Do you have comments or questions on this draft? Discuss them below with your fellow LEED professionals. Substantive comments posted here during USGBC's second public comment period  will be submitted to USGBC and considered "official" public comments.

More information on LEED 2012 certification and the second public comment

Materials and Resources (MR)

Major Changes

Do you have comments or questions on this draft? Discuss them below with your fellow LEED professionals. Substantive comments posted here during USGBC's second public comment period  will be submitted to USGBC and considered "official" public comments.

More information on LEED 2012 certification and the second public comment

Energy and Atmosphere (EA)

Major Changes

Do you have comments or questions on this draft? Discuss them below with your fellow LEED professionals. Substantive comments posted here during USGBC's second public comment period  will be submitted to USGBC and considered "official" public comments.

More information on LEED 2012 certification and the second public comment

Water Efficiency (WE)

Major Changes

Do you have comments or questions on this draft? Discuss them below with your fellow LEED professionals. Substantive comments posted here during USGBC's second public comment period  will be submitted to USGBC and considered "official" public comments.

More information on LEED 2012 certification and the second public comment

Do you have comments or questions on this draft? Discuss them below with your fellow LEED professionals. Substantive comments submitted here during USGBC's second public comment period here will be submitted to USGBC and considered "official" public comments.

More information on LEED 2012 certification and the second public comment

USGBC has opened the second public comment period on LEED 2012, the next version of the LEED rating systems. This public comment period is scheduled to run from August 1st to Sept. 14th.

As with the first public comment period, which opened in Nov. 2011, LEEDuser is here to provide guidance on key changes to LEED 2012 certification, and to provide an open forum for members of the LEED community to understand the changes and weigh in on them.

White cedar shingles protect a building from the elements, have a small environmental footprint, are easy to maintain, and they look good.

After a long summer of too much rain followed by too much heat, I am finally able start painting the clapboards on our house.

A few weeks ago I told a story in this space that was third-hand from Gordon Hayward. Well, a lot changed in the telling, and Gordon got back to me with what really happened.

Three aunts of a young man from Dorchester, Mass., came up to celebrate his graduation from a Vermont boarding school. They asked Gordon how anyone here ever slept at night: it was so dark and quiet that none of them got a wink. They thought there were at least three bears outside.

Should you replace your old windows? Using attachments can get more life out of them, and improve performance.

Most of us approach poorly performing old windows with a step-by-step exploration from one less-than-optimal fix to the next. Improving existing window performance shouldn't be that way, and it doesn't have to with new online resources.

Once upon a time in a village there lived a wise old man. Legend had it that he could answer any question posed to him. A village boy hatched a plan to fool him. He caught a small bird, and approaching the wise old man with the bird in his hands, he asked, "Is this bird dead or alive?"  If the man said it was alive, the boy would secretly break its neck and then reveal it to be dead (or perhaps pining for the fjords). If the man said it was dead, the boy would release it alive from his hands.

Not only can the earth no longer afford our petrochemical picnic cooler McMansions fueled by coal, oil, gas and nuclear power, but also, our psyches can no longer tolerate such exaggerated encapsulation.

[Editor's note: This the tenth and final piece in a set of reflections by Vermont builder Robert Riversong. Links to the other nine articles are below. Enjoy, and let us know what you think! – Tristan Roberts]

As an insulation product, spray polyurethane foam (SPF) has many great attributes that we've talked about on this website: easy installation in irregular locations, air barrier qualities, and moisture management potential.

Poetry used to be memorized, not written down, and handed from bard to bard, memory to memory, down through the generations. Perhaps folks out there have memorized poems back when schools taught such things, or for personal interest.

Not counting things I have written, I know only one poem by memory, written by David McCord. As proof, I will recite it for you here.

Epitaph on a Waiter

By and by

God caught his eye.

Vinyl flooring is inexpensive, which has made it one of the most popular commercial flooring options, but it contains phthalates and other environmentally problematic chemicals, and it requires a lot of maintenance.

Given how complex we've made our modern residential structures, it takes a hero to delve sufficiently into the mysteries of physics to confront and overcome the adversaries of heat, air and moisture and to transmute them into allies.

[Editor's note: Robert Riversong, a Vermont builder, continues his 10-part series of articles taking design and construction to what he sees as radical or "root" concerns. Enjoy--and please share your thoughts. – Tristan Roberts]