Empire State Building Achieves LEED Gold for Operations

Empire State Building Achieves LEED Gold for Operations

Top-10 Green Products for 2012 Picked by BuildingGreen

Top-10 Green Products for 2012 Picked by BuildingGreen: BuildingGreen announces its Top-10 Green Products, featuring groundbreaking innovations in flooring, coatings, lighting, and all other aspects of green building.

Habitat for Humanity’s Kent County Chapter Incorporates LEED Gold Standards into All of Their Homes

Habitat for Humanity’s Kent County Chapter Incorporates LEED Gold Standards into All of Their Homes:


Habitat for Humanity’s Kent County Chapter has always been a leader in the field of affordable and sustainable housing and even built the nation’s first affordable LEED certified home under the LEED for Homes pilot project way back in 2006. Due the success of the first home, the chapter made a commitment in 2007 to make sure future families would live in homes built to a minimum LEED Silver Certification. Currently, they have surpassed the Silver level and have progressed to LEED Gold Certified Homes as their new standard house. It is estimated (based on their earliest LEED Homes) that annual savings costs for electric, water, and heating will be at least $1,000 per home per year. The extra money available every month eases the hard decision between heat and food for families who live close to the poverty line.

+ Habitat for Humanity Kent County

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Post tags: "leed", eco design, eco home, green design, green home, green house, habitat for humanity, kent county, Kent County Chapter, LEED certified Home, LEED gold, leed silver, usgbc

London’s First Certified Passivehaus Shaves 90% Off its Energy Bill

London’s First Certified Passivehaus Shaves 90% Off its Energy Bill: (Source: Alternative Energy) Filed under: Energy News

Sports Stadiums Looking To Go LEED

Sports Stadiums Looking To Go LEED:

With stadiums in most major cities, sports occupy a huge part of American life and culture. So it is great to see some of these stadiums embracing green ideals by trying to acquire LEED certification. Two new stadiums being constructed will seek LEED certification: the new NFL stadium being built in Los Angeles, and the new Marlins stadium being built in Miami. There are also a host of current stadiums that have achieved LEED certification.

Los Angeles

Although the city of Los Angeles has yet to actually land an NFL team, that hasn’t stopped the AEG company from building a new stadium to host a potential team. The stadium, dubbed Farmer’s Field, is hoping to be the first NFL stadium to receive LEED certification. AEG says it will be working with both the U.S. Green Building Council and the Natural Resources Defense Council to ensure that they meet their green goals. The stadium is guaranteed to be carbon neutral, as the California State Senate and Assembly passed a bill requiring that the stadium be one hundred percent carbon neutral, including the emissions generated from private vehicles taken to the stadium. The stadium will have a MetroLink station on site, which will hopefully offset some of those carbon emissions by making it easier for people to get to and from the stadium without taking their own vehicles. Some of the other planned green features are 100 percent reclaimed water, 50 percent solar power for the buildings, 40 percent less steel used thanks to the natural topography of the area, and 10 percent recycled building materials. The stadium will seat 72,000 people and will be located in downtown Los Angeles.

New SolarWindows Would Be First See-Through Windows To Generate Electricity

New SolarWindows Would Be First See-Through Windows To Generate Electricity:

Solar technologies are constantly evolving, becoming more and more effective as new designs and discoveries are made in the field. New Energy Technologies continues this trend with the advent of their new product, the SolarWindow. The new windows will be the first see-through windows that can also generate electricity through a specially designed spray put on the window.

They are developing six different types of SolarWindows for different situations:

• Commercial- A flat glass window for installation in commercial buildings


• Structural Glass- Structural glass walls and curtains for tall structures


• Architectural Glass- Textured and decorative interior glass walls, room dividers, etc.


• Residential- Window glass for installation in residential homes


• Flex- Flexible films that can be applied to existing windows


• BIPV- Building product components associated with building-integrated-photovoltaic(BIPV) applications in homes, buildings, and office towers.

Earthships on the Weather Channel May 18, 2011

Earthships on the Weather Channel May 18, 2011: "

Cantore Stories
Earthships of Taos
---------------------------
They are totally sustainable houses that provide their own energy, water and food. Taos, NM is home to these bizarre looking structures that use the weather and environment to fuel them. Find out all about the Earthships and the man that invented them in this episode of Cantore Stories. Premieres May 18 at 6pm ET.
(many subsequent airings).

schedule information and more details, go to weather.com

"

Fairmont Hotels Establishes Worldwide Sustainable Policy

Fairmont Hotels Establishes Worldwide Sustainable Policy: "Building on 20 years of environmental initiatives, they now require all buildings to be LEED certified."

