NYC neighborhoods have some of the smallest per capita carbon footprints in the country -- and they do it just by living smaller, living closer and driving less.  It’s just one more thing that New Yorkers can feel superior about. However, they’re not gloating – they’re acting. The city is listening to all the smart people that comprise the Urban Green Council, the New York Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and is enacting Zone Green, “the most comprehensive effort of any U.S. city to sweep aside zoning obstacles to the construction and retrofitting of green buildings.”

If you are in real estate, you already know new building and housing starts are down. Now, the AIA has put some numbers around it. A new report shows that construction spending is down 27 percent since 2008, a loss of $300 billion in economic activity. Leanne Tobias at Greenbiz writes:

"As reported in a new study by the American Institute of Architects, construction spending in the U.S. has declined by 27 percent since 2008, an economic loss of close to $300 billion. (An additional $470 billion in construction-related spending also has been lost.) Private construction projects have been particularly hard hit, declining by more than a third, while public construction is down roughly 10 percent.

If you're sitting in your office freezing because of chilly weather outside or baking because of accumulated solar heat, you have a problem. And Serious Energy has the solution: the iWindow. It's an easy-to-install window we've created to help better insulate your building. The iWindow snaps into existing frames over the top of existing windows: no disruption to people indoors, no high installation costs. Fast. Easy.

And to let the world know about them, we're holding the "I Want New Windows" contest. Write in why your building needs new windows and you could be one of the winners of 250 square feet of iWindows. (click here to enter) or vote for one of the entrants. (See list here.) We will later tally the votes and select the winners.

Today's entry comes from Tanya W in Northern California. Unlike Nash in Montana, who is freezing, Tanya is being pounded by the heat:

When they meet at the 6th Annual North American Passive House Conference this week, the masters of super-sealed, ultra-insulated building design will be seeing and hearing about the latest SeriousWindows technology. Serious Energy will be exhibiting and, on the podium, co-presenters John Semmelhack of the Mid-Atlantic and Graham Irwin of Northern California, will be sharing their  repeatable method for getting accurate predictions of actual energy performance using examples comprised of SeriousWindow models within the Passive House Planning Program, PHPP.

Sunnyvale, CA – September 27, 2011 – Serious Energy today announced a technology partnership with U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), creators of the LEED green building program and LEED Online. Coined LEED Automation, the partnership enables users of LEED to easily sync up data and information with LEED Online, the software platform that manages the LEED green building certification process, and drive continuous improvement in their buildings.

Twenty college teams from around the world are competing in the 2011 Solar Decathlon, organized by the U.S. Department of Energy -- and SeriousWindows have been used in three of the projects!

The Empire State Building has been in the news again lately for its enormously successful retrofit project, which just earned it a second ENERGY STAR certification by the US EPA. From the Empire State Building press release: “The certification signifies that the property’s energy performance is part of a select group of commercial office buildings, new and old, across the nation that have received this accolade. ENERGY STAR recognition was a stated objective in the iconic property’s overall sustainability retrofit initiative launched in April 2009.”

Across the board, open data is fueling important discussions about access to information in a post web 2.0 world and what we can do with such data when we have it. Simply put, open data matters because it significantly improves the overall quality and quantity of information, which fuels innovation and collaboration, and accelerates the rate of improvement.

North Carolina’s first Passive House, located in Chapel Hill, is also the first  on built out concrete.  Passive House Consultant, and owner of Anchorage Building Company, Chris Senior told Jetson Green that using concrete for the entire exterior of the home helped keep costs “surprisingly reasonable.”

According to the American Express Spending & Saving Tracker, an annual poll of homeowners that aims to understand consumer behavior and trends related to home improvement, 64% of homeowners plan to invest in home improvement projects in 2011.  32% of those homeowners indicated that their plans include “green improvements,” with 31% reporting specifically that they will invest in energy saving improvements in order to realize long-term cost savings.

Really nice blog post at Planet Forward with a great accompanying video clip (shown below)... The key point in both is accounting for total cost of ownership of a house.

Sure, building a Passive House will create more upfront costs; but when you weigh the energy savings over time, payback awaits the wise, not to mention the  increased comfort high-tech ventilation affords.

Watch the clip. And no need to rewind when the architect gets to the part about "no furnace." That’s right. He said it.

