Glass on Web Active energy management with daylight systems and building management … Glass on Web The highlights include the skylights certified with the highest energy efficiency rating to passive house standard, a new continuous rooflights for flat roofs as well as components and systems for smoke and heat exhaust systems and building management …
The Energy Department has unveiled a new online tool designed to provide building professionals with fast, free, and reliable building science and efficiency information.
The Building America Solution Center Web site offers a range of interactive resources including guides on critical industry topics as well as easily searchable images, CAD files, and case studies to help train and support home builders, remodelers, architects, designers, researchers, and code officials. Users will have…….
The technique is designed to extend the life of structures by mixing limestone-producing bacteria with the concrete.
The work is being carried out under a new research project financed by the EU and led by the University of Ghent in Belgium. By adding an endolithic bacteria, which can live inside stone, to the concrete mix the Healcon project is aimed at increasing the life………..
I’ve come down fairly hard on certain types of foam insulation over the years. The downsides include theblowing agents used in extruded polystyrene (XPS) and most closed-cell spray polyurethane foam and the flame retardants that are added to all foam-plastic insulation to impart some level of fire resistance.
Now there’s an effort afoot to change building codes in a way that would allow manufacturers to remove the hazardous flame retardants. This is the subject of a just-published……..
The Greenest Office Building In The World Is About To Open In Seattle Co.Exist “Everything” includes 100% onsite energy use from solar panels, all water provided by harvested rainwater , natural lighting, indoor composting toilets, a system of geothermal wells for heating, and a wood-framed structure (made out of FSC-certified wood).
eattle’s Bullitt Center is being heralded as the greenest, most energy-efficient commercial office building in the world. It’s not that the six-story, 50,000-square-foot building is utilizing
One year ago, Energy Star 3.0 went into effect with more rigorous requirements and checklists, particularly in the areas of air sealing and HVAC sizing and installation. Many large production builders such as KB Home and Meritage Homes were early adopters of the new system, meeting the criteria months before the changes became mandatory.
CR Herro, Meritage vice president of energy efficiency and sustainability, and Dan Bridleman, KB Home senior vice president for sustainability, technology and strategic sourcing, talk about what the new approach has meant for their companies and how smaller-sized builders can………..
Paul Hunt still remembers the dilemma that he and his wife, Lynn, faced in early January 2010 at their home in rural north-central Minnesota. The couple had just moved into their ultra-efficient house, on the outskirts of Pine River, population 944, but still lacked a thermostat and were about to go out of town for more than two days. It was bitterly cold, and an exterior sensor, one of the many dotting their house, suggested that the nighttime temperature would dip far below zero. Should they leave the heat on or turn it………
No designer wants to see the unwelcome guests of mold and mildew show up in their building. Guidance on how to prevent moisture that causes their appearance is offered in several sessions at ASHRAE’s 2013 Winter Conference in Dallas.
“Sooner or later, HVAC professionals throughout Texas and the Gulf Coast come up against the problem of preventing or getting rid of mold,” Lew Harriman, a speaker at the Conference and author of ASHRAE’s ASHRAE Guide for Buildings in Hot and Humid Climates, said. “In June 2012, the ASHRAE Board of Directors approved a totally revised and updated Position Document on Indoor Mold and Dampness in Buildings. The Dallas Conference includes a comprehensive briefing on what ASHRAE experts have found to be the HVAC-related causes of mold in buildings, and what owners, contractors and designers can do to prevent ………
As building science innovators continue devising energy-saving products and methods in the ultimate pursuit of net-zero structures, commercial property executives and their advisors have to select from myriad alternatives for each new development and retrofit venture. And in a large, geologically diverse country like the United States featuring climates from cold and dry to hot and wet, thermal insulation technologies rank among the most logical sources of potential savings.
Indeed, as 2013 approaches, decision-makers considering insulation alternatives are adding some intriguing new-wave products and systems to their lists—including those based on micro-encapsulation of tiny particles boasting remarkable thermal protection properties. These technologies promise to boost thermal performance dramatically while reducing……..
In courting tenants over the last six years, 7 World Trade Center has trumpeted its gold LEED rating, an emblem of sound environmental citizenship.
But when it comes to energy efficiency, the young 52-story tower is far from a top performer, according to data released under a city law that tracks energy use in New York buildings. It had a score of 74 — just below the minimum of 75 set for high-efficiency buildings by the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program. On the other hand, two venerated show horses from the 1930s……..
