.

The directories below will help you sort through the claims and find the products that best meet your needs.

• ENERGY STAR: Products in more than 50 categories are eligible for the ENERGY STAR. They use less energy, save money, and help protect the environment. ENERGY STAR is a program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy.
• Good To Be Green: Good To Be Green is a directory of green building products, sustainable building materials and green building service providers. Products must: be made out of recycled materials; ensure a low environmental impact during the construction, operation and/or demolition of the building; conserve natural resources like energy, wood and water; and improve air quality.
• Green2Green: Green2Green.org features comprehensive information regarding green building products, materials and practices. The site offers side-by-side comparisons of products using a variety of environmental, technical and economic criteria.
• Green Building Pages: Green Building Pages is an online sustainable design and decision-making tool for building industry professionals and environmentally and socially responsible consumers.
• The Green Guide: National Geographic's Green Guide offers staff-written reviews of a host of products, ranging from appliances, home furnishings and home improvement products to personal care and pet supplies.
• GreenSpec Directory: The online GreenSpec® Directory lists product descriptions for over 2,100 environmentally preferable products. Products are chosen to be listed by BuildingGreen editors. They do not charge for listings or sell ads.
• Low Impact Living: Find environmentally friendly products and services in dozens of categories.
• Oikos: Oikos is a World Wide Web site devoted to serving professionals whose work promotes sustainable design and construction.
• PlugGREEN: PlugGREEN.com allows green businesses to create their own business profile, allowing them to network directly with other green businesses and green-minded consumers. In addition, PlugGREEN.com provides an organized and efficient way for consumers to find local green businesses and products in their area.

SOURCE: USGBC

Find more details about these retrofit suggestions at USGBC Checklist for Green Retrofits:

Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs

Program your thermostat

Plug air leaks

Tune up your heating and cooling (HVAC) system

Choose ENERGY STAR® appliances

Reduce water use

Switch to green power

Explore solar

Use low-VOC products

Plant trees to provide shade and wind protection for your house

Use native plantings

Not all solar installations have to be on the rooftop...or even permanent in one place.  Take this new desk design:

The SOLo Lounge Table might change the working habits of teckies. Built into the surface of this roll-around table are solar panels that charge up its internal battery and power your devices. It can connect to a variety of devices and there’s a drawer for storing and charging your gadgets. The SOLo alse features Bluetooth connectivity for system monitoring in addition to the included System Monitor display/device. More info here.

By Julie Gevrenov, environmental engineer with EPA

Recycling markets for post-consumer asphalt roofing shingles (tear-offs) are starting to gain ground. The blossoming green building movement, emphasis on environmental stewardship, increasing oil prices, aggregate shortages, efforts to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, state recycling programs and regulations, local recycling ordinances, increasing tipping (disposal) fees and difficulty choosing sites for new landfills are some drivers pushing recycling of construction and demolition materials into the limelight.

In addition, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Resource Conservation Challenge is drawing attention to reuse and recycling of construction and demolition materials.

According to the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA), an estimated 11 million tons of asphalt roofing shingles are generated annually in the U.S., and some estimates are higher. Compared with other construction and demolition materials such as metal, concrete and asphalt pavement, only a small percentage of asphalt shingle tear-offs are currently recovered, leaving significant opportunity to use recycled asphalt shingles.

The primary use for recycled asphalt shingles in the U.S. is as a road building material, particularly for use in hot-mix asphalt. Other uses of recycled asphalt shingles include cold-mix asphalt, cold patch, road base, dust control, mulch, temporary roads and fuel.

The benefits derived from using recycled asphalt shingles stem from the recovery of asphalt cement and mineral aggregate components of shingles, each of which represent about 20 to 40 percent of a shingle's weight. With the price of oil at an all-time high and aggregate shortages being experienced in some areas of the U.S., there are obvious reasons to investigate opportunities to recycle shingles.

Resources

Check out www.shinglerecycling.org, a comprehensive clearinghouse of information about the subject.

The Web site includes overviews of shingle recycling in each state (including state regulations, environmental agency contacts and all known recyclers), economics of recycling, markets for recycled shingles, pertinent environmental regulations, worker health and safety issues, a library of literature on shingle recycling and current research.

