Practical Eco

EcoTop™ - the greenest kitchen surface yet

The latest eco counter surface to hit the market is EcoTop™, which I'll have available from September.  I'm very excited about this new manufactured product because it comes with such a pedigree already.

EcoTop™ is the newest product from award winning eco product innovator Joel Klippert. It is the most durable & eco friendly counter top surface product in the world.

EcoTop™ is made with an FSC Certified 50/50 blend of post consumer recycled demolition wood fiber and rapidly renewable bamboo fiber. The bamboo fiber which is much longer and stronger than wood fiber, gives the product incredible dimensional stability.

The resin system used to bond the fibers is a water based proprietary product. It's free of petroleum, has no VOC’s, and E0 formaldehyde emissions.

EcoTop also uses an industry first two stage color system where the fiber and the resin are colored separately. This system gives much improved color consistency and color stability over other paper based products. The initial product offering with have 6 colors, Jet Black, Charcoal,Walnut, Safari, Khaki & Sand.

EcoTop's compressive strength of 50,000 psi & water absorption of less than 1% make it the most durable surface product available.

EcoTop can cantilever up to 4’ and span 10’ with no deflection at 300 lbs.

EcoTop has the greatest ease of fabrication; it can be cut, routed, sanded and finished with normal wood working tools much like butcher block.

*Addendum (11/15/07) After much delay the manufacturer has chosen to launch this product only early next year and then only on the West Coast. So it looks at the moment like I may be able to offer this only in the second quarter of 08 now. So perhaps this original posting, though well intended and based on the information I had at the time, was quite premature.

Chandler Design Build

"Green" doesn't work well enough to describe the homes Michael Chandler builds. I think "authentic" gets closer. Certainly his work is authentic in terms of expressing his character as well as the materials that go into the buildings. Things like soapstone fireplaces, shingle siding and gorgeous wood details throughout showcase the materials for their natural beauty. The designs are all very easy to love and easy to live in as a result of the time and care he and his wife put into understanding each client.

What most impresses me most is the build quality and the engineering. They've learned to build very tight and energy efficient homes that are generally 60% better than code standards. Of course, code should be simply unacceptable as a standard for any homeowner today, but this is a commendable achievement.

Michael is also very active in the National Association of Home Builders'  (NAHB) Green Building Initiative (GBI). As a caring thinking person, he wants to work for more improvements in building standards across the board. But as a lifestyle choice he limits his team to 4 homes per year. To reconcile that Michael takes a role as co-chair of the GBI educational committee, which gets him out talking to groups of builders who want to improve their practices.