Posts Tagged ‘Florida’
Florida Buildings Evolve
Florida's 2010 Energy Code Dramatically Changes New Buildings and Additions by Guy Van Meulebrouck PE (Lakeland, Florida) The 2010 Florida Building Code came into effect last March. Each new building code has more and more energy conservation measures. It is not uncommon now to see new buildings and additions having 30% less energy bills than buildings of 5 or 10 years ago. Where is it going to end? Believe it or not, the American Society of Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) rolled out a master plan that dares to discuss progressively more and more energy conserving buildings right up to the seeming impossible-zero energy buildings! Clearly, we won't be seeing too many zero energy buildings in the next years, but I hear 10 such buildings do exist right now. As technology marches on (maybe 15 years down the road) more and more buildings will achieving this zero energy goal (or close to it). For now let's look at this year's energy code. Just how does one come up with a net zero energy building? Well, to start with the building cannot ...
Florida’s new commercial energy codes
Florida's 2010 Energy Code-Part II Here are my notes from reviewing the new 2010 Florida Energy Code. Just like the new residential energy code, the commercial energy code for 2010 calls for significantly more energy efficient buildings. This trend will likely continue in subsequent codes as well. For new construction here are the values in Table 502.1.1.1: Roof insulation-R-40 Walls: R-30 (quite a jump from before!!!) Walls are required to have an absorptance of 0.3 or less. Floors above grade: R-30 Windows: U- value of 0.45 or better (the lower the U value, the better). This means quality double pane windows. Window Tinting (SHGC): 0.25 or less for 1% to 40% window/wall ratio (that is a high level of tint) 0.19 or better for 40% to 50% window to wall ration (examples of 0.19 tint would be dark tint or reflective tints) window to wall ratios above 50% are not allowed without specialized modeling to prove ...
Florida’s New Energy Code
Well, the 2010 Florida Building Code becomes active this March. Here is a look at the energy conservation requirements as they relate to architects. This first blog will address the Residential Code, the second will address the Energy Code for Commercial Buildings, the third blog will feature suggested drawing notes architectural drawings regarding the residential energy code, and last but not least, the fourth blog will include suggested drawing notes for commercial buildings. You can access the new Florida Energy Code at: www.ecodes.biz/ecodes_support/free_resources/2010Florida/Energy/10FL_Energy.html The general intent of the new code is to require Florida residential buildings to be 20% more energy efficient than previous dwellings. I suspect future codes will push for even more energy efficient homes from here on out until we can’t possibly offer better buildings (zero energy buildings are actually getting built in the US now and technology will likely make such things more affordable in the coming years). Once again, air handlers are not allowed in attics (402.1.2.2). If you look at the definition of attic, spray foam ” attics” are not counted as attics since they are within the air barrier and thermal barrier of the building. While there are exceptions, the basics ...
Protecting Buildings from Lightning
Just because we have building codes regarding protecting buildings from catching on fire from lighting strikes does not mean that sensitive electronics are protected from lighting. Data loss, if you are really unlucky, can really add up dollar wise. No doubt, having computers damaged by lighting is a serious setback to business. Come to think of it, what some people spend on large screen entertainment systems can make lighting a home and a business tragedy. Florida has more than it's share of lighting. I recall watching one lighting storm that lit the sky horizon to horizon for 12 minutes straight. It makes sense that practical technology on anticipating lighting would be common in Florida. Through the years, I have been able to talk with various Floridian electrical engineers, electricians and building owners about problems with lighting. I have even incurred some strikes myself. I personally am not an expert in electrical engineering, but someone has to spread the word a little faster (it took me 8 years to accumulate all of this article). So, here is a summary of what I have learned living in Florida about lightning protection. And folks if you have your own experience to add to ...
Using the ground for Geothermal in Florida
When the ground gets used for storing and discharging temperature, the whole energy transfer becomes pretty complex. Below is a great schematic I found on a NASA website describing global warming. Among other things, this illustration shows all the energy transfers that effect the upper surface of the ground. With respect to geothermal air conditioning, we would add to this energy diagram with our piping system of course. [caption id="attachment_150" align="aligncenter" width="478" caption="Energy Transfer at earth's surface (from NASA)"][/caption] This illustration was produced to help explain global warming. Notice anything strange? As a mechanical engineer, we were taught in engineering school to define boundaries of whatever we are studying and include all energy within the boundary and crossing the boundary. So I am calling attention to energy transfer from the center of the earth the the earth's crust. It is not represented in the above illustration. I have not found any information on this subject that a non-astro-geophysicist type like me could understand, but that doesn't mean it isn't important. If any readers out there can enlighten us on the core of the earth's exact contribution to soil temperatures, please do. Anyway, ...
