California Passes Nation’s Strictest Green Building Code

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 | Green Building Codes, Green Buildings & Green Technology | 1 Comment

Even if you don’t live in California, you’re going to want to pay attention to a law that just passed there. It seems that whatever happens in California eventually makes its way to the rest of the country — and in this case, probably everywhere else as well.

The law in this case is the the new green building code, California Code of Regulations Title 24, Section 11, which has already been affectionately dubbed “CalGreen” by locals and the media. Beyond such requirements as a 20% reduction in water usage, recycling of 50% of construction waste and the use of low-emissions paint, carpets, etc., the law will require the inspection of all heating, air conditioning and other mechanical systems in all non-residential buildings over 10,000 square feet, to make sure they are performing to expected levels. › Continue reading

Tags: CalGreen, energy efficiency, energy savings, Green Building Codes, Green Buildings & Green Technology, LEED, U.S. Green Building Council

ASHRAE President Sees A Busy Year Ahead For The Industry, Part 2

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 | Building Energy Performance, Building Energy Quotient (Building EQ), Energy Saving Tips, Green Buildings & Green Technology | No Comments

And now, part 2 of our interview with Gordon Holness, 2009-2010 President of ASHRAE, (the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers).  To recap Part 1, 2009 was a challenging year, to say the least. In the spirit of closing the door on the less-than-ideal year we all experienced, we’re proactively moving forward to the coming year. What does 2010 hold in store? What  trends and issues will shape how we do business this year, in five years and even further into the future?

To get a broad overview of what is to come, we spoke with Gordon Holness, and in a wide-ranging discussion, he addressed the trends and events that will affect the industry for years to come. › Continue reading

Tags: ASHRAE, energy consumption, energy efficient, energy savings, European Building Performance Directive, green buildings, IES, LEED, Smart Grid

Is LEED Working?

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 | Green Buildings & Green Technology, LEED, Leed Certification | 1 Comment

Remember LEED?  The U.S. Green Building Council’s “Leadership in Energy and Environmental and Design” program?  Of course you do.  So do we.  We write about LEED frequently.  We urge our readers to learn about it, qualify for it, and practice it.  We hope to help you in that endeavor, since LEED seems to be the green building program of the future, and we’re all for that.

But it always pays to keep your eyes and ears open, not to mention your mind, and that’s why we’re calling your attention to this: “The Green Façade.”   It’s a November 25 article in The Atlantic, America’s venerable magazine of literature, ideas, politics, and culture.  If you’re high on LEED, you might want to read this article for its nuanced analysis of what LEED is actually accomplishing and how the program might best move forward.  Because, to put it starkly, LEED in its current form may not be doing what it’s most prominently supposed to do: saving energy.

The article’s author, Atlantic senior editor Jennie Rothenberg Gritz, starts by noting the green movement’s epochal trajectory toward center stage in American culture and politics.  But then she sounds the note that signals it’s time to rein in our enthusiasm and pay attention to hard facts: two studies released in fall 2009 question the overall effectiveness of LEED as it’s currently being deployed and practiced.  And these studies come from within the official LEED community itself.

One of them comes from Rob Watson, who, in addition to editing GreenerBuildings.com, from which we ourselves have quoted numerous times, is the man who actually developed the LEED rating system.  Watson’s November report, says Gritz,

included impressive data on market trends, land impact, and water efficiency for LEED projects.  When it came to energy savings, though, the numbers were discouraging.  “Some LEED buildings are not performing as expected given their design and technology elements,” Watson stated bluntly.  “This is an area of controversy and a source of great attention by the U.S. Green Building Council.”

The other study came out in late October and was issued by the Chicago chapter of the USGBC and its partners, and its findings were nothing short of shocking. Again, Gritz summarizes:

The study looked at the median efficiency of LEED-certified buildings in Illinois and found that they were performing only 5 percent better than their non-LEED counterparts throughout the region.  Fewer than 30 percent of the buildings were eligible for the government’s ENERGY STAR label.  And the Platinum and Gold LEED buildings were no more efficient than those that had Silver or basic LEED certifications (emphasis added).