California residents now have access to a new resource to help them plan home energy retrofits and take advantage of the myriad of incentives, rebates and tax credits available from local, state and federal governments.  Energy Upgrade California, a new program developed by the California Energy Commission, local governments, utilities, the California Public Utilities Commission and contractors specializing in home energy audits, upgrades and retrofits, aims to make energy efficiency improvements and easy and attractive investment for homeowners.  The overall program objectives are to reduce household energy consumption, save consumer money on utility bills and create jobs in the building performance industry.

Congratulations to architect Dennis Wedlick!  The Hudson Passive House is now officially the first certified passive house in New York State.  The Hudson House not only meets the rigorous requirements of the Passive House Standard, like an air tight envelope with ACH < 0.6 and a 90% reduction in heating and cooling energy, but it is also a stunningly beautiful and supremely livable home.

A recent survey carried out by the National Association of Home Builders shows a growing interest in green building concepts among consumers and a belief that long-term financial savings play an important role in thinking about “green” homes.  The survey polled both consumers and builders about their perceptions of building, buying and living in a green home.

Blake Bilyeu, Oregon-based builder and Passive House extraordinaire, explains in detail how the home he built saves money thanks to its energy-efficient design. The Bilyeu House is so airtight that it scored an ACH 0.2, it features Series 925 SeriousWindows, an energy recovery ventilation system, and solar hot water heater. While these features amounted to a net increase of about 6% in the overall budget of the house, Blake drives home exactly how that cost pays for itself and then some when you factor in incentives and future utility bills.

In a speech at Penn State University, President Obama announced the Better Buildings Initiative, a program aimed at achieving a 20% improvement in energy efficiency of America’s commercial buildings by the year 2020 and saving $40 billion per year in utility bills.  With the Better Buildings Initiative, the Obama administration is looking to make energy efficiency retrofits easier and even more attractive.  The initiative will work with government and the private sector to increase access to financing for energy efficiency projects, improve tax incentives for building owners, and award grants to local and state governments that streamline regulations and enact measures to attract private investment.

In 2006 Architecture 2030 issued the 2030 Challenge to the building to community: make all new buildings’ operations carbon neutral by 2030.  Now Architecture 2030 is taking on building products.  Yesterday the non-profit announced the 2030 Challenge for Products, an initiative that calls on the building community to specify, design and manufacture products that reduce their carbon footprints by 30% in comparison to average products starting in 2014.  The ultimate goal is to reduce the carbon footprints of building products by 50% by 2030. With this announcement Architecture 2030 makes the leap from dealing exclusively with the operational efficiency of buildings into the realm of life cycle carbon footprints of individual products.

Paolo Design Group’s innovative “concept house” for the Portland Home and Garden Show is being built at the Expo Center in under 60 hours.  Sections of the home’s structure and interior have been pre-built in panels that can easily fit together like a jigsaw puzzle at the show in order to enable the quick assembly time.  The 2011 Smart Home, featuring SeriousWindows, will be open at the show from February 23-27 as an interactive exhibit highlighting sustainability, design, innovation and high quality construction.  Architect Paul Scardina worked with a Universal Design concept to create living spaces that are not only sustainable, but also appeal to a diverse set of people.

One of the most stringent performance requirements of the Passive House Standard is the air tightness of the building shell.  Air tightness refers to the ability of the building to prevent air infiltration through unsealed joints in the structure and around windows.  Air tightness plays a central role in the performance of a Passive House because air infiltration leads to uncontrolled heat gain and heat loss and lowers the ability of the house to heat and cool itself passively.  While refreshing a home’s air through ventilation is important for indoor air quality, a leaky home ventilates poorly, letting too much cold air in during the winter and not enough during the summer.  It is better to have an airtight home with a whole-house ventilation system.

Sungazing House, the home of Kevin and Svetlana O’Meara, won the 2010 Green Home of the Year award from Green Builder Media.  Green Builder Media selected Sungazing House as the grand-prize winner from a pool of extraordinary projects that “integrate the built and natural environments.”  Sungazing House, a stunningly-designed, ultra-modern home located in Park City, Utah built by Tall Pines Construction, meets the requirements of the gamut of green building design standards: Passive House, LEED Platinum, Net Zero Energy and National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Emerald.