Sustainable Products of the Year from Green Builder Magazine

00:00:01:11 - 00:00:22:29
Mike Collignon: International Men's Month, which is probably why Matt Power and I are going to be on your screen. Wait, I'm being told it's not that at all. Instead, Matt is here to discuss the 2024 Sustainable Products of the year from Green Builder Media. And he's also going to add some context to these products as it pertains to environmental events across the globe.

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Mike Collignon: So look forward to that. Now who is Matt Power? Matt Power is the editor in chief of Green Build and Media. It's largely because of Matt. The Green Building Media was named Best Residential Trade magazine by the National Association of Real Estate Editors for eight consecutive years. Matt has an award winning nearly three decade career reporting on innovation and sustainability in housing.

00:00:44:05 - 00:01:32:16
Mike Collignon: Now, he has a long history of asking tough questions and adding depth and context as he unfolds complex issues. Now, before we get started, I want to introduce today's webinar sponsors. Whirlpool Corporation is committed to being the best global kitchen and laundry company in constant pursuit of improving life at home in an increasingly digital world. The company is driving purposeful innovation to meet the evolving needs of consumers through its iconic brand portfolio, including whirlpool, KitchenAid, Maytag, console, brass, temp, Amana, Jan air, Indesit and In Synchrony Group in North America is the partner plumbing and HVAC professionals rely on for smart water and energy solutions, and award winning manufacturer of PEX piping, and the exclusive marketer

00:01:32:16 - 00:01:58:19
Mike Collignon: and distributor of asked in North America. The company offers plumbing, fire safety, radiant heating and cooling, hydronic piping and pre insulated piping system solutions for new construction retrofits and remodels in the residential and commercial markets. And our friend Power Shift by NV energy is a program that helps residential and business customers conserve energy and save money on their power bills.

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Mike Collignon: Power shift is a one stop resource to find energy efficient products and services. For more information. For more information, please visit them at.

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Mike Collignon: Shift. Now you are welcome to submit questions. Format. Simply use the questions box that you'll find probably on the right side of your screen. I'm going to review those questions and pose those to Matt during the Q&A time. Set aside after his presentation. And now to present the 2024 Green Builder Media Sustainable Products of the year, Matt Power.

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Matt Power: Hello, everybody, and thank you for taking time out of this summer day to sit and stare at a screen with me. I hope you're somewhere cool in this extreme heat event that's going on. I'm up in the state of Maine and I'm just above the heat dome, so it's a pleasant 75 degrees or so here, but we're one of the few places in the country.

00:02:54:24 - 00:03:23:13
Matt Power: So each year we do these sustainable products of the year. These are editor's picks where we choose about 50 products, usually with a few honorable mentions. And we have we're often asked what our criteria are. So I wanted to give you just a quick I'm not going to go through all of these, but just to touch on these, we tell, you know, manufacturers and marketing people, this is what we're looking for when we look at sustainable products.

00:03:23:15 - 00:03:51:08
Matt Power: Each one of these, you know, some sometimes one will be much more heavily weighted than another. For example, you know, a device like a heat pump that has, you know, very large energy savings. That might be the thing that pushes it over the edge. But for other things like, you know, fiber cement siding or certain types of decking, durability, maybe, you know, the winning part of their sustainability package.

00:03:51:11 - 00:04:17:28
Matt Power: And each one of these, of course, has, you know, subcategories as you drill into it. I just wanted to take one example of a product, and this isn't one of our award winners, it's just a product category. If we were to look at transportation, asphalt, we're all familiar with asphalt roads, right? Well, when you're considering the sustainability of asphalt, it might seem like, well, it's all the same.

00:04:17:28 - 00:04:56:11
Matt Power: Well, it turns out that everything matters in terms of how asphalt is produced. You know how it's laid down. So this chart shows how the distance and the type of truck affects has an impact on the greenhouse gas emissions of asphalt roads. Now also how the road is designed. How thick is the asphalt. Is it designed. You know, sometimes the lighter roads that are designed to be repaired more easily, can actually be lower in greenhouse gas emissions.

00:04:56:11 - 00:05:22:10
Matt Power: That's what they call the perpetual alternative. And there's a bunch of specs that go along with it. I just wanted to sort of get you thinking about all the different things that go into a product. Sustainability. Before we dive into our own, I also wanted to to make one point, and I happen to watch that George Carlin segment, the late George Carlin, comedian, the other day where he said, look, we're not saving the planet.

00:05:22:11 - 00:05:44:12
Matt Power: The planet doesn't need to be saved. And he kind of made a good point in this little bit. He's a he says, you know, it's people. It's people that were trying to save. And and really, I actually even have to remind my own writers and editors about this, because they'll sometimes use phrases like that. The planet will correct itself and it may correct itself without us on it.

00:05:44:12 - 00:06:04:20
Matt Power: But what we're trying to do is find a balance, right, and find a balance with the natural ecosystems of the planet to tread more lightly upon the planet and bring things to a point where they are in equilibrium and sustainable. But we are not on a mission to save the planet.

00:06:04:22 - 00:06:30:08
Matt Power: And also with all of these products, or most in many ways, behavior makes a huge impact. So, for example, you may have seen this Ford F-150 lightning. I love this thing, and I'm sure if you're a truck enthusiast, you've drooled over it like I have. It's just something cool about combining EV technology with pickup truck. It's got about, I think, a 360 or 400 mile range now.

00:06:30:11 - 00:07:12:00
Matt Power: But this product, like all EVs, there's there's sort of a caveat that goes along with them. A woman at Harvard did, I believe it was a PhD dissertation, a research comparing electric vehicles and combustion vehicles. And what you found was because of the high greenhouse gas emissions of producing the batteries for EVs, that you only begin to collect that greenhouse gas dividend at about 55,000 miles, meaning you've got to drive that EV 55,000 miles before it starts to beat the gas.

00:07:12:00 - 00:07:39:03
Matt Power: In terms of CO2 emissions. Now, that range is wider depending on the specific EVs. I think it starts at about 26,000, goes up to about 69,000. There's there's sort of a subtext to this though, which in the article she points out what's happening is the wrong people are getting these EVs now. They're the people who can afford the higher ticket price, right, who don't drive much and are already typically green motivated.

