Coming Soon To A Building Code Near You — ASHRAE 189.1

Monday, May 31st, 2010 | Green Building Codes | 1 Comment

The art and science of green building management has come to a crossroads.  Current techniques for designing, building and managing  commercial, industrial or office building can no longer be maintained.  Over the years, the pressure to conserve energy, reduce operating costs and provide a safe, comfortable environment for the occupants of your buildings has been increasing. › Continue reading

Written by: Goodway Blogging Team

Tags: energy savings, green buildings, Green Buildings & Green Technology, green retrofits, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Green Building Council, USGBC

Is Your Air Conditioner Ready for Warm Weather?

Monday, May 17th, 2010 | HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency | 1 Comment

Many buildings have their HVAC gear located on the roof, if for no other reason than the owners or managers decided that it’s not very attractive, can sometimes make noise and takes up valuable square footage on the ground. › Continue reading

Written by: Goodway Blogging Team

Tags: HVAC equipment

Protect Against Legionella By Cleaning Your Cooling Towers

Monday, May 10th, 2010 | HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency | 1 Comment

Since 1976, when it was first discovered, Legionnaire’s Disease has proven to be a problem for operators of cooling towers. Not too long ago, we wrote about the trouble caused when guests at a Florida hotel died because they were exposed to Legionella in the water supply.

While in that case, the hotel’s cooling towers were not the culprit, there have been many times when an infection can be traced back to them. The hotel was shut down for days, causing them to lose millions of dollars in revenue and future bookings.

Cooling towers are an ideal breeding ground for Legionella Pneumophila, the bacteria that causes Legionnaire’s Disease. According to an article in Wikipedia, the bacteria is present in almost all sources of water, so small amounts should not be a cause for alarm.

The European Working Group for Legionella Infections (EWGLI) recommends testing according to ISO 6222(21). A count of 1,000 or less means your system is in good shape. A count of 10,000-100,000 means you should retest and then evaluate control measures, and anything higher means you should treat your system immediately to reduce the count.

Legionella grows best in warm water, such as cooling tower water when it is heated by the sun. While UV radiation will kill it, the bacteria is safe it grows inside sludge or dirt.

As described in a recent article in the American Journal of Infection Control, the chances of a cooling tower being infected with deadly strains of Legionella are close to 50 percent. The authors of the study looked at 96 cooling towers and found that 47 were colonized, some so much so that they needed to be immediately treated with a biocide.

The researchers took 69 samples and cultured them, and discovered that 55 of them were comprised of Legionella Pneumophila.  Further research concluded that some operating practices encouraged the growth of the bacteria, and there were some that discouraged it.

Training, testing, sunlight protection, the use of chlorine and implementation of a risk assessment and management plan all contributed to lower Legionella counts, whereas the absence of testing and planning, treatment or sunlight protection all contributed to a greater risk of Legionella contamination.

Further, sediment, sludge and scale, according to the Cooling Technology Institute, can not only harbor but actually promote the growth of Legionella, so keep your cooling towers clean.  If you discover that Legionella is a problem, according to the CTI, treat your water with chlorine or bromine, both of which kill legionella bacteria.

Legionnaire’s disease spreads when infected water is spread through the air as an aerosol, for example, when a gust of wind speeds through your cooling tower water and turns it into a mist. Research has shown that the drops can travel for miles, causing infections as it travels.  If there is an outbreak, one of the first places investigators will look is cooling towers upwind of the infections. They can – and will — test your water and determine if the strain of Legionella making someone ill is the same as that present in your cooling tower.

The good news in all this is that while the risks are definitely present, it is a fairly simple matter to keep them under control by keeping your system clean and well-maintained – good advise no matter what the levels of bacteria — and testing to make sure things stay that way.

Rich Silverman
Goodway Blogging Team

Image by Frobles courtesy of Wikimedia Commons under a GNU Free Documentation License

Written by: Goodway Blogging Team

Tags: commercial HVAC, cooling towers, HVAC Maintenance

Schools Can Save Big Money With HVAC Maintenance

Monday, May 3rd, 2010 | HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency | 1 Comment

When we think of energy efficiency and savings, we tend to think first of our homes and then of the many businesses that use energy or the office buildings that consume 40% of our country’s power.  But there is another kind of building that is significantly impacted by the steeply rising cost of energy – a school building.

Schools are highly seasonal consumers of power, typically consuming large amounts for nine months out of the year and then very little n the summer, because they are closed of three months closed during the summer.  Because they are constantly being squeezed between diminishing funding from the cities and states in which they operate and increasing costs for all the things they must buy, just about all schools are forced to cut back expenses in one area when costs go up in a another.

• The nation’s 17,450 K-12 school districts spend more than $6 billion annually on energy, according to the U.S. Department of Energy — more than is spent on computers and textbooks combined.  As much as 30 percent of a district’s total energy is used inefficiently or unnecessarily.

• The California Energy Commission says that most schools spend more on energy than on school supplies.

• A survey conducted last year by Education Week and Honeywell revealed some startling statistics: two out of three schools have had to cut budgets because of rising energy costs, and the top three areas in which they have made those costs are:  maintenance (31%), transportation (29%), and staffing (25%)

So what is a school district to do if it can’t afford the tens or even hundreds of hundreds of thousands of dollars that energy will cost over the coming years?   It can change it s maintenance and operating procedures to maximize energy efficiency – and along the way get better indoor air quality for everyone who spends their days inside school buildings.

Some savings can be generated by the the basics, such as switching to more energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs, keeping the building a few degrees warmer in the summer and cooler in the winter and improving insulation.  But the heart of any school energy-saving program will be the cost to heat and cool it.

Schools can show significant savings in energy costs by regularly performing key maintenance procedures such as coil cleaning for air conditioners and keeping boiler tube assemblies clean.  These two simple, inexpensive maintenance procedures can help drastically improve energy efficiency and reduce the school’s energy costs – savings that will far exceed the modest cost of the cleaning itself.

Rich Silverman
Goodway Blogging Team

Image by Ajari courtesy of Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons Attribution license

Written by: Goodway Blogging Team

Tags: coil cleaning, energy efficiency, energy savings, HVAC Maintenance, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency, U.S. Department of Energy