ASHRAE President Sees A Busy Year Ahead For The Industry, Part 1

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 | Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, Energy Saving Tips, HVAC Regulations and Standards | No Comments

2009 was not a fun year. So we at Just Venting are resisting the temptation to look back and see where we were and what happened. Rather, we choose to look forward to the coming year. What does 2010 hold in store? What are the trends and issues that will shape how we will do business next year, in five years and even further into the future? › Continue reading

Tags: ACES, EISA, energy consumption, EPAC, foreign energy dependence, geothermal energy, groundsource heat pumps, retrofitting

The Times, They Are A-Greening: Three Case Studies in Sustainability

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 | Energy Saving Tips, Green Buildings & Green Technology, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency | No Comments

We reported recently on the massive retrofitting project that has been launched to green the Empire State Building (”Retro-Greening on a Grand Scale: Big News for the Empire State Building,” Just Venting, April 7).

The symbolic power of making that particular building into an example of greenness in action can’t be overstated. But of course it’s just one example of the effects of the green wave that’s sweeping across the landscape.

Here are three more examples of greening in action, with the HVAC parts called out for your special consideration.

Greening the College of William and Mary

The Christopher Wren Building at the College of William and Mary

At the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, retrofits are springing up all over campus. The college reports in “New campus sustainability projects announced” (April 15) that

The William & Mary Committee on Sustainability (COS) has approved funding for 14 new projects, including efforts to improve energy efficiency and performance of existing facilities and a series of pilot studies and educational outreach programs.

These projects will be funded via a student “green fee.”

A couple that might interest our readers are as follows: › Continue reading

Tags: air handling units, chiller, chiller plant, chiller system, Committee on Sustainability, efficiency management software, energy efficiency, HVAC parts, HVAC replacement, HVAC system, reduce carbon footprint, retrofits, retrofitting, variable frequency drive

Retro-Greening on a Grand Scale: Big News for the Empire State Building

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 | Building Maintenance Industry News, HVAC Jobs / Career Advice, LEED | 1 Comment

If this isn’t big news – both literally and figuratively – for the energy efficiency and green building movement, then we don’t know what is.

Monday, April 6 marked the launch of a major $20 million green retrofit project for the Empire State Building in New York City, as part of a wider renovation project with a price tag of $500 million.

The organizations involved in the project sound like a Who’s Who of major players: Johnson Controls (which is performing the retrofit for the Empire State Building Company), Jones Lang LaSalle, Rocky Mountain Institute, and the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI). And yes, that’s “Clinton” as in Bill, the former U.S. President. › Continue reading

Tags: Empire State Building, energy efficiency, environmental footprint, Green Buildings & Green Technology, retrofitting

Green Building, Energy Efficiency, and the Economic Crisis

Monday, March 30th, 2009 | Building Maintenance Industry News, Green Buildings & Green Technology, HVAC Jobs / Career Advice, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency, LEED | No Comments

If you’re keeping up with current events, then you know that energy efficiency and the rise of green building practices are vying with economic news for dominance in the public’s field of attention.

The question that naturally arises is quite simple: In the midst of a bad economy, is it still reasonable to be focusing on all of this “green” stuff? And is the bad economy already affecting green projects or will they prove to be “recession proof”?

(Our regular readers will recall that we have given considerable attention to this issue in the past. See, for example, “Federal Economic Recovery Plan Focuses on Green Retrofits, Sustainability, Energy Efficiency,” “Green Business in 2009,” “Hold Onto Your Hats: Recession Drives Major Changes in HVAC,” and “Green Building Remains Strong amid Slumping Commercial Construction Market.”)

