Posts Tagged ‘saving money’
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Energy Star Ratings
LEEDs has been in the forefront of green building design for years and is skyrocketing in popularity. LEEDs is also complex and sometimes leads to more expensive buildings. Green Globe arose as an alternative to LEEDs. But there are more options... Meanwhile, Energy Star ratings have quietly been gaining popularity on their own. Why? They are simple. One enters their energy bills for the past year or so into a data base of similar buildings. If the building's anual energy bills are a specified percentage less than typical; one qualifies for an Energy Star rating from the U.S Department of Energy/EPA. Once done, the IRS recognizes this award as verification for certain types of tax credits for energy efficiency. Energy Star is far simpler than LEEDs and can be obtained for new construction or for existing buildings that have undergone energy conservation measures. An independent engineer's report is required to make sure the low energy bills are for the right reasons (for example: a half empty building uses less energy but doesn't represent eneryg conservation measures, same goes for sealing off all of the outside air or making the space so dark that people can barely see). Did I mention that the Energy Star plaque looks great ...
Saving on Electric Bills
Cutting out waste on electric bills has a similar impact on a company as earning more business. Although the amounts of energy any given building wastes each month is a limited number, each dollar saved is entirely profit and the savings perpetuate themselves for years. With that in mind, most older buildings are overdesigned lighting wise. It is not uncommon for old-school electrical engineers to design lighting for the worst case. I have seen cases where 5 watts per square foot (or more) were used when 1.5 watt per square foot would have worked. There is a surprising difference between the amount of light an old pair of eyes needs to do detailed accounting paperwork(worst case) compared to the amount of light a young pair of eyes needs to look at a computer screen ( a best case scenario). Did you know too much light can keep you from seeing things clearly? It is a strange concept indoors but a readily observed fact when people drive cars into a setting sun or when hunters and fisherman strain to pick out tiny details. I cut the light almost in half in some offices and found the occupants preferred the lower light level. Many lighting designs ...