Environmental issues

Environmental Issues Associated with Asphalt Shingle Recycling discusses two main environmental concerns: asbestos, which occasionally is found in the fiberglass or felt mat of shingles, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which occur naturally in asphalt products.

Best practices

Recycling Tear-Off Asphalt Shingles: Best Practices Guide provides a starting point for shingle recyclers to plan a new operation or improve an existing one. It focuses on business planning, recycling operations, marketing strategies and compliance recommendations and identifies three major best practices, each with a number of supporting points:

1. Recyclers should implement quality-assurance and -control systems to carefully control the quality of their incoming supplies of shingle tear-off materials.
2. Recyclers' end product, recycled asphalt shingles, should meet or exceed material specifications of their end markets.
3. A recycler's business plan should include a marketing plan based on multiple outlets for recycled asphalt shingles.

Economic Issues

Shingles are heavy, making transportation a limiting factor in any recycling project. The recycling tipping fee must be cost-competitive for a roofing contractor to choose recycling instead of disposal. Likewise, a recycled asphalt shingle product must be priced competitively because end-users are more likely to choose a nontraditional or recycled product if it will save them money. And finally, preference for using recycled asphalt shingles varies among hot-mix asphalt plant operators.

Materials specifications also are critical for market development. State department of transportation (DOT) specifications often are relied on by county and local public works engineers and used on private jobs and DOT projects. However, only a handful of state DOTs (Georgia, Missouri and South Carolina) currently have specifications for using recycled asphalt shingles in hot-mix asphalt.

Other states (Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia) have specifications for the use of manufacturers' shingle scrap in hot-mix asphalt though the volume of available manufacturers' scrap is insignificant compared with the volume of shingle tear-offs generated annually.

How to Recycle Shingles in YOUR State

Recycling presents great environmental stewardship opportunities for the roofing industry. If you are interested in recycling asphalt shingles, research the resources currently available in your state, including state specifications.

You can find this information and key contacts for your state agencies at www.shinglerecycling.org under the State Experience section. Your state regulator will help you learn what can be recycled in your state and how to do it. If you want to start a recycling operation, don't learn by trial and error—you can refer to the best practices guide to glean the cumulative wisdom of the pioneers of asphalt shingle recycling.

Remember, you may be able to reduce your disposal costs by keeping asphalt shingles and other construction and demolition materials out of landfills. And substituting reused or recycled materials in place of virgin materials can result in substantial energy savings and greenhouse gas emissions reductions—and you can make that happen.

Shingle Recycling Business Opportunity

So where's the business opportunity in shingle recycling? On the front end, you obviously can save money by recycling if a recycling tipping fee compares favorably with costs of local landfill tipping fees.

But what about recyclers and end-users, particularly hot-mix asphalt producers? In general, most private companies don't want to discuss their operations, and because local conditions such as tipping fees vary widely, no single example can be representative of all operations.

But a hypothetical, conservative scenario can help reveal some information.

Assuming the asphalt shingles torn off a roof system are 20 percent asphalt, the price of liquid asphalt cement is $300 per ton and about 75 percent of the asphalt in the shingles is "available" to replace virgin asphalt cement in hot-mix asphalt, then the value of the asphalt in the recycled asphalt shingles is about $45 per ton.

If we assume a recycler and hot-mix asphalt producer split the value of the recycled asphalt shingles, $22.50 per ton is paid to the recycler less about $15 per ton for processing and transportation costs, leaving the recycler with about a $7.50 per ton profit on the processing side of the operation alone.

Profitable recycling ventures need revenue from their tipping fees as well as from the sale of recycled materials. If a recycler sets his tipping fee for asphalt shingle tear-offs at 50 to 75 percent of the landfill tipping fee, there is a financial incentive for people to recycle.

EARN:  Sale of Recycled Materials

Presorting Shingles

Recycling Tear-Off Asphalt Shingles: Best Practices Guide (which is available for FREE at www.shinglerecycling.org) explains that presorting can be done quite reasonably by roofing contractors—the goal isn't to remove every last nail from the shingles but to keep wood, plastic and other debris in separate piles.