00:07:39:03 - 00:08:01:05
Matt Power: So what's happening is they're selling these vehicles before they reach that 55,000 mile mark and losing the benefit. So they go out and they buy another one. So there needs to be a shift, not only in sort of the market, but like we need lower priced EV vehicles for the people that are commuting, you know, 45 minutes each way every day.

00:08:01:07 - 00:08:26:08
Matt Power: And we need the EV manufacturers to think more about who the the mass audience for. This is from a sustainability viewpoint. So I just give that as an example of how behavior can often shift the balance in a sustainable product. If the behavior is not there, then the stable games in terms of reduced greenhouse gas emissions may not be there.

00:08:26:11 - 00:08:54:15
Matt Power: One thing we do each year, two is I like to distinguish between innovations and upgrades. So an innovation is something that's on the bleeding edge. It's a new way sort of to solve a problem. An upgrade and upgrades are still great, but that's basically building a better mousetrap. So you build a you know, if you have a 16 seer heat pump and you increase the efficiency to 22, then that's an upgrade, right?

00:08:54:17 - 00:09:15:22
Matt Power: Here's an innovation I actually wrote about this year, which was a DC powered pool pump. I don't know if you've seen these, but they so that this pump runs directly from solar panels. So obviously it only runs during the day. But I installed one to test it out. The thing has got extreme power. It's more powerful than the AC powered one that I had this single speed.

00:09:15:22 - 00:09:38:10
Matt Power: So that's innovative because it basically didn't exist. It's using it's a zero carbon emission device. So that's that's kind of game changing. Now in my article I did say there's a couple tweaks that it needs to be ready for prime time, but pretty happy with where the direction of that innovation. I think it definitely deserved a call out.

00:09:38:15 - 00:10:02:08
Matt Power: Now the other version, now this product is one of our products of the year. This it's a variable speed pool pump. So to put this in context, you know, there's there's several million I believe swimming pools around the country. So these pumps use six about 650W. Not this particular one but a typical pool filter pump. It was about 650W.

00:10:02:09 - 00:10:30:13
Matt Power: And that's running often 24 hours a day. So think about the the eco footprint of that and the greenhouse gas emissions. So even just by switching to this variable speed technology, you can cut that by 90%. So you know, what are you getting down to. You know, in the 100 and something 100 watt range. Right. Again, that's an upgrade, but a really nice upgrade.

00:10:30:15 - 00:10:56:23
Matt Power: Another thing we like to do when we're selecting these products is we start from the perspective of, you know. Where's where's the need the greatest. Because where is the energy going now? It's pretty easy to pull up one of these pie charts about the home energy use. And you can see right away there's the heating cooling, you know, dropping down to the other water heating and lighting stuff.

00:10:56:23 - 00:11:30:23
Matt Power: So why not start with products that are, you know, addressing these needs? But there is there is one category that starts even before that, the ground level and that is concrete. So one of our winners this year was this four Terra react green cement. So cement is, you know, a huge greenhouse gas producer. This this chemistry, this technology, this supposedly can drop the CO2 emissions from cement by about 70%.

00:11:30:24 - 00:11:58:24
Matt Power: So that that would make a, you know, a huge impact in the construction industry. And, you know, you'll often hear o cement cements the problem, cements the problem. But I did also want to even put cement in perspective. So this is the breakdown of the CO2 emissions from a typical modern new home. You see concrete is the light blue area there on the right one one.

00:11:58:24 - 00:12:19:04
Matt Power: One thing that surprised me a little bit is the steel rebar is the orange down the bottom. So it's not like there are so many steel rivers. It's just that the steel does have a high embodied energy because it's, you know, it's costly to produce. Depends a lot on whether it's it's recycled content. But most steel nowadays is recycled and it is essential a forever product.

00:12:19:04 - 00:12:34:09
Matt Power: But you'll notice even up the top, like paint, I'm glad they they included paint. There's some things that you might not think about that are that are fairly high in fairly high in CO2 emissions.

00:12:34:12 - 00:13:01:07
Matt Power: There's also somewhat of a sort of a dispute about material embodying energy versus operational CO2. And you'll see, I actually was looking this morning at different some of the different organizations and some builder organizations I noticed say that it happens for some reason. They have everything weighted towards the material side, others weighted more towards the operational meaning, how people live in it.

00:13:01:08 - 00:13:31:21
Matt Power: What do they spend on heating, cooling, painting, maintenance, you know, all the other things that go into a house. The consensus and I did sort of analysis of everything out there seems to be that about 55 to 80% of emissions come during the operational period. So I think that's important to keep in mind. So when we talk about this cement usage, it's only really falling into that smaller material construction phase.

00:13:31:23 - 00:14:01:15
Matt Power: And you know to put a fine point on that. So here's the concrete in a 2200 square foot homes, about 77yd³ or 30.8 metric tons. But the average American, just by being alive produces 16.5 metric times a year. So that's one point. So the concrete and a brand new home is roughly the average Americans annual CO2 footprint, right.

00:14:01:16 - 00:14:38:25
Matt Power: That's 1.87 times. So if that makes any sense, if you switch to green cement, you could cut it down to 9.24 tons of CO2 pollution, which would equate to seven months of the American lifestyle. So let me just point out that, you know, if you really every time we have another child in this country, the exponential increase in our CO2 footprint is far larger than that one time cubic yard impact of that concrete for that new home.

00:14:38:25 - 00:15:12:24
Matt Power: So I think it's important because we we tend to sometimes villains, you know, builders and and the materials in new home construction. But compared with what we use on a daily basis. It is quite a small percentage. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try to rein it in, but it's it should be kept in perspective. Now, one of the reasons we chose this product is that there's really not a lot of really what I call green or sustainable laminate type flooring out there.

