Honest Product Reviews by the Green Police

Hi folks. This appears on daily5REMODEL today, and I'm republishing it here to elicit more feedback for Michael and Carl. If you'd like to be eligible to win Carl's forthcoming book, Green Building: Principles and Practices in Residential Construction ($99), please post your feedback on d5R. Thanks!

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So many building products, so many gushy reviews. Alternatively, those that aren't gushy are often dull, uninformative and/or ripped from the manufacturer's press release -- in any case, not terribly helpful to remodelers, builders, architects and others who specify and install them.

So how about a different approach?

The building products disconnect is the thinking behind the Green Police, the irreverent yet deadly serious two-man taskforce that is determined to "tell the truth about products: the good, the bad and the ugly," according to Carl Seville of Seville Consulting.

"We appointed ourselves the Green Police after becoming acutely aware of the void that existed for honest and critical review of products and the companies that produce them," explained Michael Anschel, of Otogawa-Anschel Design-Build and Verified Green. "Green building encompasses the critical criteria for any building product, and there is a great deal of misinformation and confusion in the marketplace when it comes to understanding who is and is not green."

In a series of videos, including the Kirei review below, the taller, older, more southern (Atlanta) Seville and the shorter, younger, more northern (Minneapolis) Anschel dissect, analyze and spar over the net pros and cons of specific products targeting eco-savvy consumers and building professionals. "These reviews are for pros who want to learn," Michael said in an email last night. "They move fast and cover a lot of information."

More on that in a bit. First, please watch this five-minute review.

Carl and Michael want your feedback.

Do you like this approach, is it informative, would you like to see more? What other types of product reviews and product information in general would help you make good selection decisions and ask the right questions?

"No product is perfect, and the building industry is sick and tired of magazines that pander to their advertisers and offer reviews that are practically written by the manufacturers themselves," said Michael. "An honest review is a hundred more times more valuable than an advertorial review."

Just as the Green Police hope their reviews will spur manufacturers to produce better products, they hope your feedback will help them develop more useful reviews. Please weigh in below. The best answer (as determined by Carl and Michael) will win a copy of the forthcoming book by Carl Seville and Abe Kruger, Green Building: Principles and Practices in Residential Construction.

click here to respond to the original post and be eligible for the book