With the price of petroleum-based products at an all-time high, this conservative, back-of-the-envelope estimate shows that shingle recycling can be quite profitable.

ROI for Roofing, Recycling and Paving

And the economic and environmental benefits are shared across the roofing, recycling and paving industries.

Julie Gevrenov is an environmental engineer with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Region 5 office in Chicago.

READ MORE: Professional Roofing

How Your House Works:
A visual guide to understanding and maintaining your home, by Charlie Wing

Before my parents allowed me to drive, they suggested I learn how to change a tire and check the oil. And learn to read the dashboard widgets!

The same might apply to a house.  The head(s) of every apartment and house might need to know the basics.  How the plumbing can be shut off in case of a flooded room.  How the thermostat works.  How the bathroom stool works.

And in the throes of learning how to take care of these minor emergencies, it just might happen that you learn how to make minor repairs that will save you many "retail" level repair bills, and give you the satisfaction of truly being the king or queen of your domain.

This book is a good start in the right direction.  It gives clear  visual diagrams to help you see beyond the obvious skins of modern magic.

Dual flush toilets have become standards in Europe and other countries concerned about their water supply.  Unfortunately, water conservation is undervalued in the US.  But that is changing, especially where drought is forcing water outages and increasing rates.  Gerber provides high efficiency toilets, sinks and certified water efficient solutions. 

Gerber offers vitreous china pedestal and drop-in lavatories designed to complement their toilets, bringing together classic looks and powerful technology. The advanced HP2 and XP3 high-performance flushing systems will virtually eliminate the aggravation and cost of warranty callbacks from second-class toilets that clog or require a “double flush.”

Abigail™ faucets, and Viper™ toilets with Gerber's HP2 flushing system, which delivers performance that’s more than double the industry standard! Gerber provides you with the style and quality you need to give homebuyers who are stepping up from their first home the sense that they’ve truly arrived.

Gerber offers water-saving, sensor-operated electronic faucets designed to prevent waste by automatically shutting off water flow. Deckmount choices include gooseneck or crescent spouts, as well as, models
equipped with an in-deck mixer, which permits user control of water temperature.

Ultra Flush® 1.1 gpf toilet models are available to deliver the ultimate in high-efficiency water conservation.
They can flush 1,000 grams of bulk waste while using 30% less water than standard 1.6 gpf toilets. In addition to Ultra Flush 1.1 gpf units, Ultra Dual- Flush™ models are also available, with a dual-action lever that permits 1.6 gpf or high-efficiency 1.1 gpf operation.

Ultra Dual-Flush™ provides professional performance while conserving natural resources. It flushes up to 1,250 grams of bulk waste per 1.6 gallon flush or 1,000 grams per 1.1 gallon flush.  1.1 gallon flush uses 30% les water over conventional 1.6 gallon toilets.  The Pressure-Assist system uses pressure from the incoming supply line to foce 1.6 gallons of work out of 1.1 gallons of water. It installs like standard gravity toilest -- no special connections are required.

Gerber products are sold exclusively to the plumbing professional.

Gerber Plumbing Fixtures corporate offices are located in Woodridge, Illinois.  Gerber has manufacturing facilities in Kokomo, IN, Laredo, TX, Montreal, Canada. Shenzhen, China and Weifang, China.

Gerber

The old fashioned bathroom stool can use up to 3 gallons of water per flush. New toilets use considerably less and the new "dual flush toilet" lets you save the most. The flush button for "light flush" uses lss than a gallon of water, and the heavier flush (for solids) uses about 1.5 gallons. These amounts vary by product and by certification by trusted programs such as EPA's Watersense standard.

Designed in Australia, where water conservation is extremely important, the HET dual flush water-saving toilet uses, at most, 1.6 gallons per flush. “Dual flush” means that this toilet has two different types of flushing. One for liquids (or #1), which is only .8 gallon of water, and one for solids ( like #2, c’mon let’s be grownups about this!), which is only 1.6 gallons of water. At its biggest flush, this water still uses less than the standard new toilets, which use 1.8 gallons of water per flush. That’s up to 50-75% savings!

Remodeling doesn't always mean ripping out walls -- if you think green, you can rip out utility costs!