Posts Tagged ‘Green Design’
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 ...
Benefits of Geothermal Heatpumps
Lower energy bills. Longer equipment life. No condensing units or cooling towers exposed to outside conditions. No noisy outdoor fans (or cooling towers). Tax incentives and rebates (Section 179, Business Energy Tax Credit, Energy Star). The ability to put waste heat directly to use. Bragging rights for a Green building. The more hours a week a building spends heating and cooling at the same time, the faster geothermal systems pay for themselves. Since there are many types of geothermal heating and cooling available, and because each type has specific local conditions that it works best in; consult a local engineer as your first step in going geo. Guy Van Meulebrouck PEconsulting engineerguy@guyvanmconsulting.com10947 US 98 NorthLakeland, Florida 33809-1087 Want permission to reprint this article? Please email with your: name, title, company, the publication you are reprinting, the parts of the article you are reprinting, and your contact info.
