A commitment to sustainable building involves a wide variety of strategies spanning all phases of a building’s life from conception to final use. One important strategy is the incorporation of sustainable building materials into the design of a building.  So what exactly are we talking about when we call a building material sustainable?  Based on the...

If you haven't played yet, you owe it to yourself to check out Amecian Public Media's new interactive online game, Consumer Consequences.  The online game is aimed at exploring the question of the sustainability of the current American lifestyle.  The question itself is not new, but the Consumer Consequences game asks it in a novel way.  Starting from the question, "What would the world look like if everyone lived like me?", the game takes you through a series of lifestyle questions.  The questions cover categories such as the home, energy usage, transportation, waste, food and shopping, and the results show you how many "Earths" worth of natural resources it would take to sustain all 6.6 billion humans living just like you. 

Closed Loop Geothermal Systems 

The most typical geothermal installation utilizes a closed loop system.  In a closed loop system, a loop of piping is buried underground and filled with water or antifreeze that continuously circulates through the system.  There are four major types of closed loop geothermal systems:  horizontal loops, vertical loops, slinky coils and pond loops. 

Horizontal Geothermal Ground Loops 

If adequate soil or clay based land is available, horizontal geothermal ground loops are typically one of the more economical choices.  In horizontal geothermal ground loops, several hundred feet of five to six feet deep trenches are dug with a backhoe or chain trencher.  Piping is then laid in the trench and backfilled.  A typical horizontal geothermal ground loop will be 400 to 600 feet long for each ton of heating and cooling.  Because of the amount of...