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. 

Deferred Maintenance: Turning Crisis Into Strategy

When money is tight, it's tempting to reduce the budget by cutting cleaning costs. While it's a smart idea to restructure your budget accordingly, eliminating a cleaning allowance should not be an option. This FacilitiesNet article helps to explain why: 

Courtney Dirks, Flickr.com

Maintenance and engineering managers know all too well that deferred maintenance never went anywhere. In the last five years, many people inside and outside of institutional and commercial facilities were understandably preoccupied with fallout from the nation’s financial crisis.

While all that was occurring, managers were continuing to address the mounting backlog of maintenance needs many facilities have faced for decades. So while the issue of deferred maintenance might seem like it has only recently become a problem again, managers know that it never really stopped.

Deferred maintenance is the practice of postponing maintenance activities, such as repairs on both real property — infrastructure — and personal property — equipment and systems — in order to save money, meet budget funding levels, or realign available budget funds. The failure to perform needed repairs could lead to asset deterioration and ultimately asset impairment. Generally, a policy of continued deferred maintenance results in higher costs, asset failure, and in some cases, health and safety problems. Consider this example:

A neighbor of mine knew the large oak tree in his front yard needed to be removed, but he didn’t have the money to hire a professional, so he let a local kid try his luck. The young man had never cut a tree that large, had no idea how to cut such an imposing object, and in the process of trying nearly had it fall on him. Of course, nature took care of the tree the next week when a storm blew through and laid it across the porch and two cars.

Without an aggressive, proactive approach, deferred maintenance will always win.

To read the full article, follow this link. 

75 Percent of LEED Cleaning Product Purchases Must Be Green

In order to earn the Green Cleaning Products and Materials credit, BSCs must increase the amount of "green" products they purchase and utilize. Using only pure water to clean your exterior windows, Sky Pro is a wise choice for anyone interested in "Green Cleaning."

Wonderlane, Flickr.com

One of the biggest changes in LEED v4 is the amount of products and equipment BSCs must use to earn the Green Cleaning Products and Materials credit. This credit is still worth one point and covers the procurement of chemicals, paper and can liners. However, at least 75 percent of purchases (based on cost) must meet specific environmental standards, compared to LEED 2009 when only 30 percent of purchases had to be considered green.
“This credit is intentionally designed to raise the bar and drive green products into the marketplace,” says Ashkin.

While BSCs have to purchase substantially more environmentally friendly products, LEED v4 actually makes it easier to earn the credit because there are additional certifications available to choose from. For all product categories, LEED v4 allows products approved by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Design for the Environment standard, in addition to the Green Seal and Environmental Choice certifications.

Besides these third-party standards, BSCs can use ionized water or electrolyzed water in place of chemicals, assuming those products have third-party-verified performance data.

Two other newly accepted options include Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification for fiber procurement as acceptable green criteria for paper products and California Integrated Waste Management requirements for can liners.

To help find acceptable products that meet the credit...

To read the rest of the article, follow this link.

Determining A Standard For "Clean"

This CleanLink article deals with the big question many people ask - "What is the standard for clean?" While there can be many expectations, Sky Pro's clean window standard will satisfy any customer.

Life would be far simpler if every area could be cleaned the same way to the same standard but that is not the case. One illustration I like to give in my workshops is to ask attendees if the room we are in is “clean.” The following discussion proves the point that each person in the room has their own opinion of whether is it clean enough to meet their expectations.

When I ask if the room is clean enough to delivery a baby, make microchips or work on a truck, the discussion focuses on many different factors including use of the room, health standards, age of building and even how it should be serviced.

Remember that the final judge on “clean enough” is the customer. Unfortunately they can have as many different opinions as the prior mentioned class when it comes to what is clean. A wise BSC will interview the key tenants to determine what are their “hot buttons.” These usually include items such as front door glass, entrance matting, corners and of course rest rooms (both stocking and/or cleanliness). As stated before, a restroom that smells dirty is dirty in the mind of the user regardless of the time spent servicing it. It will do the BSC little good to argue that they cleaned it as per the contract if the results are unsatisfactory in odor or appearance outcome.

Click here to read the entire article.