00:15:12:25 - 00:15:41:18
Matt Power: I mean, you can find sustainable flooring like cork, sometimes hardwoods and natural woods, depending on their harvest. Tile is quite sustainable, but a very popular category are these composite laminates. Well, this one I really like because they really they've really made an effort. So they're using a lot of recycled plastics and they're not using PVC. And my problem with PVC is that it's sort of one of the sort of lower grade plastics.

00:15:41:18 - 00:16:11:10
Matt Power: And it's very hard to recycle PVC. Most places won't take PVC for recycling. So this has got a big chunk of recycled plastics and 80% renewable plant based material. I assume that's, you know, various post-industrial and other materials. So a good product that's starting to deal with our plastic issue. And what we're learning I want to touch on plastics is plastics are actually worse than we imagine.

00:16:11:10 - 00:16:25:10
Matt Power: So we know we've got this, you know, the Pacific Gyre and these huge areas of of ocean plastic and all this unwanted plastic pollution. But it goes much deeper.

00:16:25:12 - 00:16:55:20
Matt Power: Part of the issue is even when we do the right thing and we recycle, we are really only recycling about 17% of plastics globally. So down at the bottom, the worst, the worst offenders down to the bottom would be that 15%, which is just stuff that I think gets, you know, tossed randomly beside the road and, you know, washes down into the ocean, the 50% big dark areas, the landfilled and the 18% is the incinerated.

00:16:55:21 - 00:17:39:04
Matt Power: Now, I did some research on incinerating plastics, and we what we know now is microplastics are actually quite dangerous. And incineration the there's sort of a mixed bag of research on whether microplastics are destroyed in the incineration process. There was this study down the bottom of Japan. I think there needs to be more research. I think it does actually give incineration sort of a less less of a dirty reputation, because if incineration destroys plastics and breaks down the tiniest microplastic particles, it may actually be far preferable to other modes of getting rid of plastics.

00:17:39:04 - 00:18:06:09
Matt Power: So, you know, there are some some bacteria that are being worked on that apparently will eat plastics. But I don't know how that hasn't become a commercial thing yet. That is somewhat promising. But again, I think the reason that we need to look at plastics and the reason I'm bringing them up and sort of taking a deep dive into them, is they're just a study just came out this March, the first, the first one, to my knowledge, linking microplastic to human health.

00:18:06:09 - 00:18:29:09
Matt Power: So we know our bodies are full of plastics, right. This study actually found that people with heart disease have a 50% higher risk of heart attacks and strokes if they have microplastic microplastics coursing through their veins. So that's that's pretty serious. And that's I think they're just scratching the surface because now they've found it in reproductive organs and people's brains and so on.

00:18:29:09 - 00:18:59:17
Matt Power: So I think that, you know, one of our tasks, among our many tasks, you know, going forward for the next ten years is to get microplastics under control, along with, you know, all the other challenges facing us, but maybe they will lead us to the same place and maybe sustainability will converge on some of these issues. This is a site I just want to mention called plastic Bank, where you can, you know, quickly log in or give it to your clients if they're interested.

00:18:59:19 - 00:19:17:21
Matt Power: You know, if you're trying to talk to a client about, you know, why to use products with, you know, embedded recycled plastics in them, this might be a place to have them have them look at how much plastic is in their lives and give them a little bit of awareness.

00:19:17:24 - 00:19:49:17
Matt Power: Another product that made our short list is this matrix pulse control system. So what this is specifically is a system that controls radiant heating systems in your floor. So for a long time radiant systems have been controlled by very simple control. You know, you either turn it up, you turn it down. What what makes this one cool is it's got sensors embedded in various places in the floor, so it can control different zones.

00:19:49:17 - 00:20:11:27
Matt Power: And it can tell it can give feedback to a smart system. So it not only is it going to result in energy savings, but I also discovered another neat side effect of this. So there's there's the package. That's what the stuff looks like with the smartphone app and the various controllers and stuff. The cool side effect is that it can provide some heat mitigation.

00:20:11:27 - 00:20:38:06
Matt Power: So if you look at, say, you know, most modern homes have large window walls, sun shining in and sometimes they don't have, you know, shading systems. So that floor is heating up. Now in the old school radiant floor controls, that floor was either on or off. But during a like even a winter day, they can overheat. So you combine the passive solar with the radiant heating.

00:20:38:06 - 00:21:11:03
Matt Power: What this what the new system is going to do though is it's going to detect as the sun is heating that area of the floor and it's going to turn down the, the, the volume of hydronic flow to that region. So it's again, it's a smart system that especially in this age of extreme heat, right, where you don't know when you're going to all of a sudden have a heat wave and you definitely don't want floors overheating, gives you some some extra control.

00:21:11:06 - 00:21:57:01
Matt Power: This is a steel framing system for decks. Now, this might sound like you're saying, well, how is this sustainable? Well, first of all, it's like gauge steel, not heavy gauge steel. So it's not, you know, a vast poundage of steel. It's they are sort of, you know, the hollow light steel type of supports. But I also wanted to find out, like if you compare this with treated wood deck and look at durability and longevity, you know, how does it pan out over time in terms of its sustainability story and what sort of convinced me that the steel we should put this steel framing in our sustainable products is is the following.

00:21:57:03 - 00:22:20:25
Matt Power: Okay. So I did an analysis of treated wood versus steel framing over 25 years. So if you what it works out to is if you replace that deck once in 25 years, meaning you replace the wood deck, which I don't know about you, but I've put in quite a few wood decks and I don't know if any of them.

00:22:21:01 - 00:22:46:08
Matt Power: I can't think of any of them that have lasted more than about 15. Most of them are more pressure, trade or or treated. So you end up with a wash, essentially with the CO2 emissions from the steel versus the CO2 emissions from the pressure treated framing for that debt. Now, what's important to point out, though, is that steel framing is supposed to last 50 years.

00:22:46:08 - 00:23:11:03
Matt Power: So essentially, if you go on another 25 years and you replace that treated deck two more times, then the steel comes out way ahead because, you know, you've already basically paid for those CO2 emissions. So if you are looking long term, the steel is actually going to beat the treated wood in terms of CO2 emissions, if, you know, granted, most people may not keep a place that long, but should.