The Thermal Bridge

by Thomas Hare, April 2011

“A thermal bridge, also called a cold bridge, is created when materials that are poor thermal insulators come into contact, allowing heat to flow through the path created, although nearby layers of material separated by airspace allow little heat transfer. Insulation around a bridge is of little help in preventing heat loss or gain due to thermal bridging; the bridging has to be eliminated, rebuilt with a reduced cross-section or with materials that have better insulating properties, or with an additional insulating component called a thermal break.”

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_bridge

Example of thermal bridging in a structure with steel studs

http://www.rensolutions.co.uk/thermal_bridge.php

 

The concepts of thermal bridging were known for quite some time to building designers and long time builders.  Designers and architects are required by profession to learn R-value, porosity and conductivity of various building materials in order to use products more efficiently.  Long time builders however see the effects of thermal bridging largely during renovations and through their constant interface with building envelopes.  Why weren’t the issues of heat loss/cold gain via thermal conductivity addressed before? In fact, they were.  Large commercial buildings are the first to be analyzed and have new technologies tested on them due to the scale of loss.  Spray foam insulation is more and more popular for residential applications now but has been around in commercial applications for over 20 years. Today the additional costs associated with constructing building envelopes that do not conduct thermal energy can put the project out of reach financially for some but should not be ruled out due to energy costs of today.   As heating and cooling costs increase there is a corresponding reduction in return on investment duration for new building constructs and renovations.  This is fuelling higher interest and creating more awareness about the effects of thermal bridging.  A steel insulating building can lose up to 20% of its heat through thermal bridging alone.  These losses add up very quickly and increase the operating costs of the building. 

In a typical residential wall the wall studs act as thermal bridges, conducting heat from inside the home to the outside.  The heat travels from the room, into the drywall or finished interior wall covering (which is attached to the wall studs), through the walls studs, into the exterior sheathing (which is attached to the wall studs from the outside), into the exterior wall covering and then dispersed outside.  This is how thermal bridging works in a nutshell. 

Cutaway view of wall assembly

http://www.concretethinker.com/Content/ImageLib/woodframewall.jpg

How to solve thermal bridging issues

Thermal bridging can be solved through a variety of ways.  The main one is the alteration of construction techniques and processes.  The construction of a residential wall section is typically the stacking of materials horizontally.  Hence there is large quantity or area of intimate contact of building materials and fasteners.  Solving this problem requires an alteration of building envelope construction procedure.  Incorporating an “air gap” or gap between the interior building skin and the exterior building skin will eliminate thermal bridging and reduce building losses.  There are several ways of doing this and one of the most effective ways is through what is called “double wall” construction.  Two walls are created in the exact mirror image of each other and are placed side by each with a gap between the two walls of approximately 9 inches.

Example of double wall construction:

After this double wall is constructed, insulation, vapour barrier and normal construction practices follow for each the interior and exterior building skins.  Adjustments need to be made at all window and door openings to accommodate the now greater wall thickness (reductions in door and window swing radius) and adjustments made to finishes in these areas to provide a satisfactory visuals and weather protection.  There is a tendency to confuse the building practices of “Super Insulated Homes” with those that address and avoid thermal bridging when in fact the super insulation method of building, which does involve thicker building envelopes, does not address thermal bridging.  Construction methods addressing thermal bridging inherently create super insulated building envelopes simultaneously. 

At first glance double wall construction might seem overly expensive but let’s take a look at an 8 foot long framing section of Super Insulated Wall and an 8 foot long section of wall framing built to address thermal bridging.

Considering that a wooden 16 inch tall wooden “I beam” wall using advanced framing techniques would cost a total of $ 310.00 in materials alone and a similar wall using same framing technique for thermal bridging would cost $27.58 it becomes quickly apparent that building using the double wall technique with advanced framing is much less costly then building for a hyper insulated home.  It could even be argued that the elimination of thermal bridging could offset the increased thickness or increased r-value found in super insulated structures thus resulting in a building structure that performs just as well as a hyper insulated home for much less.  This argument will be left to the architects and designers to resolve.

Further a double wall construction method can lower building costs by reducing the labour costs often incurred by the trades.  In a double wall building envelope the electricians and plumbers can run their wires and water delivery without drilling quite so many holes and reduces their time on site.  The reduction in holes drilled into the building envelope to accommodate the building infrastructure and delivery systems also reduces heating/cooling losses.  Reductions can be increased and building performance can be improved further by the utilization of closed cell spray foam insulation in a double wall construct.  This eliminates the movement of all air and temperature gradients between the interior and exterior of the home. 