Green Gardens-pest control
Thanks for all the feedback on the Edible Garden blog. Today's blog follows up on the topic of edible landscapes and the concept of green buildings. FIRE ANTS IN FLORIDA Florida has an abundance of pests. Fire ants are a nuisance around buildings. Actually, I got bit by fire ants a few times in my bed, sleeping at night! The ants had gotten inside the house and considered the area below the carpet as a freeway system all around the house. At any given time, I can find about a dozen fire ant nests around my house and inside my garden. One has to admire their persistence. Did you know fire ants can communicate during the defense of their nests in such a way that all the ants bite at the same time? I found this out the hard way when I was brand new to Florida and didn't know what fire ants were. Out of curiosity, I have torn apart fire ant nests and found as many as 10 queen ants in the nest. I dug one nest out and found it was about 28" deep. I have never been able to eliminate fire ants for any length of time, ...
Reasons to let an engineer select your geothermal pump
I have seen well pumps get selected for geothermal for some pretty strange reasons. On one occasion, the well driller reportedly insisted that he had ample commercial well experience to select the pump. The commercial experience he was referring to turned out to be agriculture. The geothermal heating/cooling system did not work right. Sometimes well pumps get selected because the same exact pump got used successfully on another project. It would be a coincidence if the same pump conditions existed on two different projects. Since flow measurement is not always provided for on systems that aren't engineered, it is difficult to say if "working right" means doing the job without wasting energy. Once an owner asked me to use a pump he found on the internet and liked. The pump wasn't capable of sucking water high enough out of the ground to work in the Florida aquifer application. The owner reported that the well flowed artesian so it didn't matter. Conferring with the well driller confirmed that the artesian effect of the well was only seasonal. This meant the pump would only be able to draw water out of the well during rainy season. Well pumps are the heart of the system. Oversizing ...
Edible Landscaping
Green buildings get covered and talked about in a lot of ways. Today, I thought I'd blog about edible landscaping as a green venture. I have been enjoying my adventure into edible landscaping this past year. I started out by visiting the ECHO Nursery in Fort Myers. This place is worth visiting. It displays how gardens could be--attractive landscape that you eat. ECHO Nursery takes profits from the sale of carefully it's researched edible plants for our climate and then sponsors edible plant nurseries in third world countries (www.echonet.org). If you didn't know the ECHO garden was all edible, you would think you were visiting some attractive garden space. So planning a garden as if it were landscape is maybe a newer concept but a workable concept. There are a lot of edible plants that look just as good in a landscape as more conventional plants. I like my banana trees as much as any palm trees I have had before, for example. The loofah vine flowers for months at a time and looks like hibiscus, as another example. The concept of eating out of the landscape/garden is green in ...
A History of New HVAC Technologies
I have had the good fortune of disussing the HVAC industry with old timers when I was right out of college. Back then, computers were rare commodities and only existed as main frames. One main frame per office with shared computer time. Software was all DOS. Drafting was done with ink pens. Old timers were people who were around when slide rules were the only computing instruments and drafting was sometimes done on coated linen sheets (these produced drawings with dark blue backgrounds that gave forth the name "blueprints"). These old timers had a mastery of steam engineering. Unfortunately, I don't think all of that body of steam and drafting knowledge got documented for future generations of engineers. Before anyone knew it, steam became less common than hot water hydronics and old timers were retiring. Originally, the old timers explained to me, HVAC engineering originally consisted of steam systems for heating and ventilation ductwork. Plumbing was done by the HVAC engineer or the architect. When Carrier invented air conditioning, HVAC consulting engineers were spectaters at first since the only people with mastery over air conditioning were the inventers. Back ...
Florida ground geothermal
I get asked quite a bit about saving money on wells by simply using the ground (or shallow ponds) as a geothermal source in Florida. The fact that this practice is successful in other parts of the USA can weigh heavily on building owner's minds. The math of the situation in Florida is that the sun beats down heavily on the ground at our latitude. As sun bather's know, the angle of the sun on one's body has a lot to do with how much solar heat one takes in. This hurts the geothermal situation in two ways. First the ground (or surface water) absorbs more heat at the very time of year we want to get rid of heat. Second, amount of heat buildings in Florida need to get rid of increases too. I actually tried out the saying that one could fry an egg on the sidewalk at the peak of summer sun. It did indeed cook and make a mess. A 35 foot deep lake is reported to contain a bottom layer of stratefied colder water, but anything less is going to be dominated by the sun in Florida. Unlike northern climates, our winters are not that cold so heat buildup in ...