00:23:11:05 - 00:23:25:17
Matt Power: I don't believe we should be looking at the tenure of how long someone lives in a place. We should be looking at the building and its operational CO2 emissions over its entire lifespan.

00:23:25:20 - 00:24:06:26
Matt Power: This is another category which is near and dear to my heart, which is it's a responsive ventilation system. Now, a couple of manufacturers have had false starts with these, where they've tried to put something like this together and hasn't quite worked out. This one with the I think because they've concluded aware and I'm familiar with the aware VOC sensors, I think what they've done is combined the smart system with these aware VOC and particulate sensors, and then they've given this thing the ability to, you know, turn things on and off and to respond maybe intelligently is too strong a word, but it can monitor and respond to certain situations.

00:24:06:26 - 00:24:42:15
Matt Power: So it's it's definitely sort of been a white space in the market. And it's one that's I'm happy to see it's finally happening. And what what it will do is it will deal with some of the indoor air quality problems that we have like this. So, you know, the more they study indoor air quality, the worse it gets, you know, because especially in older homes, of course, where, you know, you have you have poorer ventilation hasn't been brought up to Ashrae standards and that sort of thing.

00:24:42:15 - 00:25:06:08
Matt Power: But even in brand new homes and I walk in them all the time, I see essentially really like foolish things done like recirculating range hood fans, which, you know, research has shown only about 20% effective at removing particles after they fill up, which is quite quickly the filters. Also, most people don't use range hoods, so they're not automatic.

00:25:06:08 - 00:25:33:03
Matt Power: And and there's the problem of back drafting where range hoods are overpowered and they blast and they pull, you know, combustion fumes from a boiler, etc.. So all of these are problems. And I think because of Covid, people are a lot more aware now that indoor air quality, you know, matters and is affecting their health and also are willing to spend more to straighten it out.

00:25:33:05 - 00:25:56:13
Matt Power: This is again, this is just just the advertisement for that air cycler with its, you know, Iirc sensors. So it senses what the quality air and where you need fresh air and provides it. And this these are just some things. As I was scanning through their literature, I like down at the bottom there especially pressure connect integrates with the kitchen range hood.

00:25:56:13 - 00:26:16:29
Matt Power: So so instead of the creating a backdrop it automatically will turn on like, you know, open a fan or open event and allow fresh air in. So pretty well thought out system. I haven't tried it yet. You know I only read about it. Hopefully I'll see you at the show this year and I can give you some more info in the magazine soon.

00:26:17:01 - 00:26:38:06
Matt Power: This is now. Barone has the overture system, which is a nice sort of simple version of that system. It's a sort of plug and play. So if you were looking to just try something like this out and you wanted control over some devices that was based on, you know, particle and humidity and that sort of thing, you might want to check out the brown system too.

00:26:38:07 - 00:27:01:28
Matt Power: There's definitely in the same category, although it doesn't have to be built in, and I think it's not as full featured, but it does offer some of those same kind of perks. Now, energy management is another category that, you know, we felt was important to include in the issue this year. Schneider electric is, I think, probably the first in.

00:27:01:28 - 00:27:24:27
Matt Power: And they have these smart panels. So they can basically be controlled by, you know, your smartphone and they and they give you a whole bunch of feedback. But what's going on in the house believe you can turn, you know, circuits on and off. You can set different sort of parameters like scenes and that sort of thing. And they've tried to make it quite easy to use, to which I always appreciate.

00:27:24:28 - 00:27:50:29
Matt Power: So that doesn't seem to daunting either to installers or builders or to their clients. Now, what's driving a lot of this is, of course, is the EV introduction to homes. Right? So we are becoming more and more common solar. The storage issue is becoming a more common, more mainstream thing. And there is there is a reason behind that.

00:27:51:01 - 00:28:18:24
Matt Power: If you look what's going on around the country, electricity prices are going up. It's not your imagination. So the overall, the electricity price rose 6.2% in the country right over from 2022 to 2023. I know in the state of Maine, they just announced that the price hike overall will go up, I think $15 per month on average for electricity customers.

00:28:18:24 - 00:28:43:16
Matt Power: I mean, that's pretty significant, especially for people on a fixed budget. You know, there's there's a lot of sort of anxiety about electricity costs. And I think that's driving both the solar and the storage market. And I honestly, I think it will drive these the smart panels as well as people try to manage their electricity more precisely. And down below that you see the number of power outages.

00:28:43:19 - 00:29:03:28
Matt Power: Now, one thing I will say is there actually weirdly, there were, I think, fewer major power outages in 2023 than there were in 2022. But that just that might be an anomaly. I know. You know, again, up here in Maine, it's we've had numerous and the power outages seem to be longer where, you know, we had one that was 3 or 4 days long.

00:29:03:28 - 00:29:28:09
Matt Power: And that's that's the point when you start looking around going, you know, maybe I should invest in solar storage because, you know, if you're not having emergency need for solar storage, it's less of an easy sell, right? Because it's a little bit of a leading edge product. And it's it's maybe not quite at the need phase. So definitely that's that is driving some of the market.

00:29:28:10 - 00:30:02:25
Matt Power: This company too, I just learned about called savant. And they also offer a smart panel that's tied into storage and a charging station. And there's to can be controlled on a smart app on your phone. Seems quite intuitive to use. They were not one of our winners, but but I just learned about them. So so the advantages of these energy management systems you can save because they're they're basically looking at where you use energy and, and you where you waste energy.

00:30:02:25 - 00:30:28:12
Matt Power: So you can control it quite easily. And, you know, for example, say you have a solar system and you find out that you only really need 70% of your capacity to charge up your solar battery or your EV each day. The other 30% through the smart panel, you know, can be diverted to, you know, a battery backup or some other use to run household things.

00:30:28:12 - 00:30:42:19
Matt Power: So again, it gives you the flexibility to kind of move your energy around sort of digitally in kind of a fun way, which I think is, is cool to.

00:30:42:21 - 00:31:07:19
Matt Power: On the commercial scale. This is NBA energy, who's another one of our sponsors. So they do the same kind of energy management. If you if you have a commercial building, they help commercial entities figure out where their power is going. They they hook them up with control systems that they can control digitally to make sure that their cooling, heating, operating equipment most efficiently.

