Rocky Mountain Institute and Cushman & Wakefield experts presented a well-attended session at Greenbuild Toronto on high energy performance glass, titled Transparency in the Service of Sustainability: Addressing the Market Demand for Glass Buildings.

Super-insulating SeriousWindows can help reduce energy bills in two ways. They can reduce heating and cooling loads by reducing the amount of heat that is conducted through the window, as well as the amount of heat that is leaked around the window (known as “infiltration").

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.”

Luke and Laura have a Serious vision for their dream home.  In 2007 they purchased a house, and since then have been tearing it apart and building it back up brick by brick to turn it into a home.  When it came time to choose their windows, Luke and Laura had all but decided on wood clad windows when they saw freshly installed SeriousWindows in a friend’s house.  Luke was immediately drawn to the attractive, high quality fiberglass frames, but it was his research into SeriousWindows’ performance and innovative, custom approach to building windows that convinced him to change his tune.

Checking in on Chicago’s impressive recycle-reuse-energy-efficient-everything-retrofit, Elemental Building at 1610 N Honore Street, the home’s super-insulating fiberglass SeriousWindows are standing up to the harshness of their first mid-western winter.

Study Offers Solid Data for Cost-Effective Residential Retrofits and New Construction (full press release below)

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – August 3,  2010 –  Serious Energy, nee Serious Materials, the leading provider of high-tech products and services which reduce energy usage in the built environment, today announced that a recently completed study ranks high R-value windows as the number one consideration for optimum energy-saving performance and return on investment for both residential retrofits and new home construction.

Blake Bilyeu of Bilyeu Homes, Inc. recently completed this new home construction in Salem, Oregon. The home may look generally 'typical', but it happens to be one of the most energy efficient, air tight in the country. In this video, Blake explains the wishes of the home owner - to have a low energy house - without knowing exactly how to achieve it.

Thomas McGrath is very serious about reducing energy usage of the 1890's building he owns in Chicago. With partners Ted Roszkowski of ACT Construction and architect Gerhard Zenserling, this "gut retrofit",  resuses as much existing materials as possible and focuses on replacing energy inefficient materials where needed - like the windows. The net result aims to be USGBC Leed Platinum, Chicago 3 star rated, and Energy Net Positive (meaning, excess energy will power the building, going beyond just being energy "net zero").

Today, everyone from President Obama to Green Building Advisor Martin Holladay is talking windows – those that save money and save energy.

At a Home Depot store in Virginia, Obama explained how retrofitting buildings and investing in “energy-efficient windows and doors” is the biggest bang for the buck for economic growth, environmental initiatives and energy efficiency.