Highlights:
95% efficient wall mount boilers (QHT, Veissman, Buderus, NTI)
Tankless hot water heaters are now commodity products!
Metal standing seam roofing systems with peel and stick photovoltaic cells, anyone?
Vacuum tube solar hot water arrays. One 10 tube array per person, $1200 ea, available at your plumbing jobber now….
1.2 gallon flush toilets with full or half flush options.
Grey water heat recovery and recyling.
Low voc flooring and fabrics.

It’s getting better all the time and prices are coming down.

Sadly, it’s worth noting that most of these technologies have their origin in Europe. US companies (usually small ones) are catching on, but too damn slowly.

It’s a shame, but too often true…though my boss like to tell the story of building his house during the tail end of the first energy crises. He chose 2×6 construction and T-111. When he later added vinyl siding, he put another layer of rigid insulation outside the T-111, Tyvek, and then the siding. Every time we talk about “green” or building he chuckles to himself, because even in a winter wonderland, his furnace rarely runs.

Perhaps the difference is between people who plan to live in a house for a while and people who plan to live the majority of their life in a house.

I’m sorry, but home owners are not willing to make investments for the benefit for future occupants.

The defining of green is similar to this situation. The spray on foam is probably not the best idea for certain applications (unless it doesn’t have the flame retardants)…but greening our lifestyles is going to be done through applying different solutions for different situations. No silver bullets.

Do your old clients have anything to say on this one, Slammy, if you’re still in touch with them?

Do you have a source for that? It’d be nice to know if it was the polyurethane itself or the glues that were used to adhere it to buildings that were the source of the toluene. It would frankly suck for cold and damp areas to have to avoid the best materials available due to chemical decomposition problems.

I guess it means that you first have to define “green” and work from there, at least until we find some ways to make insulation products from more renewable sources. It is possible to have both, but that means using non-traditional building techniques like straw-bale and log end construction. (Simply flipping wood over so that its grain – and hence cellular structure – runs parallel to the Earth rather than perpendicular changes its insulating ability greatly.) And if you really, really want to stay warm/cool and be material green at the same time, then berm it.

Though, as always, i’m disappointed that i can’t have it all.

I’d like to see natural gas/electric hybrid trucks. And i’ve always wondered why Detroit didn’t see the beauty of putting hybrid power trains into their behemoths: the fuel savings would be far more noticeable at that scale and truck buyers have a torque fetish that is addressed by the electric motor. I’m sure that they have a good reason, Detroit always does…

But it’s a chemical process. A fairly inert one, yes, but still, they’re not making the stuff out of tree bark and bunny fur.