Nearly a month ago I wrote a blog about a few products the BuildingGreen, Inc. gave awards for at a U.S. Green Building Council's conference last winter. This is a follow-up to that post, highlighting three more inventions that earned recognition during the convention and merit a discussion here.

Delta Faucet Co. has manufactured a showerhead that is about to revolutionize the splashy function of getting cleaned up under a stream of water. It uses only 1.6 gallons of water per minute because of a process called   H2Okinetic Technology which generates droplets that are rather big, yielding solid heat retention and body wetting. Kind of technical, isn't it? Anyway, most low-flow showerheads produce really small droplets or aerate the water,  both of which let the water cool rapidly which in turn gives a less satisfactory showering experience. What makes this showerhead green is the fact that it conserves energy and water, suitable for any residential real estate property.

Let's stay on the topic of water consumption for a while longer. Yard irrigation takes about 60% of the total household water use and 30-60% of that is flat-out wasted. That is a high percentage. HydroPoint Data Systems, Inc. has developed an ingenious control system called Weather TRAK that will drastically cut back on waste. The control unit generates watering schedules based on the actual landscape features like soil type, plantings and slope. It also considers weather information wirelessly sent to its chip and adjusts irrigation amounts accordingly. Its green qualification properties are water conservation and storm water pollution reduction.

Now that we are in the middle of the summer, talking about an air conditioner is timely. Coolerado Cooler is a system that uses the evaporation of water to cool space. It's an all-indirect product that does not add any moisture into the air, like conventional air conditioners do. The energy efficiency ratio, or EER, is 40-plus, up to three times as economical as the comparable compression-style units. Its green qualification property is energy savings. Evidently a lot of it.

As a matter of fact, I'm looking forward to this winter's conference when more awards are given to worthy green building products.