Does the expression “Whoops?” seem out of order here?

So, in light of these findings, what’s to do?  Gritz points out several salient facts, including the way the current LEED system may need a retooling, since it lets people in search of credits “reach for low-hanging fruit” in the form of modifications that don’t directly affect energy use or carbon emissions, and including the increasingly recognized truth that LEED for existing buildings, or LEED-EB, actually produces the best energy results.  (We ourselves recently noted the attention being paid to existing buildings as credible sources for energy savings, in “Not So Fast: Old Buildings — Not Just New Ones — Contribute Vitally to Clean Energy Economy.”)  This, ladies and gentlemen, shows promise.

We scour industry headlines and the news in general as we go about our task of bringing you this blog, and so we see the patterns that are currently lining up.  Right now, for instance, a story has just come across the transom from San Diego Business Journal that talks about new state standards in California for achieving LEED silver.  Oh, and here comes another one, this time from Automated Buildings.  It’s an interview with Nathan Rothman, founder and CEO of Optimum Energy LLC, in which he shares his experiences and overall impressions of this year’s Greenbuild show in Phoenix in November.  The title?  “Increasing Acceptance of LEED.”  Stories like this appear every day, sometimes by the dozens, and they are indeed important.  And yet here’s that Atlantic article and the two reports it talks about, telling us to hold on, get a grip, and be smart, because all may not be as it seems.

We’re listening, and we hope you are, too.

Matt Cardin
Goodway Blogging Team

Image Credit: PhotoXpress

Tags: energy efficiency, energy savings, Energy Star, Green Buildings & Green Technology, LEED, LEED certified buildings, LEED-certified, U.S. Green Building Council

New System Uses Internet To Tweak Thermostat, Cut Costs

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 | Green Buildings & Green Technology | 1 Comment

Using communications to save energy costs seems to be a key strategy for a host of new green building products and technologies.   In another post we talked about a new communications protocol being developed just for HVAC gear. Now Cleantech – one of the world’s  largest competition for clean technologies – has picked a winner that uses communications as a means of reducing HVAC costs. › Continue reading

Tags: green buildings, Green Buildings & Green Technology, HVAC efficiency

Not So Fast: Old Buildings — Not Just New Ones — Contribute Vitally to Clean Energy Economy

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 | Green Buildings & Green Technology | No Comments

Boston's Faneuil Hall, known as "The Cradle of Liberty" -- and, at almost 280 years, a very old building.

In the race to transition to the “clean energy economy” spoken of by President Obama, we shouldn’t get so carried away by our archetypally American fascination with the “new and improved” that we forget the value of the old.  That’s the message presented by a very interesting opinion piece published in late November by The Boston Globe.

In “A green future for old buildings” (Nov. 23), Charles N. Tseckares, a founding principal of the Boston architectural firm CBT and past president of the Boston Society of Architects, makes a compelling case for holding our collective horses if we’re operating under the false notion that all old buildings are energy sieves, and that we therefore have to replace them with new ones in order to create our desired clean-energy future.

He argues that the mid-20th century craze for tearing down old buildings to replace them with new ones was

“rooted in the belief that man had transcended the limits of the natural environment.  After all, this was an era of plentiful and cheap energy, especially oil, when we shunned the frugality of our forebears and embraced the throw-away society. The cultural shift was reflected in the design of modern buildings, which relied on energy-intensive systems of lighting and climate control.”

The irony, he points out, is that

“Many existing buildings, especially those built before World War II, embody environmental and energy-conscious design.  Of course these buildings were not designed with the fate of the planet in mind.  But they were built in an age predating modern lighting and HVAC systems, before cheap oil created the illusion of a world without limits.  They were frugal in design and use of resources — the very antecedent of our modern concept of sustainability.”

