It's spring and time to get outside! GreenSpec looks at landscaping products that use recycled content, save water, reduce stormwater runoff, and even look good.

After a long, cold winter in Vermont (and yes, it even snowed last week), the temperature rose to an unbelievable 79°F here this afternoon.

A primer on building responsibly in the post-carbon era: How do we design and build a wholly new paradigm which enhances, rather than depletes, the web of life?

[Editor's note: We have invited Robert Riversong, a Vermont builder (see full bio below), to write a 10-part series of articles taking design and construction to what he sees as radical or "root" concerns--from philosophy to principles of hygro-thermal engineering (full list of articles below). Enjoy--and please share your thoughts. – Tristan Roberts]

The preservationist wisdom is that a lot of energy--gallons and gallons of gasoline--is locked up in our historic buildings, and should be saved. It's time to update that wisdom.

A surreal magazine ad just got even more surreal for me.

There are thousands of residential ceiling fans out there. GreenSpec picks three lines that outperform others on performance and efficiency.

Have you ever tried to find an energy-efficient residential ceiling fan? There are thousands of models available, using blades in an assortment of numbers, shapes, and sizes. How does anyone sort through all those choices?

It's easy to get confused about the difference between energy and power, between watts and watt-hours.  But if you can master inches and pounds, you can master this.

How many mystery writers does it take to change a 60-watt lightbulb?

Two--one to screw the bulb almost all the way in, and one to provide a surprising twist at the end.

How many Energy Solutions columnists does it take to change a 60-watt lightbulb?

One--all he does is tell you what a watt is and he doesn't even change the lightbulb.

Fire guts half a block of a small New England town, revealing the built-in vulnerabilities of dense development.

Build tight, ventilate right is the building science mantra. Spray-on latex sealants provide a new tool for airtight construction.

Sometimes being a practical person isn’t that fun. Last night my wife and I were watching the classic 1977 movie, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

Leading up to the climactic scene, the protagonists are racing to the location where they expect aliens to appear, while outrunning the U.S. Army and the United Nations. To do this, they must escape the authorities and their cattle cars, drive a station wagon off-road through Wyoming, and spend several hours scrambling up the dry, rocky landscape around Devil’s Tower.

It turns out you can learn a thing or two from your fuel bill—and if you get fuel delivered, your delivery ticket.

But first, how cold a winter did you think it was? Or perhaps I should say, how cold has it been so far? I’m struggling to get a fire going this morning, and out my window there is two feet of snowpack still on the ground!