If I were to take a poll, I bet that nine out of 10 people have seen at least one episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (commonly called ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover). I have now worked on two episodes and the most recent one was the first time ever in seven seasons that they have allowed a group to completely disassemble a home to the ground. I was asked to fly out and help deconstruct a 2,700-square-foot, two-story home in 15 hours, and that is exactly what we did.

Crews gather to re-make a home!

I won’t spoil the show by giving out details, but I can say that it opened the door to reusing materials in the new building and in the surrounding neighborhood. That my friends, is exactly what Extreme Home Makeover did! They immediately found ways to incorporate the materials in their plans and much of the lumber will never be more than a block away from the property. It is true that the show has its critics. Many of them complain to me that it glorifies demolition. If I had a TV, I would watch the show on a regular basis, but the few episodes I have seen do make demolition look ‘fun’.

Hopefully, we have opened the door for them on alternatives to demolition. Each show I watch seems to have a growing focus on green building and this might be the next step for them. Given the tight timeframe allowed for demolition and site work until now, they really haven’t had a choice. Our industry offered them no solutions given their extreme situation. For me, this is all part of the path toward making green building a mainstream choice, systematically pursuing projects that we couldn’t touch years ago, until we become an option for anyone interested. Over the last 16+ years working in the green building field, I have realized that my work consists of one part natural resource conservation, one part reduced energy demand and two parts basically helping people. This is the path of Extreme Home Makeover, so keep watching and encouraging them to raise the bar higher, because that is exactly, what I plan to do.

A picture of the home\'s foundation

According to a report by nonprofit Organic Exchange, global retail sales of organic cotton apparel and home textile products grew 63 percent from its 2007 number of $1.9 billion. In 2008, the report says, it reached $3.2 billion.

Organic cotton

The top ten brands that use and sell organic cotton might surprise  you.  They are Wal-Mart, C&A (out of Belgium), Nike, H&M (out of the UK), Zara (out of Spain), Anvil, Coop Switzerland, Pottery Barn, Greensource and Hess Naur (out of Germany). 

A press release says the report says the brands plan to expand their use of organic cotton to result in an estimated $4 billion market in 2009 and a $5.3 billion market in 2010. To learn more, visit Organic Exchange’s Web site. But beware, it looks like they want to charge you (and me) $400 for the full report!

Wondering what that LEED platinum home looked like? Here are some photos for your entertainment:

That’s Sloan Ritchie, the project’s developer, walking into the house.

That’s the pretty green roof outside the master bedroom.

That’s open house visitors enjoying the living room.

This is kirei board, an engineered panel product made from the leftover stalks of the sorghum plant, which is used for food.

Here’s Ritchie with a SIP - a structural insulated panel or polystyrene panel that combines framing, insulation and exterior sheathing in one system. They can be used for roofing, walls or floors over crawl spaces.

I have a story in today’s DJC on the year’s 10 best new green products, according to (our kind of competitor) the Sustainable Industries Journal… but were they really the best?

The products range from odd to ordinary, at least in what their function is. Here are three of them:

I’d never heard of the Solar Tracking Skylight by Solar Tracking Skylights of Chicago but it sure sounds interesting. It’s a self-contained, self-managed skylight with mirrors that move to adapt to the sun’s position. It’s designed to provide light all day, not just when the sun is shining directly above. They’re half the size of typical skylights and customers include Whole Foods, Wal-Mart and the U.S. Military. … and they also look like they came out of a space movie! Yea for space movie products! (If you want to see a video of how it works, visit the Web site at the above link).

Lamberts Channel Glass by Glasfrabriks Lamberts of Bavaria, Germany is a self-supporting column that can be used as interior or exterior walls. They’re made from 40 percent recycled glass and are decidedly pretty, judges said. At left is the product in use at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo. One judge, Clark Brockman of Sera Architects in Portland, said, “Let’s just face it, it’s sexy.”

Sexy. Usually a word NOT associated with green building products (or projects for that matter). But judge for yourself from the picture at left….

Then there’s local winner Salvaged Hardwood Tables by Urban Hardwoods of Seattle. Urban Hardwoods has salvaged 3,000 trees, that would have otherwise ended up being wasted,  and turned the wood into tables. This one was salvaged from Kirkland and costs $4,200 for the tabletop.

