Author Archives: Sheryl Milardo

Sheryl Milardo is in charge of Centerbrook’s Library and Product Resources, researching, receiving, and disseminating information on a broad range of materials and topics. She collaborates with project teams in the selection of products for specification, and also arranges in-house educational and product presentations for the staff.

Out of the Water Closet

Porcelain has a long pedigree, going back millennia to China, later Italy, and lately anywhere someone can generate 1,280 degrees Centigrade to fire clay. Dense, durable, fire-resistant, and non-porous, porcelain is a common material in our homes. For example, fine china is made of it, as are commodes and bathroom floor and wall tiling. Made [...]

The Lights of Our Lives

The era of the incandescent light bulb, initially patented in 1879 by Thomas A. Edison, is under assault through a combination of market forces and legislative fiat – primarily because it has been an energy hog. In 2007 the federal government mandated that the bulbs become more efficient beginning next year – although there are [...]

The Three Little Pigs and Sustainability

Those of us not raised by wolves know the fairy tale about the Three Little Pigs: one built a house out of straw (cheap and superficially sustainable with local, organic, and recyclable material); the second out of sticks (ditto); and the third out of bricks – a more energy intensive, durable and expensive material, but [...]