Clean Edison Blog

The importance of Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE)

Do buildings designed for high performance function as intended?  Do energy savings, improved occupants’ productivity and comfort materialize as promised?  Green buildings offer a lot of benefits, but building owners and tenants increasingly want proof that these benefits are actually achieved.

This is where post-occupancy evaluation (POE) comes in.  The objective of POE is to learn whether the building is performing as designed and whether it meets the occupants’ needs as intended.

POE originated in the 1960s, as a part of a movement to apply scientific approach to architecture and to explore the new-found connection between behavioral sciences and design.  Designers saw POE as a tool to test their hypotheses as they tried to use design to change people’s behavior and relationship with the built environment.  It was used to evaluate building systems as well as occupants’ responses to those systems.  After the peak of popularity in the 1970s and early ’80s, the use of POE declined, until the sustainability movement reclaimed it.  Today, building owners rather than building designers are driving POE.  For a building owner it is one thing to read in a study that green buildings on average perform 25-30% better, or that they command higher rents and occupancy rates, but it is another to be able to verify that their own building does so.

At the same time, growing popularity of building ratings, as well as the increase in local and state disclosure ordinances requiring building owners to publicly disclose actual energy consumption, makes POE almost a necessity.

This means that there will be pressure on building designers to incorporate features that will allow building owners to operate the building to design specifications.  Buildings will need to have feedback systems to help facility managers and occupants understand how their choices affect the building’s performance.  In this task, “smart” buildings have an enormous potential, as they can use the data they are constantly generating to engage users’ by providing real-time, visually appealing and easy to understand performance feedback via dashboards.
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Today, one significant aspect of “green construction” involves choosing asbestos-free building materials. Although asbestos building products are still legally produced, most construction companies understand the hazards they pose to human health and avoid them. With so many health-conscious alternatives on the market, this isn’t a major sacrifice.

In some cases, however, building owners purchase or manage facilities built before the 1980s. With these buildings, there is a good probability that asbestos products such as drywall, insulation and tiles are present. Owners then face special challenges when having construction work done on their buildings.

Before hiring renovation crews for potentially asbestos-disturbing tasks, these building managers are required to perform asbestos inspections. Federal regulations mandate these surveys for all public schools and most government buildings, as well as for all older buildings that are set for demolition or renovation. By identifying and acting on any potential hazards, owners can avoid Clean Air Act violations and major risks to their workers’ health.

Non-Construction Related Asbestos Management Surveys

Property owners not planning construction in the near future can conduct these surveys on their own schedule – or not at all. However, even when asbestos management surveys are optional, owners should still consider regular testing. This simple process is a major step in protecting the general health and well-being of the building’s occupants.

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Every house is unique and foundation-type is one distinct difference between them.  A home typically has a crawl space, basement or a concrete slab foundation.  In this three part article series author Joe Provey explains how foundation-type should be taken into consideration when upgrading a home’s energy efficiency. Joe’s first article explains how a home with a crawl space foundation can increase their energy efficiency.

 
Save energy with the bonus of controlling excess humidity and improving home air quality!

Like it or not, your crawl space and living space are joined at the hip. Holes for wiring and pipes, plumbing chases, leaky heating ducts, gaps in subflooring, ensure that your living space and your crawl space communicate freely! It is no surprise that the U.S. Department of Energy recommends you insulate your crawl space. Insulation in the floor joists is typically inadequate to offer much of a barrier. To make matters worse, the laws of physics actually cause the air in your crawl space to be pulled up into your living areas. As warm air rises in the upper levels of your home, it creates a draw on the lower areas. As much as 40 percent of the air in your crawl space eventually mixes with the air inside your home.

This creates a whole series of problems, ranging from energy loss to breathing unhealthy air. In summer, cool air is lost to the crawl space. In addition, excess humidity from the crawl space causes your air conditioner to work harder and use more electricity than it should. In winter, cold air entering through the crawl space makes your floors cold and first level rooms drafty. Heating bills climb. Winter and summer, you’re apt to be breathing unhealthy air laden with allergens and soil gases.