But like it or not, these are all the opinions of a handful of (granted knowledgeable) judges. Perhaps you too are a judge in disguise. If so, tell me about the best green product not on the list. Post your comments below.

SI assures us all the products are real green products rather than examples of great greenwashing. But how well green products work is also controversial. For more on that topic, click the tag green materials below and read the entry ‘Green products not so great, says Gehry specifier,’ and comments.

Other blog posts on this at Jetson Green and Portland Architecture.

These are three of the 10. To learn about the other seven, read my story here. 

I’ve spent the last week in Boston and New York, riding subways that people in the Pacific Northwest can only dream about.

But while riding those subways (which are largely, at least in NYC, responsible for why the average person’s carbon footprint is so low) it struck me that green is becoming mainstream so quickly, it’s becoming many things to many different people. And often, because the message isn’t defined, it gets lost.

It happens in the definition of a “green building:” really, does LEED make a building green? What about a regular building that uses Energy Star appliances and PVC-free paint…. that’s in the middle of nowhere?

It happens in materials: FSC wood… is it really green to use South American or European wood, ship it to Asia to be milled and ship it back to use in your Seattle home?

And in happens in advertisements. Take the subway in NYC for example. On one train, overhead signs urged riders to recycle newspapers in recycling bins. On another, overhead signs begged newspaper readers to just throw their papers away to keep the subway clean. If you’re going to advocate one message, which is more important? Recycling or cleanliness?

That example represents the entire green movement. There are so many different messages out there, it’s easy to get lost. Especially if you’re a new “convert,” it’s really easy to be misled. Sometimes it’s intentional “greenwashing,” sometimes it’s just plain confusing.

For Earth Day this year, I got a press release from Horizon Air about how flying between Portland and Seattle was more eco-friendly than driving. I got another from Fairmont Hotels and Resorts and Lexus Hybrid Living on eco-friendly luxury suites in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., that are “the ultimate cosmopolitan experience for environmentally aware travelers.” Guests get organic towels, robes and free use of the Lexus LS 600h hybrid.

Is that really green? Who’s to say. The truth is it’s such a new field and word that just about anything can be spun the right way. And often, what really is “green” just gets lost in the spinning.

To learn more about greenwashing, click the tab below. To see what consumers think about “green” products or share your reviews, check out this site.

My friends over at the Seattlepi.com’s reader blog Building Seattle Green have got a great new post today by Mati Bishop on solar hot water. To check it out, click here now.

Too often in the Pacific Northwest, solar technology is discounted because, well, people think we don’t have any sun. But that “fact” doesn’t always ring true. For example, with the solar battery that powers the BigBelly trash compactor (see here for a past story I did on the topic) the battery actually works better with the ambient light available when it’s cloudy out, rather than in direct sunlight.

Check out the Building Seattle Green post. It’s worth reading to learn other mythbusting solar facts! 

As for the photo, I can’t say if that’s a myth or not. It’s a farmer named Ma Yanjun of Qiqiao village in Shaanxi province China who, according to Ananova, built a solar powered water heater out of beer bottles and hosepipes. I guess anything’s possible!

In case you missed today’s DJC Construction Industry Spotlight, let me call attention to a feature that might interest you: a Seattle man is using reclaimed logs that have spent the last 100 years underwater, due to the creation of the Panama Canal, in his Panamanian projects.

His name is Joel Jelderks, he used to do marketing work for Red Bull in Seattle, and now he lives in Panama City, Panama, where he’s developing five projects. Three are historic preservation/recreation projects in the city’s historic Casco Viejo quarter, and two are in the countryside on the Azuero Peninsula.

In the historic buildings, Jelderks is using recovered wood from a Panamanian company called Ardan International Group. When the Panama Canal was constructed, tropical hardwood forests were flooded, creating the 263-mile Lake Gatun. Ardan, working with a company called Gunderboom out of Alaska, trains local people from the Kuna tribe to harvest the underwater trees. For more about Ardan and their products, see their comprehensive Web site here.

“The interior of the trees is an amazing quality of wood. You can’t get the quality of wood anymore without cutting down in a protected rainforest,” Jelderks said. ”A lot of these trees are 400 years old.”

Intriguing idea, eh? But before the wheels in your head start spinning for Seattle projects using Panamanian recovered wood, know that Ardan is very selective about the projects it chooses to supply, though Jelderks says it has a 20-year supply of wood.