Of course we don’t have the answers for you. The fact is, nobody does. But we’ll direct you to seven articles about different aspects of the issue that you can read to help form your own judgment. › Continue reading

Tags: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, commercial HVAC, EcoHome, energy efficiency, green building practices, Green Buildings & Green Technology, Green jobs, LEED certified buildings, renewable energy, retrofitting, U.S. Green Building Council

British Columbia’s “DiscoveryGreen” Becomes First Large-Scale North American Building to Use VRF HVAC System

Thursday, February 26th, 2009 | Building Maintenance Industry News, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency | No Comments

The DiscoveryGreen Building in Burnaby, British Columbia (artist

The march of technological innovation and evolution in the HVAC market continues, this time in British Columbia, where the “DiscoveryGreen” project, located in the city of Burnaby, is taking a bold step by becoming the first building in North America to use VRF HVAC. This technology has already been widely adopted in Europe and Japan but has remained largely shut out of the North American market.

If you don’t know about VRF, you can begin to get an education by learning that the initials stand for “variable refrigerant flow.” The technology has been the subject of much discussion in the U.S. and the rest of North America on both an informal level, as in the conversation about it at the hvac-talk discussion forum, and a more formal level, as in a concise summary of the technology from the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA): › Continue reading

Tags: Discovery Place, DiscoveryGreen, HVAC market, HVAC systems, HVAC technology, LEED, retrofitting, Vancouver Sun, variable refrigerant flow, VRF HVAC, VRF systems, WAPA, western area power administration

Federal Economic Recovery Plan Focuses on Green Retrofits, Sustainability, Energy Efficiency

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 | Energy Saving Tips, Green Buildings & Green Technology | No Comments

On February 17 President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. We had previously pointed out that when the plan was still making its way through Congress, the Senate slashed the funds that were to be directed toward retrofitting federal buildings for greater energy efficiency.

When the bill finally emerged from conference committee before heading to the President’s desk, it contained a much more generous outlay for energy efficiency and sustainability issues in general. And that’s the version that is now the new law of the land.

The final shape of the stimulus plan, including its energy efficiency provisions, is of course the “talk of the town.” We think one of the most usefully concise summaries of its energy-related provisions comes from Contractor magazine. Here’s the portion that might be of greatest interest to our readers: › Continue reading

Tags: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Associated General Contractors of America, Contractor magazine, cooling systems, energy efficiency, green projects, green technology, heating systems, renewable energy research, retrofitting

Senate Cuts Stimulus Funds for Energy-Efficient Federal Buildings

Monday, February 9th, 2009 | Building Maintenance Industry News, Green Buildings & Green Technology | No Comments

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen so many people lined up and watching Congressional action as closely as they are right now. This is no surprise, of course, since the economic recovery package that’s presently making its way through Congress is far bigger than any other government spending program in history, which means the pool of potential stakeholders includes, well, everyone.

For those of us who have a personal and/or professional interest in the status of energy efficiency, green buildings, etc., what occurred at the close of last week is particularly noteworthy. On Friday, February 7, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate finally reached a compromise on the recovery package. The net result was to trim $110 billion from the total amount; when the Senate started debating the package was $890 billion, while coming out of the Senate the amount was (depending on which reports you read) about $780 billion. › Continue reading

Tags: congress, Cuts, efficiency, federal buildings, green buildings, green energy, retrofitting, Senate, Stimulus Funds

HVAC Installer Thrives in Tough Times

Thursday, November 20th, 2008 | HVAC Jobs / Career Advice | No Comments

Tough economic times crave a success story, and presently there’s one to be found in the story of Houston-based Comfort Systems, an HVAC installation and servicing business that works with commercial, government, and non-profit clients.

An October 8th article at Yahoo! Finance explains how Comfort Systems is thriving in the midst of the present economic downturn that’s delivering a blow to commercial construction. The article says that in the second quarter of 2008, the company “grew revenues to $355 million from $281 million a year ago. Earnings came in at 38 cents, up from 25 cents a year ago. Strong free cash flow and near-record backlog promise continued strength.” These are record results for them. They have even managed to save up $100 million in cash and are considering acquisitions. › Continue reading

Tags: Comfort Systems, commercial construction, green purposes, HVAC industry, HVAC installation, retrofitting