BEopt is an energy modeling software that measures the expected annual energy consumption for any type of home design, and it is also an optimization software that finds the least expensive way to build the envelope of a net-zero energy home. The program has a list of user- adjustable construction cost statistics. This characteristic enables BEopt to verify (i.e) whether a house with 3-inch-thick foam sheathing, 2×6 walls, and triple-glazed windows will cost more or less than a house with 10-inch-thick double-stud walls and double-glazed windows. It will also conclude which of these selections will execute a better result.
BEopt guides designers of zero-energy homes how to have a better envelope specifications, and allows them identify the right place to quit making envelope enhancements.
To be sustainable, a building should work at all times. Better daylighting strategies mean we can see indoors throughout the day. When it comes to energy supply, renewables might be calledsustainables, because any building that can survive off the grid is more useful to society during disasters. (My colleague Chris Nelder covered the topic’s energy implications recently.) And a simple hand pump would have been brilliant for our friends with out-of-service water wells.
A Building Revolution: The Super Insulated Passive House is a guide to the methods that builders, architects and homeowners around the U.S. and Europe have used to drastically reduce home energy consumption. The movement isn’t new, and neither are most of the construction practices, which, as the film states, were first employed in the U.S. and Canada in the 1970s when the first energy crisis reared its head, threatening greatly increased home heating and cooling bills. The change was short-lived, waning in …….
While it may at first appear to be the only benefits of green building attempts go to the environment – at the cost of human comfort and expense – this is not the case. Advocates of eco-friendly architecture take a holistic method to the notion of environmental health, taking into human well being in their calculations.
This Organic dome near ….
Footprint recently attended a workshop on Thermomedia0.6B, a Lafarge product branded as anefficient building systems (EBS). Thermedia0.6B is aBES 6001-accredited structural concrete, four times lighter than conventional concrete, which reduces heat loss due to thermal bridging by four times when combined with internal insulation. After four years of R&D and three years of trial on the French market, Lafarge is now looking at its application
From everyday items like clocks to large outdoor structures, we’ve gotten an idea of the extensive possibilities of parametrically-generated design. Earlier this year, students from China’s Tongji University created an interesting prototype for a prefab house that combines both passive and active energy strategies for the European Solar Decathalon, held in Madrid, Spain.
The most intriguing finding, however, had to do with what seems to be a falloff of interest in LEED certification. In Turner’s 2008 survey, three-fifths of respondents (61%) said they were “very likely” (30%) or “extremely likely” (31%) to seek LEED certification for new or renovated projects. This started falling in 2010, to 53%, and dropped to 48% this year, with 25% “very likely” and 23% “extremely likely” to use LEED.
Why this apparent decline of interest in LEED? One factor, which was not specifically asked in the survey and is based primarily on anecdotal evidence, is that many AEC firms are building sustainably without asking the client’s permission. There’s also
Low-Tech Rainscreen with Charred Wood Jetson Green Zero Cottage — a net-zero energy project pursuing Living Building Challenge, LEED Platinum, Green Point Rated, and Passive House certifications — is finishing nicely. Part of the exterior has a handsome rainscreen of vertical cedar battens and …
Wool insulation is made exclusively from sheep wool fibers that are either mechanically held together or tied using between 5% and 15% recycled polyester adhesive to form insulating batts, rolls and ropes. Batts are usually used in timber-frame buildings; rolls for lofts and ropes are mainly used between the logs in log homes. Wool insulation is used for both thermal and acoustic insulating applications.
Warm and dry environments are vital in creating healthy living conditions. Wool has a natural tendency to accomplish this by absorbing and desorbing moisture.
Wool is a natural protein essence. The protein from wool fiber is being utilized in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical businesses. This would clearly not happen if there was an element of risk or damaging effect.
We live in a nation proud of its environmental approach towards
It makes sense to invest in a high performance triple glazed window, taking into consideration windows often account for upwards of 50% of all energy loss through a building envelope, By investing in high performance windows it enables a home or building designer to minimize the heating system, make the indoor air quality better and benefit from passive solar heating.
There are two main causes which makes having quality windows very vital. One of the reasons is associated to the thermal comfort of the occupants, which is directly influenced by the quality of the windows in the house. The other reason having quality windows are important because it minimizes the
