Renovation Nation Volume 3, Ep. 24 “Baltimore, MD: Staw Bale Garage”
Hosted by home building expert Steve Thomas, Renovation Nation explores the latest in green home building techniques. In this episode, Steve came to Baltimore to help Greenbuilders, Inc. build a garage for a local Baltimore family using the all-natural insulator…straw! Continue Reading…
Solar panels on the roof of this structure will heat glycol which in turn heats the water to run through tubing laid in the concrete slab. Looks simple, but… Continue Reading…
Imagine an old-fashioned wooden barrel — standing twenty-two feet high! In Baltimore, a group of these proud giants have stood for one hundred years on an industrial site, part of a pickling plant. For a century or two before that, the Douglas Fir trees Continue Reading…
“You might have something here!” said Mike Schramm, director of the Bowie Parks and Grounds headquarters construction project, as he basked in the shade of a stack of straw bales towering twice the height of his head. Mike walked into the sunny side of the wall and into the oppressive August sun. It was a full twenty degrees cooler on the inside of the wall, and we hadn’t yet even put on the roof! Continue Reading…
On September 15, 2011, Dean Phil Closius of the University of Baltimore Law School and his wife, Merritt Pridgeon, generously hosted a Greenbuilders, Inc. open house attended by STYLE Magazine. The party was themed around a contest — suggested by Phil — called “Can You Find What We Did?” Continue Reading…
Home renovation is a big deal to adults. It’s an even bigger deal to your kids — literally! Their home may be the only place they’ve ever lived, and if you remember your own childhood view of things, everything was on a much larger scale. New people, sounds, and shapes in your home may be much more noticeable to your children than to you. Continue Reading…
“That” said our young client, aged six, “is a turtle. I want a tortoise. A Galapagos tortoise. They have claws.” We then received a short by emphatic lecture on the distinction between turtles and tortoises, and the coloring on the underbelly of the Galapagos variety in particular. “And” said our young scientist wistfully, “could they fly???” Well, not normally, but … Continue Reading…