There are five steps you can take to turn a crawl space into a clean, healthy, energy-efficient part of your home. Here they are roughly in the order you should tackle them:

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“In the day”, I was sent to Siemens Photovoltaic Cell manufacturing plant in Santa Barbara to visit with the Southern California Edison customer, document the manufacturing process and take some pictures for my bosses presentation.  It has been years since then and the United States, the once leader in cell manufacturing, has given way to others overseas (~four(4) cell manufacturers remain in U.S.).  As a result, a manufacturing goal of 100% “Made in the United States” cannot be achieved for photovoltaic (PV) modules with mono-crystalline cells at cost effective prices.  Never the less, other quantifiable goals like USGBC LEED Material Resource Credits can be achieved.

Various products can claim to be as much as 80% made in the United States and anywhere from $1.80 to $4.50/Watt installed (including but not limited to, additional structural systems like; racking, ballast, lagging or wood lattice).  Using a goal to be the “Greenest” possible without additional expense, the owners of EcoGym Worldwide set out to design a PV System that met some of these goals.  Seeking the guidance of A Solar Studio, a small 2-3 man studio in Naperville who’s principal has been involved with PV off and on for the past twenty years, they learned they could achieve some of these goals using the Solon Sol quick 295.

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Glass as a design choice

A look at today’s architecture and design magazines, or at new construction projects in NYC, confirms that the current material of choice is glass.  Floor-to-ceiling windows, 360° views, natural daylight, connecting inside to the outside are the design vocabulary du jour.  Glass, and lots of it, is intended to convey modernity, sophistication, and, increasingly, green design.

The first glass was made about 2,000 years ago.  It was used to seal off small apertures made to let in light.  However, it was not until many centuries later that the use of glass in buildings became widespread.  Still, window sizes were constrained by practical considerations: impact on the load-bearing capacity of the walls, material limitations, energy conservation requirements, expense.  In the 20^th century, the development of structural steel, and later reinforced concrete, allowed to transfer bearing loads from the exterior walls to interior columns.  At the same time, glass came in increasingly bigger unbroken sheets.

The International Style in architecture, made simple glass façades and huge opens spaces synonymous with modernity.  In the late 1940s, double-pane glass with thermal insulation was created.  Windows were becoming bigger and bigger, until eventually the entire exterior skin of a building was made of glass – it was called the curtain-wall.  Lever House, built in 1952, was the first curtain-wall building in New York.  By 1970s, coated, laminated glass, and other innovative glass products were created.  Today, fully-glazed office buildings are ubiquitous, and in residential buildings, especially on the higher end, panoramic, huge, often floor-to-ceiling windows became a requisite amenity.

What is it that makes glass so appealing to architects and building owners? 

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One trip down the lighting aisle at your local hardware store, and you can tell the world is changing. “Energy-efficiency” is one of the hottest buzzwords you’ll find plastered over almost every light bulb’s packaging. We want to stop burning up so much energy. We want to help preserve the planet.

LEDs and CFLs are two of the most popular “green” light bulbs on the market today, but what is it that classifies them as “green”? Surely, efficiency isn’t only thing that makes truly environmentally-friendly light bulb. Does the light bulb contain harmful pollutants? Is the light’s efficiency or rated-life easily damaged by a rough environment? The light bulb’s packaging only reveals so much.

So, on that trip down the lighting aisle, which light bulb do you walk away with?

When you sit down and compare LEDs and CFLs, you’ll soon realize that one is decidedly greener. It’s not so hard to find out why; you just have to ask the right questions:

How Efficient Is Each Light Bulb?

Just like every other light source, the efficiency of the LED is measured in lumens per watt (lm/W), which is the amount of light produced by one unit of electrical power. Generally, a good LED lamp can generate twice as many lumens per watt as a CFL (60-100+ lm/W vs 30-50 lm/W). But that’s not the final score. LED technology is still improving. The U.S. Department of Energy believes that LEDs could easily attain an efficacy of 200 lm/W.

Less power used to make more light makes the LED the more sustainable choice.

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This ‘Monumental Shift’ in the US Buildings Sector May Surprise You 

Conventional wisdom says that buildings are a sprawling, untamable black hole for energy. But a new analysis of federal data shows that the U.S. buildings sector has made enormous strides in efficiency over the last six years — potentially eliminating the need to build any new power plants to support growth in the sector through 2030.

