In November of this year, NESEA will be hosting the Building Energy Bottom Lines Summit. As a member of the Bottom Lines program, as well as a participant on its steering committee, I have been mulling over the purpose of such a summit; while on...
I am a member of Bottom Lines, a peer review network of builders and architects sponsored by NESEA. The fundamental mission of Bottom Lines is to support companies in their efforts to attend to a triple bottom line: profits, people and planet. The group has...
Have you ever seen one of those remora fish cleaning the inside of a shark’s mouth? That has to be one of nature’s most terrifying jobs. But the little guys just soldier on, swimming into the massive toothy mouths of nature’s perfect killer so they...
Early last fall the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) once again named Massachusetts as the most energy efficient state in the country. Massachusetts qualified for the distinction in no small part because of its utility sponsored efficiency program, known as Mass Save. The...
The Greenberg Residence project is nearing completion. Most of the remaining work will be completed by Laurel. As I noted in an earlier post (Nov. 2013), our performance goal for this job was to design and build an affordable house that would meet the Mass...
Wes, one of our lead carpenters, has had a summer window cleaning business on the side for many years. He has a stable of happy, loyal customers, a stable that is getting larger every year. Until this summer, Wes has scheduled his window cleaning jobs...
It is 9 AM Saturday morning April 19, and I am preparing for the arrival of 5 friends who have eagerly agreed to travel to the wilds of Cummington, Ma. to spend the day doing physical labor on my under-construction house. All week the weather...
In the movie, The Company Men, we see what happens to people when corporations are awarded personhood, both legally and emotionally, and shareholders, driven by an obsession with daily increases in stock prices and a rabid fear of price falls, are given the reins of...
We are currently doing weatherization work in a late 19th Century house in the Town of Lenox. This house presents all the usual problems of large, older homes, homes built with absolutely no regard for the cost of energy. The clients came to us complaining...