00:31:07:19 - 00:31:23:08
Matt Power: And they work with community, I mean, sorry, commercial operators to customize each building to to the optimal energy use.

00:31:23:10 - 00:31:50:29
Matt Power: Now, of course we have to talk about appliances because, you know, it's it's a big part certainly on clients minds. It may be one of the top things. And you know, you as a builder or Arctic, you know, I'm sure you get asked constantly about which appliance suite and so on. One of the things that comes up quite a bit is when we talk about sustainability is, is whether efficiency of appliances has peaked, meaning, you know, they've just gotten so efficient that there's really no place for them to go.

00:31:50:29 - 00:32:20:13
Matt Power: I know this comes up with the low flow toilets, for example, and they they keep trying to squeeze another few drops of water out of the out of the toilet. And, you know, companies like Niagara, who was one of our winners, has has managed to do that. And you know, impressively these some of these appliance makers have also managed to find new ways to save either energy or water or both from devices that we kind of thought, you know, we kind of thought they'd hit the end of the road.

00:32:20:17 - 00:32:42:21
Matt Power: So this is if you look at 1981, I did this analysis to try to get a rough idea of how much the efficiency of different places has improved. And you can see, I guess the top one, the one that improved the most is refrigerators, right? So a lot of them have sort of heat pump systems in them now.

00:32:42:21 - 00:33:07:21
Matt Power: I think that's why they've managed to drop their energy needs so much. Next would be dishwashers. I think they include the overall, you know, water heating and energy use in there. And also, you know, dishwashers use shorter cycles. Air conditioners probably, you know, all heat pumps in there would probably be even more dramatic than that. I think they only looked at heat, air conditioners.

00:33:07:24 - 00:33:29:27
Matt Power: So and if you look at the right, at the bottom right, the line starting to flatten out because they're just not making these dramatic gains anymore or not very often. So when we're weighing the impacts of appliances, I like to start with, you know, what are the big users. So close dryers, clothes washers, ovens, dishwashers. So those are the the top four right there.

00:33:29:27 - 00:33:53:19
Matt Power: So in our choosing our sustainable products, why not start with the really big ticket items. Fortunately manufacturers have sort of discovered, I'll say, a technology that it's been around for a while, like, you know, if you I used to be and if you if you've ever, you know, stayed in RV or driven an RV, they have these all in one washers and they've been around at least ten, 15 years.

00:33:53:19 - 00:34:24:26
Matt Power: I've seen them. But these are new products. And I think what's happened is the heat pump technology has improved a lot. So they've they've now got, you know, much better inverters and variable speed technology and all that. So this is the LG version of the sort of all in one washer dryer. Now the thing that the thing that's cool about this is like dryers, for example, it's really hard to improve on the efficiency of a dryer unless you switch into a heat pump.

00:34:24:26 - 00:34:43:09
Matt Power: So it's it's sort of a jump. I'd almost say that's an innovation or it's an innovative use of a technology. Now, I know a few years back whirlpool came out with heat pump dryers and they I don't know how they did overall, but I owned one for a while and they they didn't seem to really take off in the marketplace.

00:34:43:09 - 00:35:15:28
Matt Power: But I think that has changed with these new all in one products. So not only are they going to be, you know, their front loading. So their water efficient, their energy efficient. So this is again sort of a game changing. I'd put this almost on the innovation side more than the upgrade side of things, because they're really going to raise the bar on on lowering CO2 emissions for both washing and drying clothes, which is one of the big, you know, appliance energy users in the house.

00:35:16:01 - 00:35:40:00
Matt Power: This is a new, newer whirlpool version. So similar, you know, similar type of technology, all in one washer and dryer. And of course the GE profile is yet another one. I saw this one demonstrated the last builder show. It's pretty impressive. It is a little bigger, I think taller, and maybe because it has that extra rack on the bottom.

00:35:40:00 - 00:35:58:14
Matt Power: So if you were looking for the compact space saving, I think you can get it without the the little draw on the bottom. So it would be about the same size as the other one, but it's energy star, you know, going to they say it'll save up to 60% over you know traditional combo. But I haven't haven't done the follow up on that.

00:35:58:14 - 00:36:04:02
Matt Power: But that's the literature I believe says.

00:36:04:04 - 00:36:24:18
Matt Power: And the next category of appliance. Another big one is induction cooking. I own an induction cooked up and a slide in. I love it, and I you know, a lot. These things have gotten a bad rap, although I think it's starting. The tide has turned when they first came out. I think first of all, people didn't know how to use them.

00:36:24:18 - 00:36:48:21
Matt Power: And I honestly, I think some of the technology wasn't quite there and there were some callbacks and some problems where they were hard to repair, etc. from what I did, some sort of scouting around to see what the, the intent or the, the sentiment is on the internet now. So this is the this is the KitchenAid for let me touch on one other thing first though.

00:36:48:22 - 00:37:16:22
Matt Power: Okay. I did want to say why induction. Well, along with the fact that fossil fuels are, you know, causing a gigantic heat waves all over the planet, I think that this is sort of a one of my favorite topics is that natural gas infrastructure is falling apart and all over the country, if you do a search for, you know, home destroyed or home explodes, try that.

00:37:16:24 - 00:37:44:23
Matt Power: You will find hundreds of references to home explosions that are, you know, often the the local press always says it's it's under investigation. It's unexplained. Well, you tell me how a house completely explodes into splinters other than a gas explosion. So my feeling is that gas infrastructure is dangerous. And, you know, depending on the age of it and how it was installed and so on, and I wouldn't have it in my house.

00:37:44:23 - 00:38:07:27
Matt Power: So that's another good reason to, you know, let's not politicize natural gas. Let's move on from natural gas. We have a great cooking alternative in induction tops. And they really do do everything that a natural gas I mean natural gas still does like a cooktop. You can simmer, you can heat water rapidly, you can get up to high temperatures rapidly.

