No question about it: The Green movement is sparking innovation among manufacturers, including manufacturers of conventional products that builders use all the time. Here's one example: Georgia-Pacific Gypsum's Dens line of paperless gypsum board products. Instead of paper facings, the Dens products incorporate fiberglass mats on surfaces. This provides moisture resistance and removes a potential food source for mold. The DensArmor Plus panels are designed for interior moisture-prone areas such as basements and residential bathrooms, and DensShield Tile Backer is a mold-resistant tile backer board.

Continental Fan Manufacturing is offering the CX3000 whole-house air purification system. The CX3000 will filter and clean up to 3,000 square feet; it has an electrostatic MERV-11 filter and a UVC light that activates a photo-catalytic titanium dioxide catalyst to destroy a wide variety of pollutants.

Compact fluorescent lamps have been around for a while now, but manufacturers are shedding new light on the subject with enhancements such as Technical Consumer Products Inc.'s Fresh2Ti. In addition to providing light, Fresh2Ti has a titanium dioxide coating that breaks down odors through a photocatalytic reaction when the lamp is on. TCP claims the bulbs offer a better alternative to air fresheners and may help to destroy unhealthy air pollutants. These CFLs have a 10,000-hour rated life, and their air-cleaning properties are expected to last for up to three years.

Here's a novel idea: Keenan & Meier manufactures a variety of passive ventilation dampers that use a phase-changing wax actuator to open and close the damper. The damper starts to open at 60 F and becomes fully open at 80 F, as the paraffin wax turns to liquid and increases in volume, pushing out a piston that operates the damper. The damper uses no electricity and is made from approximately 60 percent post-industrial recycled aluminum.

Recycled and reclaimed products are being incorporated into new products by many manufacturers, and by some builders, too. Avision LLC, an Energy Star partner custom homebuilder in Idaho, manufactures custom doors from reclaimed lumber salvaged from barns, old mills and fences in the U.S. The company makes interior and exterior doors to any size and thickness and in a variety of styles. Customers can also request particular reclaimed species from around the world or FSC-certified wood. Dowels, wood glue and weatherstripping are the only components not made from reclaimed lumber.

As ICFs begin to take a greater share of the market, it's beginning to sound strange to refer to them as alternative building materials. But within that market segment, there are subgenres where innovation continues to take place. Fox Blocks is an ICF block system that includes reversible, preassembled ICF blocks with interlocking key-way block connections, ties and corner brackets designed to add strength and facilitate application of veneer finishes. The ties are 100 percent recycled material. The EPS foam core has a steady-state R-value of 4.55 per inch, and the manufacturer claims a total R-value for the block of 35 or greater.

Some extraordinary building products made BuildingGreen's 2006 Top-10 list. Like RetroPlate, a polished concrete system that turns both new and old concrete slabs into durable, finished floors. RetroPlate was developed by combining European stone grinding and polishing technology with concrete hardening and densifying agents that had been used in North America. The resultant concrete surface is highly durable, easy to maintain, free of VOC emissions and more reflective. The system enables the concrete slab to serve as the finished floor surface, thus reducing material use.

Another Top 10 product, SageGlass, is an electronically tintable exterior glazing that provides glare control on demand while preserving views. Unlike earlier switchable glazing products that degraded with exposure to UV light, SageGlass is a multilayer, thin-film tungsten-oxide coating that is as durable as low-emissivity coatings. One drawback: SageGlass is currently expensive, increasing the cost of insulated glass six- to sevenfold. However, Sage Electrochromics expects the cost to eventually become competitive with standard high-performance glazing combined with interior mechanized shades.

Delta Faucet Co.'s revolutionary showerhead that delivers superb performance using just 1.6 gallons of water per minute won BuildingGreen's admiration. Delta worked with Bowles Fluidics Corp. to develop its proprietary H2Okinetic Technology, which produces droplets that are fairly large, resulting in good heat retention and body wetting. By comparison, many low-flow showerheads either create very small droplets or aerate the water, either of which can allow the water to cool quickly and make showering less satisfactory. The showerhead was originally manufactured with a chrome finish only, but a stainless steel model and other designs were due in 2007 and may already be available.

A solid-surface composite material made from recycled paper and a resin derived in part from oil found in the shells of cashews got a nod from BuildingGreen. PaperStone is a dense, hard, water-resistant, solid-surface composite material used for skateboard ramps, countertops, toilet partitions and exterior rainscreen siding. The manufacturer, KlipTech Composites Inc., offers two versions of the product: The standard PaperStone contains at least 50 percent post-consumer recycled paper; the newer PaperStone Certified has 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper and is third-party certified by SmartWood to carry the Forest Stewardship Council recycled-content label.

So there you have it: a plethora of products to help you build the Green dream homes your clients are requesting. With more wildly inventive folks getting into the act, who knows what products you'll be incorporating into your building practice by year's end?