Posts Tagged ‘LEEDs’
Advanced Energy Efficiency for Buildings
ASHRAE (the American Society of Heating and Refrigeration Engineers) is in the process of releasing booklets free to all interested people with practical step by step information that makes a building design save a projected 50% of the energy bills of conventional buildings being designed. To keep things simple, ASHRAE dedicates each booklet to a specific type of building: small offices/retail/warehouses/motels/educational/smaller healthcare facilities. These booklets are part of a long term commitment by ASHRAE to help create a world where buildings use dramatically less energy. The first stage was to release booklets that describe step by step information on how to save 30% on energy buildings being designed. I had mentioned these booklets on my home page. The new stage is 50% energy reductions. So far one free booklet is available in this category (for small offices). By the time you read this, there will probably more types of buildings available. In the future, expect guidelines for even higher energy targets. By the time 100% energy savings is a reality-buildings will likely need to be linked together with surrounding buildings in terms of energy features (like co-generation, waste heat recovery etc). ASHRAE (the American Society of Heating and Refrigeration Engineers) is in the ...
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, ...
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 ...
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 ...
programmable thermostats
[caption id="attachment_31" align="alignright" width="112" caption="Guy Van Meulebrouck"][/caption] I just found a 2010 survey from Lawrence Berkely National Laboratories regarding how programmable thermostats actually wind up being used by occupants. The study reported a survey of 81 residential thermostats and found the following: • 45% were in hold • 30% were programmed • 10% were manual thermostats (not programmable) • 5% were off • 10% operational status was not visible in the picture. The complications involved in each particular thermostat's programming are evident here. I envision a thermostat in the future that uses user friendly computer software and then transfers information to the thermostat via a USB memory stick. The same innovation would be welcome for sprinkler timers too! I used to specify Honeywell T7350's as a general practice. These which are challenging to program correctly due to the immense features. It took me two tries to get my own T7350 programmed right. The local Honeywell representative assured me that he pre-programmed the thermostats himself before he delivered them to jobsites. Great idea. He welcomed me adding information on my drawings as to specific settings that were needed for the building. Guy Van Meulebrouck PEconsulting engineerguy@guyvanmconsulting.com10947 ...
Dual Flush Toilets-revisited
About a year ago now, I installed a dual flush conversion to our toilet at home. The local hardware store (Lowe's) was selling them for $17 so a scooped it up and installed it right away. It was easy to install and works well. I was glad to see that there was no longer any flapper valve involved or chains to hang up in the water flush action. I want to thank all the people who replied to the original blog about the dual flush toilet. I was surprised how many people like the blog. I did have one response begging me to never blog about toilets again. I am sorry to disappoint that person, but I am updating the original blog since it has been in use reliably for one year now and so many people did like the blog. I did not inform the wife I was doing this to see first hand the reaction of people in general to dual flush toilets. Even though she is not a green type of individual, she figured it out right away and didn't mind it too much at first. She did mention that the lower button was a little hard to push ...
