New products claiming to be green are coming to market on a daily basis. Not all of them deserve the name, and some unheralded products deserve more consideration as part of a green retrofit, according to Alex Wilson, the founder and president of West Coast Greenconference in San Francisco (October 1-3), spoke with Matter Network about trends in green building.

MN: What category of green building product is under-hyped today?

AW: Even though in certain parts of the country water is going to be more of a problem than energy, water saving products tend to not get enough attention. New systems for harvesting rainwater can reuse gray water, from sinks, showers and laundry for irrigation or with treatment for toilet flushing. They reduce water consumption and provide a lot of savings to homeowners. Although they are not that new, high efficiency toilets use just 1.3 gallons per flush, and showerheads that maintain large droplet size can dramatically reduces water use, from 2.5 gallons per minute (gpm) to 1.6 gpm.

Another area with a lot of activity is heat pump water heaters. Water pumps use a heat source element to heat water in the tank and at best are 100 percent efficient, mean all of the energy is turned into heat. A heat pump, which functions like an air conditioner in reverse, upgrades the temperature of the heat from the air and delivers it into hot water. These heat water pumps can be up to 200-300 percent energy efficient, generating more energy for heat than is consumed. As an example, GE is coming out with a new unit in November.

MN:What is a common thing that homeowners looking to do a green retrofit often neglect to consider?

AW: Weatherization programs that are part of existing building upgrades don't go far enough. To meet reductions in emissions, we have to be much more aggressive in retrofits to do "deep energy retrofits." For homes in a cold climate, that might mean stripping off the siding, adding 4 inches of rigid foam on the exterior. It may sound like an expensive proposition, but when you consider what we spent in Iraq, we could have completed a deep energy retrofit on a quarter of our homes. We tend too go to quickly to adding solar and wind, when we need to focus most of the attention on reducing energy load. Start with conservation and then add energy generation.