The day (or the thing that needs fixing, or the deadline, or the design) right in front of us is often more than sufficient for taking all our attention.
I spent many hours this past summer watching my son play lacrosse and couldn’t help thinking about how the team sport of lacrosse is similar to the team sport of design and construction. I’m sure this is analogous to the other team sports that move an object up and down a rectangular field, court, or rink, but this is how I see its comparison with lacrosse.
Often when we are evaluating or assessing an existing building, we are on the lookout for equipment and systems that are in poor condition or approaching the end of life.
Here are a few interesting things to keep in mind when designing an equipment room. First, these spaces usually take up 7% of the gross floor space when located within the building or on the roof.
Since energy efficiency is a big part of what this industry pursues on behalf of society at large, I always like to see examples of what companies and firms are doing internally to conserve resources. This month, A.O. Smith celebrated progress on that front at its plant in McBee, SC.
I have a pet peeve with HVAC design engineers who do not put enough thought into a project’s contract document specification for training the client’s operation and maintenance personnel.
The application of energy recovery units allows for the ability to do total heat recovery and recover both sensible and latent heat from an exhaust air stream, using that heat to pre-condition outdoor air required for building ventilation.
The transfer of knowledge, skills, and documentation to the people responsible for operating new systems is required in order to sustain the benefits of the commissioning process.
We’ve got something cool that is a little out of the ordinary this month, so I’m going to hand over the bulk of the page to ES authors Robert Bolin, P.E., HBDP, LEED Fellow; and Andrew Reilman, P.E., HBDP, LEED AP BD+C. Bolin is a Senior Vice President and National Director of High Performance Solutions for Syska Hennessy Group, based in their Chicago office.