00:38:07:27 - 00:38:35:22
Matt Power: And it's not throwing off a lot of the noxious fumes that natural gas cooking does into your house. So, okay, this was a Consumer Reports. I wanted to find out how people are feeling about the performance of induction tops. So this is a recent consumer report study. They said 80% feel that the of the induction ranges perform well enough for us to recommend them.

00:38:35:22 - 00:39:03:29
Matt Power: And and on top of that, the gas ranges that they evaluated did not perform well. At least half of them all but one got their top score. Not a single gas range earned their top score. So, you know, it's easy to politicize things about gas ranges and and how we're trying to take away people's gas ranges. But we're we're not trying to take away we're trying to give them something better, basically, and safer by switching to induction.

00:39:04:01 - 00:39:28:14
Matt Power: Here's another response to the criticism for induction. So one of the things people have complained about is is that the glass surfaces get scraped. So what will happen is somebody buys induction top and they pick up an old cast iron pot and put it on there and it while it heats up quickly, it scratches the surface. Well, when I got mine, immediately switched to these enamel covered cast iron ore.

00:39:28:14 - 00:39:47:12
Matt Power: You can get them in aluminum and they work fantastic and not a scratch. I've had a year and have not scratched the surface at all with cast iron, and it's great to be able to cook and cast iron the same way you would on a gas stove. You know, a lot of us have iron deficiencies anyway, so it's a good way to bring some iron back into your diet.

00:39:47:12 - 00:40:21:12
Matt Power: To this is the public sentiment I was talking about. So overall, public sentiment is gone. I think if you've done this three years ago, probably would have been the other way around. But overall, by scraping the internet, they said the sentiment is quite positive. If you look at comments, people actually are very positive. I think when you get into issues like noise and people complain about noise, I've also owned those little one burner, the cheap knockoff inductions, those are noisy and they do have like they are.

00:40:21:13 - 00:40:40:11
Matt Power: If you get them wet, they can break, you know, if you spill water into them, which we all do. So I think you're we're talking about professional or residential grade induction cooktop ranges, not the little one off, you know, type you can buy on Amazon.

00:40:40:14 - 00:41:04:16
Matt Power: Water management. So you know, water obviously it's a big issue. And depending on where you live. It's it's a gigantic issue. Now greywater recyclers, they've been around for a while. But it's it's hard for them to get traction. Right. Because nobody nobody really wants to use. Great. Obviously you're not going to drink it. They want something that's sort of hands off that you don't have to add chemicals to, and so on.

00:41:04:19 - 00:41:29:08
Matt Power: We like this unit because it seems self-contained, low impact, low input from the user. And, you know, they make a good point, which is that, you know, it's it's they don't try to make it the be all end all. They say this is going to help you on certain things for, you know, shower water, washing machine water that you can reuse this.

00:41:29:08 - 00:41:55:02
Matt Power: And what it's doing is reducing your overall, you know, water use in the house significantly. So if you look at how we use and how much water costs, you know, what's interesting is if you look at the chart on the right, showers faucets include more, by the way, than just the water we drink. Most of that water is not what we call potable drinking water.

00:41:55:02 - 00:42:28:02
Matt Power: And yet most cities are required to provide water in a portable form. So it's one of the things that's always asked me about the water. The way we use water is 1% of our household water is used for drinking and cooking, and yet we have to condition 100% of it at the level that it could be consumed. So if you think about with, with a, with a gray water system, we don't have to bring in as much fresh water because we're reusing some of the water we have.

00:42:28:03 - 00:43:02:17
Matt Power: Right. So, Another thing I just wanted to point out is that the CO2 emissions from water are significant. They're not huge. I did the math on it's about 251 pounds of CO2 per year for the average household. So it's not really this greywater system is more about, you know, people saving water. It's not really that much about reducing CO2, although every little bit helps in our doors, walls and windows category, we pick kind of an off beat one, which was the this power shading system.

00:43:02:18 - 00:43:25:11
Matt Power: What I liked about this power shading system is that these are very low energy requirements. There are only five watts. So like they point out in this little blurb here that some of the competitors have require 30W per shade. So five watts is a pretty insignificant amount in terms of, you know, putting these things up and down. I mean, they do come at a little more of a premium cost, I believe.

00:43:25:13 - 00:43:47:09
Matt Power: But but that actually can be paid off quite quickly. And I actually found a study that looked at shades and how, how quickly you could pay back shades. So this is this is where you get your payback from a shading system 30%. So if you're in a hot climate, it makes sense, right? You're going to have those shades.

00:43:47:09 - 00:44:09:22
Matt Power: When the sun hits the window, the shade will automatically drop. It's it's not going to save you as much in a heating climate. It's just going to keep some of the heat in. Maybe at night you drop it down when you go to bed, and if you're in a winter climate, it keeps some of the heat in. But the real savings, it's keeping that beating sun out and and keeping some of the cool conditioned air in.

00:44:09:24 - 00:44:35:09
Matt Power: Now, this study from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy found that these shades had a four year, you know, basically that's approximate the last about 10 to 20 years. And they have a four year payback. I think the ones shown maybe a little more than that, depending on the size and the model of it. But, you know, it's a that's a pretty significant energy savings.

00:44:35:09 - 00:45:03:24
Matt Power: One of the points they make is that certain times like like active smart windows and other like sort of high end windows are quite expensive. And this is an alternative if you're trying to achieve, for example, a passive house or a trying to even a net zero house, adding is automated shades might be both an affordable and a reasonable way to, you know, recoup some of that energy savings.

00:45:03:26 - 00:45:25:01
Matt Power: And that is my rather short presentation this year. I didn't think I needed to go through every one of our 50 winners because it's available in our March April issue, and I always like the question and answer period anyway, because you may have specific questions about specific products or categories, which I will answer to the best of my ability.

00:45:25:01 - 00:45:47:17
Matt Power: If you want to send any questions into Mike, I'm here at your disposal. Thank you everybody.

00:45:47:19 - 00:45:59:10
Mike Collignon: Yep, that's the fun. Okay, so I put I put something in the chat for people to see that they can send in their questions now. And I've got a couple of questions to kind of kick things off, if you don't mind. Matt.