Tseckares points out that the energy-efficient features of these buildings included, for example, high ceilings and natural ventilation to keep workers cool.  He also cites the rather astonishing fact, garnered from “an article by a director of the Association for Preservation Technology International,” that “buildings constructed before 1920 on average consume less energy per square foot than those built in any decade since.”

This, of course,  flouts much currently fashionable wisdom — which is (of course) Tseckares’ point.  He observes that retrocommissioning, especially in HVAC-related areas, indeed can and does produce wonderful results in terms of increased efficiency, but tearing down an entire building, by contrast, is almost always more energy expensive since it involves the use of all new materials, which necessarily involves massive energy expenditures.  Where’s the contribution to a clean energy economy in that?

It’s a noteworthy op-ed that deserves thoughtful consideration.

Matt Cardin
Goodway Blogging Team

Image credit:  Flickr by Tony the Misfit

Tags: energy efficiency, energy efficient, energy savings, green buildings, Green Buildings & Green Technology, hvac

No Doubt About It: Green-and-LEED Buildings Boost Efficiency, Health, Happiness

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 | Green Buildings & Green Technology, LEED | No Comments

Further proof of the benefits of LEED buildings and green building in general came from sources located on opposite sides of the globe in June and October of 2009. › Continue reading

Tags: cooling towers, energy savings, Green Buildings & Green Technology, HVAC systems, LEED certified buildings, U.S. Green Building Council

Green Technology: New Hybrid HVAC System Crosses Ground Source and Air Source Approaches

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | Green Buildings & Green Technology | No Comments

Delaware-based GeoEnergy Enterprises has invented a new self-contained HVAC system called the GeoSource that offers the benefits of both direct-exchange ground source heat pumps and air source heat pumps, and attempts to use each to make up for the inherent weaknesses of the other.  The benefits of this type of green-building-and-green-technology development are both obvious and non-obvious, with implications that extend well beyond the field of HVAC itself and play into the generalized importance of green buildings and green technology for the Big Picture of America’s energy future. › Continue reading

Tags: energy savings, Green Buildings & Green Technology, hvac, HVAC industry, HVAC system

New Commercial Boiler Breakthroughs: Green Tech for Better Building Energy Performance

Monday, November 2nd, 2009 | Building Energy Performance, Green Buildings & Green Technology | No Comments

The HVAC industry in 2009 has been seeing some interesting green technology breakthroughs that promise better building energy performance and a reduced carbon footprint.

Case (or rather, cases) in point: some recent developments reported on by The ACHR News and FMLink. › Continue reading

Tags: boilers, Green Buildings & Green Technology, HVAC industry, HVAC Maintenance

Missouri Engineer Achieves Ultra-Efficiency with Unique Geothermal System Design

Monday, September 28th, 2009 | Building Energy Performance, Green Buildings & Green Technology, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency, LEED, Leed Certification | No Comments

Kirk Mescher, P.E., LEED AP, has said it often brings “efficiency gains that were well beyond our expectations.  He has also described it as “so simple it’s scary” and called it “the Holy Grail of engineering: less costly, simpler to understand, more efficient.  You never get all three together” (”Efficiency First,” Columbia Tribune, Aug. 22).

What he’s talking about is a one-pipe geothermal heating and cooling system that he designed about seven years ago, and that is delivering fairly amazing results to a wide variety of clients around the nation. › Continue reading

Tags: air conditioner, air-cooled condensers, ASHRAE, cooling tower, geothermal heating and cooling system, green community, Greenwashing, hvac, HVAC units, LEED, LEED AP, water distribution system, water heat exchangers

Government To Make Direct Payments For Green Investments

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 | Green Buildings & Green Technology | No Comments

As part of section 1603 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed into law by President Obama in February of 2009, the government has authorized making direct payments to companies that put qualifying alternative energy projects into service between now and the end of 2011. › Continue reading

Tags: alternative energy projects, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Department of the Treasury, U.S. Department of Energy