PAINT & FINISHES: Home Depot offers eco-friendly paint

Home Depot starts selling eco-friendlier paint in April.

ICI Paints and The Home Depot will launch an environmentally friendly paint nationwide in April 2008. The Freshaire Choice? Paint offers a paint free of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and is backed by a lifetime guarantee and GREENGUARD certification. Featuring a custom color palette of 66 beautiful colors available through an innovative tinting system.   Additionally, the packaging, samples, color cards are made in some % with recycled materials.  At $35-38 a gallon, here is what Home Depot and ICI have to say about it (from their press release today)…

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the air inside a home is, on average, two-to-five-times more polluted than the air outside. As the emphasis of environmental concern shifts from outside to inside, paint is a large contributing factor to poor indoor air quality and can emit harmful chemicals, such as VOCs, for years after Read more

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REBATES: Energy Star Tax Holiday in Texas (May 24-26)

Energy Star Sales Tax Holiday
Memorial Day Weekend
May 24 ? 26, 2008

During Memorial Day weekend, Texas shoppers get a break from state and local sales and use taxes on purchases of certain energy efficient products. The 2008 Energy Star sales tax holiday begins at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, May 24, and ends at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, May 26 (Memorial Day).

The products qualifying for the exemption are:

• air conditioners priced under $6,000 (room and central units)
• clothes washers (but not clothes dryers*)
• ceiling fans
• dehumidifiers
• dishwashers
• light bulbs (incandescent and fluorescent)
• programmable thermostats
• refrigerators priced under $2,000.
  *  Because most dryers use similar amounts of energy, Energy Star does not label clothes dryers.

Qualifying products will display the Energy Star logo, which may appear on the appliance, the packaging or the Energy Guide label. Energy Star is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. Earning the Energy Star means a product meets strict energy efficiency guidelines set by these two federal agencies.

There is no limit on the number of qualifying items one can purchase during this sales tax holiday, and an exemption certificate is not required.  For more information click here.

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The Essence of Green – More to a remodel than just green products

The Essence of Green

While many articles have been written on the emergence of green design and the countless discussions of green materials, green systems, and green principles, it is far less often that we take a step back and look at those parameters which truly address what makes up the essence of green design.

For centuries, mankind has designed and built within his environment in many different ways. The less technologically advanced he?s been ? the more he has had to depend upon understanding the local climate, geography, and environment for his well being. As we have advanced our building methods and means, the quantity at which we construct buildings, and the intricacies of out living spaces ? we have created the path that has led us to suddenly stop and take more notice of what all of that has done to our environment. We have come to realize that we have built without thought of our surroundings or landscape for far too long, and that has resulted in harm to both ourselves and our earth.

To address the fact that while we can talk at great lengths about sunflower laminates, bamboo floors, recycled glass, fluorescent lighting, solar panels, etc. ? we constantly overlook the very basic and most simple principles which have guided some of the most wonderful architecture of our time. From the centuries old Indian tepees and Tongkonan rice barns to the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Peter Zumthor, and Rudolph Schindler there are striking examples of those who have understood how to embrace our built landscape with much more than merely addressing their environment, but weaving their Read more

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