00:45:59:13 - 00:46:00:28
Matt Power: Sure.

00:46:01:01 - 00:46:17:00
Mike Collignon: Just made some notes as we were going through. So back to the EV slide or two that you had. Do you have data on the EV market uptake? How how is that coming along?

00:46:17:03 - 00:46:46:21
Matt Power: Yeah, I mean I don't have it at my fingertips, but it has slowed. But it is still, you know, on a steady, I'd say a steady, gradual rise. I know that many of the manufacturers did a little bit of a pullback this year because they weren't selling at the pace they thought they would be. So it still certainly I think with the IRA federal, you know, IRA money and other forces at work, I think it will still continue to move up and forward.

00:46:46:21 - 00:47:07:02
Matt Power: It just may not be as predictable in terms of, you know, how fast and how far it will go. I think I think again, we need I think there's some the battery issue is getting better. I think that they're solving some of the range issues. I did read yesterday. There's a couple of new vehicles coming out that have a little, you know, they keep extending the range.

00:47:07:08 - 00:47:28:02
Matt Power: One of the things I would mention, you know, when researching, I was actually looking at what I would I buy one is a lot of the lower priced vehicles only have by like a 200, 250 mile range. So it really depends how you're going to use it for a lot of people, like myself included, I often have to do a two hour trip, like every week or two.

00:47:28:03 - 00:47:51:23
Matt Power: I have to do a two hour trip round trip, two hours there, two hours back, so I could just barely make it with one of those lower cost, EV, you know, electric vehicles, but I don't think I would risk it. So again, just as a, as a subject of one of, of choice whether to buy one or not, the range is not quite where I would want it for my particular use.

00:47:51:23 - 00:47:54:26
Matt Power: So I think that's going to make a big difference.

00:47:54:28 - 00:48:21:13
Mike Collignon: And a follow up to that too. Matt, on the EV truck topic. Yeah, maybe, maybe I'm mistaken, but it would seem that the demographic for trucks might not be too environmentally focused. So what do you see on the Or what are you kind of looking forward to or predicting for the EV truck uptake?

00:48:21:19 - 00:48:51:05
Matt Power: Well, the thing is about the well, they sold. I know the Fords pre-sold out like way back when. I don't know what their current, you know, availability is. But the thing about those is they have tremendous torque power. So they actually are workhorse trucks. And you know, I think people may not realize that. But on the short run, if you're within an hour of your office or whatever and you're going and you're hauling things back and forth to sites or have you, you know, concrete blocks or whatever, that truck is actually very suited to that.

00:48:51:05 - 00:49:13:06
Matt Power: So it is actually not a princess truck when it comes to, it's just when you get into range, I think the range, if you have a heavy load on it, it does cut the range down. I think it was like 150. It cuts it basically in half. Right. So you wouldn't be able to go on the three hour excursion with a with a heavy load.

00:49:13:06 - 00:49:36:15
Matt Power: But you could certainly use it the same way you would any heavy truck if you're within the range of your job sites. So it's pretty good actually. Pretty good work, right? The other thing that it has is essentially a built in quiet generator, because it's got those huge batteries in it. So instead of rolling in and hooking up all your generators, you just plug into the back of the truck and it will easily run your entire house.

00:49:36:15 - 00:49:57:00
Matt Power: If you have a system set up, you know, a smart panel system and transfer at your house. If you have a power outage, you plug that thing in and you can go for days, you know, running it from your truck battery. So that's a nice perk to considering that, you know, even a new gas whole house system is probably ten grand or more.

00:49:57:02 - 00:50:34:03
Mike Collignon: That is my sat on there. You mentioned concrete blocks, and I wanted to ask a question on that slide where you were showing the CO2 emissions of various things is a nice pie chart, and the bulk of it was concrete. So what I wanted to ask about that particular graphic was if if cement and rebar are listed separately, then is that graphic implying that the sand, aggregate and water has that high of a CO2 footprint?

00:50:34:04 - 00:51:12:11
Matt Power: You know, I funny mentioned that. I noticed that as I was showing the chart and I my answer would probably be that the chart, it's probably an error in the chart because concrete is probably, you know, obviously concrete includes the the rebar. The rebar may not be, but I think the cement should be rolled into the concrete. The only other thing I could think is when they did the analysis is whether the cement was other not used in the foundation, like was it stuff that was used for, you know, other parts of the house, like, you know, countertops or, you know, resurfacing, you know, a slab or something.

00:51:12:11 - 00:51:23:01
Matt Power: But my guess is, you know, I wouldn't take that this chart as gospel, I would say, you know, we're in the right ballpark with 43. I just rolled the cement in with that.

00:51:23:03 - 00:51:29:10
Mike Collignon: Okay, okay. Yeah. Because I thought, man, there's only three other ingredients, main ingredients there. So.

00:51:29:12 - 00:51:44:14
Matt Power: Right. Because the cement is the big usually the cement is the big cost. Right. Cements the big because because it takes heat to produce cement. It takes incredible amounts of heat, which is part of what makes the Portland cement so energy intensive. Yeah.

00:51:44:18 - 00:51:58:26
Mike Collignon: And the only other theory that I had on that mat was, where are they trying to attribute the transportation of the material, the delivery of it, and the CO2 emissions associated with the trucks driving back and forth? The only thing I can think of.

00:51:58:28 - 00:52:07:27
Matt Power: Yeah, I don't think so. I think it was just yeah, I don't know. But I don't think that was it. I think it was probably just an oversight.

00:52:07:29 - 00:52:35:01
Mike Collignon: Okay. And then I certainly want to make a verbal call out for, for questions from our audience, if they have any. I do have another one for you. Excuse me as well, talking about the combo washer dryer. Yeah. The ones that you showed us, our vent lists. And so I'm kind of ask that the question of how exactly does that work?

00:52:35:01 - 00:52:38:19
Mike Collignon: How does it intake and exhaust air.

