Ten Simple Ways To Clean Green

This article from Green America discusses the benefits and ease of cleaning green for your home and workplace. Making your own green cleaners from ten simple ingredients saves you money and is much healthier for you and the environment. 

Green America

There are many benefits to making your own green cleaners. You may already have most of the ingredients in your cupboards. You’ll save money by not buying an array of expensive products, each targeted to clean only one type of surface in your home. And, in most cases, green cleaners work just as well as their commercial counterparts.

Perhaps the most compelling reason to use green cleaners is to keep potent toxins out of your home. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) notes that many household cleaners contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as formaldehyde and harsh acids. Since indoor VOC levels are often two to five times greater than outdoor levels, humans can experience “eye, nose, and throat irritation; headaches; loss of coordination; nausea; and damage to liver, kidney, and central nervous systems” from indoor exposure to these chemicals, according to the EPA.

“Some [VOCs] can cause cancer in animals; some are suspected or known to cause cancer in humans,” the agency says. Most modern chemical cleaners are, quite simply, overkill, notes the nonprofit Children’s Health Environmental Coalition (CHEC). “Atomic energy is not necessary to unclog a drain, nor are the Marines necessary to combat ants,” Jan Williams writes in the CHEC’s book Household Detective. “Most of the time, we can use milder, natural chemicals ... to do the same jobs.”

To view the rest of the article, click here.

Four Reasons Your Building Isn’t Water Efficient

Sky Pro thinks conserving water is important. And that's what they strive to do while washing windows with their water-conscious machines. Buildings agrees and shares the top four ways to conserve water in your facility.

Buildings

While building owners and managers tend to look at the big picture to make their building more efficient and profitable, it’s really the small things that drain their budget. After performing hundreds of water audits, here are the top four culprits I find that make a building water inefficient.

Cooling Towers
Using 30% of your building’s total water consumption, cooling towers are usually located on rooftops and go practically unnoticed unless they completely fail. They rely on water evaporation to regulate temperature, which increases the concentration of minerals in the remaining water. If left undiluted, this will cause scaling on the equipment surfaces that can cause small leaks to occur. These leaks can drain thousands of gallons and go completely undetected – until you get an enormous water bill!

Toilets
Toilets can also account for more than 30% of the water used inside a facility. A valve stuck open in one toilet can waste 200 gallons per hour. Over a weekend, this would cost $157 in Los Angeles, $220 in Tampa, and $360 in Atlanta.

Click here to read the last two points.

Detroit's Drought - Water Shut Offs Cause Community Conflict

Current events update on the water situation in Detroit: While the goal is to have as few shut offs as possible, the Detroit Water and Sewage Department somehow needs to collect the $90 million they are owed from nearly 100,000 customers. 

American City&Country

The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) announced last week it will intensify efforts to collect nearly $90 million it’s owed from an estimated 90,000 customers whose bills have been delinquent for more than 60 days.

Nearly half of the department’s customers are in some level of delinquency on their bills, according to Non Profit Quarterly. Many of these customers are low income, and are facing water rates that have grown 119 percent in the past ten years. The average water bill in Detroit is $75 per month, compared to the national average of $40.

And not only is the DWSD facing a tremendous backlog of missed payments, water theft has also become an issue in the cash-strapped city. Earlier this month the department issued 79 citations totaling nearly $22,000 for illegal water usage over a three-day span, the Detroit Free Press reports.

“It’s another example of money that we’re not getting that’s due to us,” DWSD spokesman Greg Eno told the paper. “Those people should be put on notice... if you’re flat-out stealing, we’re coming after you as well.”

However, activist groups including the Detroit People’s Water Board, Food and Water Watch and the Blue Planet Project are condemning the department’s actions, claiming that denying access to clean water is a human rights violation. The U.N. has even spoken out against the shut offs.

To read the full article, click here.

Tune-Up Your Water Conservation Program in 2014

Water is one of our most valuable resources. It is also one of our most wasted. SkyPro window cleaning system not only conserves water, but uses chemical free water as well. Here are some tips if you are looking to conserve water in other ways.

Buildings.com 

Water is one of our most precious resources. For commercial properties, it is also one of the least managed. In many cases, managing water resources means simply reviewing the monthly water bill against the previous month’s bill. Across the country, water rates are soaring – Atlanta is nearly $30 per thousand gallons – and the lack of a conservation program may be draining thousands of dollars from your budget each month. And you probably don’t realize it is happening.

Here are some tips to conserve water in 2014:

• How can you manage what you don’t measure? Like you do with energy, make conserving water a priority by viewing water bills on a monthly basis and comparing to previous months or even years.
• Check for leaks. On a day when no one is in the building, turn off the water and read the meter. After 15 minutes, read it again. If the meter moved, you may have a leak that’s costing you money.
• Incorporate technology that reads the pulse of the water meter in real-time and sends you alerts 24/7 when consumption surpasses a certain benchmark or when a major leak has occurred. This technology collects data and sends it wirelessly to a website portal where managers and owners can view a property’s water consumption for the entire month, day, or even down to the hour.