Overall there might be a slight increase in labour costs in the framing and finishing stages of building construction; those are offset and sometimes reduced by lower trade costs and displaced entirely by operating costs.   Addressing the issues created by thermal bridging will result in a structure that costs less to operate, reduces operating costs and downtime for HVAC systems, improve efficiency for the appliances within the home and drastically improve the comfort levels of building occupants.

Chicago Skyscraper to Generate Solar Electricity

Chicago Skyscraper to Generate Solar Electricity: "

Willis Tower in Chicago -- formerly Sears Tower

Skyscrapers, notorious huge energy consumers, may soon become solar energy producers.

In an experimental program, Chicago’s tallest building, Willis Tower (previously the Sears Tower) will soon feature high power density photovoltaic glass units (PVGUs) on the south side of the 56th floor, replacing the existing windows with a new type of photovoltaic glass developed by Pythagoras Solar. The new window units will preserve daylighting and views while reducing heat gain and producing the same energy as a conventional solar panel.

According to Inhabitat, the project could grow to 2 MW in size — which is comparable to a 10-acre field of solar panels — turning North America’s tallest building into a huge urban vertical solar farm. This will depend on what the return on investment is for this experimental technology.

The project is collaboration between the tower’s owner and Pythagoras Solar, with offices in California, Israel and Taiwan. The new PVGUs use a hybrid technology that lays typical monocrystalline silicon solar cell horizontally between two layers of glass to form an individual tile. An internal plastic reflective prism directs angled sunlight onto the solar cells but allows diffuse daylight and horizontal light through, providing natural light inside.

“We are excited to launch this pilot with Pythagoras Solar’s leading-edge solar window solutions as a test for not only the energy savings that can be achieved, but the potential they represent to actually generate power through the sun,” said John Huston, Executive Vice President of American Landmark Properties, one of the ownership partners of Willis Tower.

Source: Pythagoras Solar

Pythagoras Solar claims that the vertically integrated solar cells will produce the same amount of energy as normal rooftop-mounted solar panels. This is great news for cities that have precious little rooftop space and towering walls of glass. The product is also a potential breakthrough in energy efficiency in glass towers, where solar heat gain is difficult for those inside the building.

On its website, the PVGU manufacturer highlights a section titled, Toward Net-Zero Buildings. There it discusses Building Integrated Photovoltaics, stating, “Building Integrated Photovoltaics, by replacing common materials in the building envelope, provides the most promising solution for harnessing the sun at the point of use–the buildings where we live and work.”

This You Tube Video animation from Pythagoras Solar provides a good perspective for the potential for PVGU buildings.

According to the Pythagoras Solar website, the company was conceived at Precede Technologies, an Israeli incubator, which teams up scientists, inventors, and entrepreneurs. “Dr. Itay Baruchi, an award-winning physicist, and Gonen Fink, a leader in taking Check Point Software from start-up to a multibillion dollar company, saw a business opportunity at the intersection of rising demand for Green Buildings and declining cost of Photovoltaic (PV) solar power.”

Pythagoras Solar’s PVGU uses patent-pending optical technology, high-efficiency silicon, and advanced materials to provide the industry’s first highest-transparency and highest-density PV power generation in a standard double-pane window form factor.

"

National Renewable Energy Laboratory Offers Free Building Efficiency Software

National Renewable Energy Laboratory Offers Free Building Efficiency Software: "


Did you know that residential and office buildings account for approximately 40 percent of energy usage in the U.S.? As a result, making your home and workplace as energy efficient as possible saves money, cuts emissions and makes the world a greener place. So it makes sense that as part of President Obama’s new Better Buildings Initiative, businesses and research institutions were encouraged to come up with new ways to make buildings greener and to conserve more energy. As a result, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is introducing new software that provides building owners with a full read-out of the property’s energy usage – and it’s totally free!






Read the rest of National Renewable Energy Laboratory Offers Free Building Efficiency Softwarehttp://www.inhabitat.com/wp-admin/ohttp://www.inhabitat.com/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=better_feedptions-general.php?page=better_feed

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Post tags: 'energy efficiency', Better Buildings Initiative, energy conservation, energy modeling, free building efficiency upgrade, green buildings, green homes, NREL, nuclear energy, office efficiency, OpenStudio, renewable energy laboratory, WellHome Weatherization

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