In my years as chair of LEED's Materials & Resources Technical Advisory Group (MR-TAG) I've gotten lots of questions and comments about interesting interpretations and claims from product manufacturers. Most manufacturers are sincere in their efforts to understand the credit requirements and present their products in a positive light. Sometimes they just don't go far enough in studying the credit language before making their claims.

BuildingGreen recently cleared out about 75 shelf-feet of periodicals -- Architecture and PanelWorld and Ecological Restoration and Mold and Moisture Management and lots more. The recycling area outside the office was getting overcrowded with them and we still had more to remove. Then I remembered that our neighbor, Steve Benson, at J.S Benson Woodworking & Design, had told me he could use paper in his briquetter. I gave Steve a call, and he happily accepted our old magazines.

Workers blowing cellulose insulation onto a wall.

Insulation is our number-one line of defense against high heating costs, and my favorite type of insulation is cellulose. Along with its effectiveness at slowing heat flow, cellulose insulation is a green product--made mostly out of an abundant waste product: old newspaper.

7/1/09 Update: The LEED AP exam has significantly changed, and the following sample exam has not been updated to reflect this. By the way, if you are looking to learn about the LEED 2009 rating systems, there's no better tool out there than our own LEEDuser.com. Eighty multiple choice questions, a score range of 125–200, a passing score of 170.

SNOW ON THE ROOF IS A GOOD THING. It proves that the new insulation does exactly what it should--it keeps the heat inside the house..

There is no component of a home more important in minimizing energy costs than insulation. Insulation is the material used in walls, ceilings, roofs, and foundations that slows the flow of heat.

A: Mini-splits and variable-refrigerant-flow multi-splits. It's not that mini-splits and their multi-split kin aren't available in the U.S. at all. Daikin, Mitsubishi, and Sanyo all sell products here, along with a few other manufacturers.

Add another item to the list of reasons why suburban sprawl is bad for the environment: recycling rates.

Hybids account for less than 5% of all car sales in the U.S. The Toyota Prius continues to be the best-selling hybrid.

Like a lot of people, I'm often running late. One of our two cars--a five-year-old Honda Civic Hybrid--has a digital readout showing fuel economy. Because I travel so much (ironically hopping on a plane or driving hours to lecture about energy savings or green building), I get lots of opportunity to track my mileage.

If you don't already know about technical briefs from California's Public Interest Energy Research Program (PIER), you should (PIER's web presence has been absorbed into a larger site on research and development). The folks at PIER research various topics related to energy efficiency, and come out with some great briefs that are published through ESource. The most recent of these launches a useful plug-in for the U.S.

Aside from cost of gasoline, driving can result in traffic congestion, time loss, stress, wear and tear on vehicles, and added pollution.

Rarely a day goes by that I don't hear people complaining about how much money they're spending on gasoline. Indeed, filling up costs three times what it did just a couple years ago; it's understandable that people are upset.

So how can we reduce our costs of getting around? This week, I'll address the best strategy--driving less. Next week, we'll look at how to get better mileage from our cars.

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