Building Energy Resilience

As an industry, we provide building operators with efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems as well as powerful building management control systems. Then we expect the operators to run the high-tech HVAC equipment efficiently.

What does sound control have to do with energy efficient design? This blog post is the first in a three part series that will explore the intersection of sound and energy efficiency in existing buildings. My early experience as an applications engineer in mechanical systems noise control made me aware of the connection between the built environment and equipment energy use. System airflow requirements and the impact of total added pressure drop of sound control solutions are primary design variables for a noise control engineer. Full scale HVAC aero-acoustic laboratory testing is an integral component of sound control design.

First, the fine print. When talking about commercial condensing boilers, caveat emptor – Latin for “buyer beware.” A phrase usually associated with real estate transactions is highly applicable to the purchase and application of “high efficiency” or condensing boilers. There’s no definition of the word “high” when it comes to “high efficiency” boilers. Usually, these are boilers whose construction allows them to operate with lower water temperatures than traditional boilers. This allows them to, in theory, extract more of the useful energy from the fuel source (usually natural gas or propane) than the traditional boiler would. Notice I said “in theory.” I’ll get to that shortly.

Understanding Commissioning

I recently received an RFP for building commissioning services that included the following statements:

What is a ground source heat pump (GSHP)? A heat pump is an air conditioner that can cool in the summer and heat in the winter. The ground source part means that the heat removed from the building in the summer and the heat added to the building in the winter goes to and comes from the ground.

Building control systems rely on the information provided to them by the various sensors throughout the building. Sensors for temperature, light level, carbon dioxide (CO2), and enthalpy (or total energy content of air) are just a few examples. If the critical sensors in a building are inaccurate (that is, significantly out of calibration), the building will not work efficiently, costs will increase and comfort issues will result. Let’s look at how to calibrate your building control sensors, what to calibrate, and a few examples of why control sensor calibration is so important.

One of the biggest challenges in conducting a building commissioning design review is to get the designer to seriously consider a design review suggestion. Designers will naturally be defensive, as would any of us. Having been an HVAC designer myself, I know one of the designer’s biggest fears is seeing comments that make the designer “look bad” to the client (building owner).

PETM, or the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, has been on my mind lately since Vermont is still recovering from the impacts of Hurricane Irene. While the direct impact of the storm was on relatively small numbers of people in a world of 7 billion humans, we in Vermont have a tight knit community. We feel each other’s pain.

Efficient air-handling systems? Here’s one simple strategy that I advocate for on every project I can – direct drive fans. Why? No belt losses (energy) and less maintenance (money).