00:52:38:21 - 00:53:08:15
Matt Power: Yeah. If you think about it there, the air that's being exhausted is not full of. So the the humidity is extracted from the air before it's exhausted. Right. So it's pulling in fresh ambient air from around it. And then you'll have a plummet. You have a plumbed water exit, if that makes sense. Like the wastewater. So that humidity is collected, not shot like, you know, it's not like an old dryer where you if you didn't have a dryer hose on it, you'd be shooting humidity into your air.

00:53:08:17 - 00:53:42:10
Matt Power: That humidity is is condensed into a like a pan flows into a and then it's pumped out. So the water, the humidity is never pumped back into your living space. But I'm sure that it would. It does draw ambient air. So you need some that make up air has to come from somewhere, right? So this is where, you know, you have something like an air cycler that could help you balance your airflow in that room, especially if the in the laundry room, like if you got a laundry room with closed doors on it, you might want to at least put like a passive vent in the wall.

00:53:42:16 - 00:53:54:13
Matt Power: There's there's some German ones that I've installed before that that will equalize the pressure when when it pulls air. And to make the make up air for that vent less dryer.

00:53:54:15 - 00:54:31:27
Mike Collignon: Okay, Matt, we had a question come in from Steven. Kind of really more of an observation. He's thinking that architects and designers, along with their clients, should, should be talking about passive solutions to some of these issues. And he talks about specifically the motorized shades. You can put permanent exterior shading elements outside. You can use retractable shading that can be controlled manually as opposed to being plugged in, even though it has the small power requirement.

00:54:32:00 - 00:54:34:26
Mike Collignon: You want to talk a little bit about some of the alternatives.

00:54:34:28 - 00:55:02:23
Matt Power: I think that's a good point. In fact, one of our vision houses that we're building with architect Peter Pfeifer right now down in Austin, he's doing he's very much a believer in passive. He probably hate, you know, anything active because he loves passive stuff. So one of the things he's doing is putting extended overhangs on this house so that like, like your guess is asking, couldn't we design the house so that the, you know, when the when the sun is high, the roof is essentially shading?

00:55:02:23 - 00:55:27:17
Matt Power: The only honestly, the only pushback, not for me, but from ISIS you would get from builders is not every client will accept that look. In fact, I'd say most won't. So you got to be somewhat progressive, shall we say, in your willingness to have a not a more, more modernistic, not conventional looking house in order to have some of those passive features.

00:55:27:17 - 00:55:54:22
Matt Power: If you're willing to have your house look a little different, you certainly can get a lot better performance with, you know, the correct overhangs of siting and, you know, trees and airflow. You could you could basically go without. But I think that the things like those automated blinds fill in for the fact that most people have very narrow sense of what they want in a, in a home design.

00:55:54:25 - 00:56:21:04
Mike Collignon: And, and I'll add a slight bit of commentary, Matt, if I may. And that is some home designs. I'll speak about my own. It's an atrium ranch and some of the windows are not easily reachable. So if you want to put up some shades and we did because we were getting I mean, we referred to our windows on the rear of our house was a blast from us because.

00:56:21:04 - 00:56:22:02
Matt Power: They.

00:56:22:05 - 00:56:46:07
Mike Collignon: Directly south, it was fading. It was fading furniture and it was bringing a lot of heat into the home. So we put we put blinds up, but also from a physical standpoint, we could not reach a couple of the windows to manually unless we had very, very long cords hanging down. Again, to an esthetic, some people may not want that.

00:56:46:07 - 00:56:57:17
Mike Collignon: So we went with what its battery operated power lines to, to help control the heat that was coming in through the solar heat game.

00:56:57:19 - 00:57:22:25
Matt Power: Yeah. No, I think that's a good, good comment. I also think like I don't like I'm sure other people feel the same way. Like I don't like battery powered devices. However, I think we're we're very close to integrating sort of almost invisible solar PV into things like our blind. So they'll provide that little trickle of power and recharge batteries and hopefully we can reduce our battery footprint quite, quite soon.

00:57:22:26 - 00:57:29:04
Matt Power: I think that technology is right around the corner. So that would take care of that issue as well.

00:57:29:06 - 00:57:36:10
Mike Collignon: And I would be happy to get rid of the battery operated, because it's a pain to try and change out those batteries.

00:57:36:11 - 00:57:38:01
Matt Power: Right? Like it's exactly.

00:57:38:03 - 00:57:41:07
Mike Collignon: It's hard to reach them in the first place. Now I got to get all the way to the top I.

00:57:41:08 - 00:57:44:22
Matt Power: Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly, exactly.

00:57:44:24 - 00:57:50:15
Mike Collignon: But I do like the mention of Peter Pfeifer, by the way, the media sustainability superhero.

00:57:50:17 - 00:58:01:01
Matt Power: So yes, he was. Yeah, yeah. Great guy. Very, very talented architect. Yes, yes. Any any other queries out there?

00:58:01:03 - 00:58:11:00
Mike Collignon: No. That's all the questions we have for today. So I want to wrap it up. But thank you, Matt, for for doing this with us and walking us through some of these things. Any final comments from you.

00:58:11:03 - 00:58:30:02
Matt Power: Know thank you. And I realize it's it's it's hard to make time in the summer. So appreciate everybody hanging in there with us and feel free. My email is I'll leave it up on the end here. So if you had further questions or whatever, feel free. Or you want to pitch me a project or a product, email me anytime I.

00:58:30:07 - 00:58:42:25
Matt Power: I do try to respond to everything unless you're really mean and I will do so quite promptly, usually within a day or two. So thanks everybody. I'm going to leave this.

00:58:42:27 - 00:59:04:29
Mike Collignon: In the chat. Also, thank you to our audience for for asking some questions. And thank you obviously to our sponsors as well, which is Whirlpool Opener and Powershift by NV energy for their response. Thank you much. Hey you know what? We're going to be back in three weeks for housing 2.0. Thought leader webinar with Rob Howard of Howard Howard Building Science.

00:59:05:02 - 00:59:15:27
Mike Collignon: That's going to be Wednesday, July 17th at 2 p.m. Eastern time. So please join me for that. Until next time, have a great 4th of July. Just stay safe, stay healthy and take care everyone. So long.