When sustainable architecture guru Edward Mazria looked at the EIA’s latest Annual Energy Outlook, he noticed two surprising things: one, that 2030 projections for building energy consumption continue their steep decline; and two, that America plans to add over 60 billion square feet of new buildings by then. So even as a huge portfolio of new buildings is constructed in the next two decades, the energy needs in those buildings will be low enough to prevent the need for any new power plants to service them, concluded Mazria.

“There is no longer any need to build power plants to meet growth in the buildings sector,” said Mazria. “This is a monumental shift.”

Read More at Green Tech Media

With Carbon Dioxide Approaching a New High, Scientists Sound the Alarm

If uncertainty runs rampant in the global-warming debate, it is in part because scientific data is often too complex to be well understood by anyone but climate scientists.

This month, however, the world is likely to reach a scientific milestone that appears impressively scary even to those with only a cursory knowledge of climate science.

For the first time in human history, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will surpass 400 parts per million, according Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which has been measuring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii since 1958.

“The 400-ppm threshold is a sobering milestone, and should serve as a wake-up call for all of us to support clean energy technology and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, before it’s too late for our children and grandchildren.”

Read more at IHT Rendezvous NY Times Blog

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Overview and a bit of history

The very first house to achieve LEED for Homes Platinum Certification was a factory made modular home in Santa Monica, CA, in 2006.

Factory made modular houses, also referred to as prefabricated or prefab, are inherently more sustainable than their built on-site counterparts.  Factory process, by nature based on standardization, precision and efficiency, automatically minimizes raw materials and construction waste.  Another important advantage of prefab houses is the high quality of the exterior envelope, which is the most important precision assembly in a green building.  In a factory, a house is assembled from the inside out, with the drywall installed first and sheathing and siding last.  All the caulking and insulation work is done from the back of the drywall, behind any electrical or mechanical boxes, which creates an airtight seal.  Modules are often prefabricated with plumbing, electric and HVAC infrastructure.  Modular homes are built to a higher structural standard, because they have to be loaded on and off trucks and transported, possibly on un-paved roads.

Because of the process efficiency and economies of scale, modular homes cost 5 to 20% less than comparably sized built on-site homes.  Savings can be used towards offsetting the expense of energy-efficient and eco-friendly technologies, such as solar panels, geothermal heating, high performance windows, green non-toxic interior finishes, and high-efficiency appliances.

There are intangible benefits to consider as well, such as reduced construction time, lesser dependence on the weather and climate conditions, as well as minimal neighborhood disturbance and damage to the landscape.

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At the Geothermal Energy Association conference (GEA) in New York, many compelling presentations conveyed the benefits of this relatively obscure renewable energy source. Its benefits go beyond simply limiting harmful emissions, which are largely associated with conventional energies. Geothermal energy supplies a consistent source of electricity, unlike some other renewable energies, which makes it attractive to investors. Despite high capital costs due to exploration of geothermal sources, operating costs for geothermal remain low. This is due to not requiring fuel after the power plant is constructed.

The high cost of renewable energy is a common argument against building such power plants in developed countries, and this misconception also keeps many investors away. Yet, at the GEA conference it was shown that even lesser developed countries, such as Kenya (202 MW of installed geothermal) and El Salvador(204 MW), have already begun to install significant amounts of geothermal. Furthermore, if the levelized cost of a power plant is taken into account, including capital and operating costs, geothermal energy is the cheapest source apart from wind; the latter being an intermittent source. One must wonder why many more developed countries have not yet taken to this kind of energy?

Is it a Reliable Energy Source?

Geothermal energy is a renewable energy found abundantly around the globe. The technology takes advantage of the earth’s subterranean thermal energy. It has been used to produce heat for humans for thousands of years (think Roman bathhouses). Using geothermal energy for electricity began in Italy in 1904 in a plant in operation since then.

Today, twenty-four countries around the world employ geothermal energy to produce energy on a large scale. Total geothermal energy used worldwide is estimated to be 11,224 MW (GEA 2012). The top four countries utilizing geothermal are the U.S.(3,386 Megawatts), Philippines(1,904 MW), Indonesia(1,222 MW), Mexico(958), and Italy(883 MW). These numbers are not small considering it takes 1-2 Megawatts to power 1,000 homes. Yet, geothermal electrical energy in the U.S.only accounts for about 3% of all its renewable energy sources. However, an additional 5,150-5,523MW are under commission or “in the pipeline” (GEA estimate).

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