To read more tips on how to conserve water, follow this link.

3D Printer Constructs 10 Buildings In One Day From Recycled Materials

What would you say if someone told you that future skyscrapers could be built using a 3D printer and recycled building materials? Well that day is not far off! With the capabilities to build the shell of a 2,000 sq. ft. house in under 20 hours, this new technology could provide a tremendous breakthrough in the future.

Computerworld.com

A Chinese company has become the first to construct multiple buildings using 3D printers that extrude recycled building materials at breakneck speed.

Using four huge 3D printers, Yingchuang New Materials Inc. was able to print the shells of 10 one-room structures in 24 hours and at a cost of only about $5,000 per building. The buildings had to harden at the factory and then be transported and assembled on site.

The 3D printed buildings will be used as offices at a Shanghai industrial park.

The printers, supplied by WinSun Decoration Design Engineering, are 20 feet tall, 33 feet wide and 132 feet long.

Like their desktop counterparts, the construction-grade WinSun 3D printers use a fused deposition modeling (FDM) technology to deposit materials one layer at a time in a process that's similar to squeezing frosting from a pastry bag.

To read the full article and watch a brief video, click here. 

Doctors Overlook Positive Impacts of Healthy Building Design, Construction & Maintenance

Exterior building cleanliness isn't the only type of cleanliness that matters when it comes to measuring overall health. According to this Marketwatch article, green buildings have real, proven health benefits including improved employee productivity, lower health care costs and reduced absenteeism. Learn more about the great link between buildings and people's health.

Flickr.com 

NEW YORK, June 26, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The critical connection between a healthy building environment and patient health is often missed by the one group of professionals who may matter most - physicians, according to a new SmartMarket report by McGraw Hill Construction , sponsored by the American Institute of Architects and United Technologies. The survey results were announced today at the opening session of the American Institute of Architects 2014 National Convention & Design Exposition in Chicago.

The report, "The Drive Toward Healthier Buildings: The Market Drivers and Impact of Building Design on Occupant Health, Well-Being and Productivity," finds that though 18% of homeowners say that doctors are their primary source for information on healthy home products and decisions, only 53% of pediatricians, 32% of family doctors/general practitioners and 40% of psychiatrists believe that buildings even impact patient health. Only 15% report receiving any information on this connection, but the results also reveal that a key challenge is not just getting information to them but gaining their attention in ways that would alter their perspective, with nearly a quarter (22%) reporting that more information would likely not change what they do today.

The study suggests that getting more information to this group is essential to help create demand for more healthy building design and construction, given the limited understanding that physicians demonstrate of building health impacts. Physician awareness and recommendation of more fundamental healthy building design and construction practices that connect with the health risks of most concern to public health -- lack of exercise, chronic stress, poor diet and obesity -- could help create the market demand needed to drive investment, but only if physicians expand their engagement with these issues.

Today, the only issue the medical practitioners agree is a link between buildings and health is around mold and mildew, but that is only one of a plethora of factors in building decisions that could impact health.

To read the full article, follow this link. 

The Impact of Climate on High-Performance Facades

When constructing a high-performance building, different climate zones require different design strategies. This Buildings article explains the impact that high-performance windows can make because they allow for natural ventilation. 

Buildings.com

When the common man imagines a building, he likely pictures a four-sided brick box. But the energy-minded owner and architect have to think outside that construction.

To maximize the effectiveness of the facade, it is likely that no side of it will look the same. Different climate zones require different design strategies, and those strategies entail taking a unique approach to the building’s orientation. Special treatment should be given to each aspect of the system.

CLIMATE CONSIDERATIONS
The U.S. is divided into eight climate zones, and each can be generally described as either hot, cold, or mixed. From there, classifications splinter into three sub-zones: humid, dry, or mixed. General principles pertain to each categorization, but it’s recommended to consider each city’s specific climate data before taking on a project, says Ajla Aksamija, assistant professor of architecture and design at University of Massachusetts Amherst and author of Sustainable Facades: Design Methods for High-Performance Building Envelopes.

“For hot climates, you need to protect the building from sunshine, reduce solar heat gain, provide shading, and orient it so that you’re not maximizing east and west exposure, but instead north and south,” she explains. “Everyone wants to maximize daylight, and that can be challenging while minimizing heat transfer with shading. Skylights and light shelves can be effective.”

In cold climates, some of the same general principles apply. Buildings in cold regions should also minimize east and west exposure while maximizing north and south. But heat transfer is mitigated from the inside to the outside with increased building mass and insulation levels, Aksamija explains.

For mixed climates throughout the Midwest and into some areas of the Northeast and Northwest, it’s best to take a balanced and nuanced approach.

To read more, follow this link.