The United Welsh Housing Association is running a competition to find people to live in and assess two homes built on the site of a former steel works at Ebbw Vale in Blaenau Gwent, south Wales. The homes, built to showcase the “Passivhaus” concept, are in a group of state-of-the-art homes built for the 2010 National Eisteddfod.
The White House hopes that someday soon everyone will be able to monitor and control their home energy usage, and lower their monthly utility bills, with a few swipes on a smartphone app. At least that’s the vision of the Green Button initiative, a recent White House effort to bring together the nation’s utilities, energy consumers and private industry to develop Internet and mobile phone-style technologies and business models aimed at reducing energy consumption.
The Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS) will no longer give its blessing to projects incorporating spray polyurethane foam insulation (SPF) that uses blowing agents with high contribution to global warming, according to executive director Katrin Klingenberg.
The city known for expensive real estate has unveiled the smallest self-contained rental suites in the country — just 226 to 291 square feet — renting for about $850 per month, including cable and Internet. Location comes with a price tag, of course. These 30 “micro-lofts” are the result of a heritage project to renovate the century-old Burns Block building in Gastown, a trendy area for shops and restaurants. The contrasting backdrop to Gastown is the poverty, substance addiction and homelessness of the Downtown Eastside where Burns Block recently operated as a rundown hotel.
