Noel Susskind, PE, LEED AP
©1996-2009 by
WynkSystems Custom Web Design
Updated June 20, 2009
"WE SERVE THE PLANET"
Presents
Noel Susskind, PE, LEED AP
DESIGNING & BUILDING ENERGY EFFICIENT ENVIRONMENTS
"Using Green HVAC & Architecture To Make High Performance Buildings"
Groovin' to that green thang
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Hearing Impaired Engineer
540-882-4516
Design is said to be a process of discovering. If that's true, then the trick is to discover everything that needs to be known in time to meet your deadline!
Commentary
on the
ASHRAE Green Tips
Overview of Mechanical Cost Estimating (2003 report)
Mechanical Contracting Bids Database
Other Stuff
Intel 80386 Architecture (Lesson Plan created for 3rd year college course)
A History of LaClede Place Atlantic City, NJ
My comment on 1999 ACM SIGGraph (Computer Graphics) meeting in LA
I took notes at the ASHRAE Winter 2007 Meeting in Dallas January 27-31. It was very interesting.
Proposal: ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2010 will require a reduction in HVAC and lighting energy usage in new construction by 30% (and 20% in substantial renovations /reuse) compared to ASHRAE 90.1-2004 standards. The challenge is in embracing and implementing any and all energy conservation measures that are available, Many of these measures are economically sound. With the price of energy up so much recently, I commonly find my HVAC designs are providing effective paybacks over 14% annualized!
Green building design, engineering and operation will improve your wallet as well as the environment. We have to do more things while using less energy. This will make our communities and nation more competitive in the global economy. Think Globally Act Locally
Many of the solutions are far from high tech. Many are simple ideas like selecting a slightly higher efficiency unit when it comes times to replace Or it might be as simple as a better sequence of controls. Other times its more widespread, like roof insulation that is inadequate or failing.
I have been doing this for 29 years. I have seen it all but as project engineer I find it useful often focus on the how's and wherefores as much as the solution itself. As time passes, I see everyone around me dealing more and more with a flood of information. (More on information overload below).
Engineering teams collaborate, coordinate and otherwise exchange information with their architectural clients and owners. It seems that design and documentation of a building can be more complicated than the building itself. Read my latest report, "Building Information Modeling" . For a report from 2005, look at this page: "Information Age and Construction".
Architects, developers and owners, all related specialists, engage in an agonizing business of design and construction. It can be complicated in your specialty area. Most challenging is the constant need to synchronize your work with a dozen or more other engineers, architects and designers.
The exchange of design information should be accelerating smoothly, spurred by the ubiquity of the internet and high speed desktop computing. But in fact, the only thing smooth is the marketing. For me as HVAC engineer, IT has made in advancements in, but it has not necessarily made our jobs as engineers any easier.
Whenever I see a project through anymore, I am always wondering how the project can be better organized or decomposed. I think of it as a puzzle to be simplified. I would break the project designers tasks down to:
- Collect information
- Collect more information
- Calculate and evaluate
- Design
- Vendor contact
- Evaluate
- Design some more
- Etc.
- Repeat
For HVAC, much of this is boils down to optimization of temperature, heat exchange and air exchange for maximum human comfort, energy efficiency, ease of maintenance, and initial cost. Simple, eh?
The rest of the HVAC engineers work:
- Making some order out of a chaos of mass amounts of building and equipment information
- Scheduling equipment information
- Creating drawings (3D preferably)
- Checking other disciplines for physical collisions
The mechanical contractors work:
- Pricing the work
- Coordinating the construction with other trades
Good Design
Better design leads to a holistic view of the built environment, both literally and figuratively.
- Total design documentation
- Design processes using Building Information Models (BIM)
- Best green practices.
There is a lot of change happening in this realm and opportunity.
Energy and building
Buildings consume 48% of all the energy that we use in the USA. A huge chunk of that is from fossil fuels, in the form of electricity made from coal fired generators in particular, in most regions of the country. So building electric use is a MAJOR contributor to carbon emissions and global warming. Global warming is still a dire threat, notwithstanding possible contradictions in the trends being measured. We should just do it to save money and reduce dependence on foreign unfriendly sources of oil and gas. In any event, it appears that Carbon dioxide levels are climbing exponentially due to world-wide economic growth and industrialization. In my family we do our part by doing the sensible things to reduce our electric bill at home while driving the most fuel efficient cars to work.
How do we contribute to solving the problems of global warming, energy independence and sound economics? First define the problem and see what you can do about it. If you are interested, read and talk to others about it and come back here to see what I have discovered as well.
Check out the Good Idea Green Blog. A page on which I share my ideas, and I want to hear yours, too.