Big Green: ASHRAE 90.1 and maintainablity

[Geoff McDonell]

Mechanical designers and so called "building energy experts" need to
stop looking at the equipment and systems side.  The most
cost-effective, cheapest life-cycle cost, and if you do your sums right,
the lowest first cost, is to put the building budget $$ into the
envelope- stop the heat gains and heat losses at the windows, walls and
roofs first, then apply low energy/low maintenance mechanical systems to
the building.  Once you keep the climate loads outside the building, you
are left with dealing with fairly stable people, equipment and maybe
lighting loads depending on your air system design (displacement
ventilation, UFAD, etc.)

 

Passive systems like sunshades, high performance glass products, and
better detailing (get rid of thermal bridges) is the biggest bang for
the buck approach.  As a mechanical systems designer, the first question
should be "can this building be habitable if the power goes out?"

 

Geoff McDonell, P.Eng., LEED AP
Senior Mechanical Engineer
OMICRON

Direct: 604 632 1114 
Fax: 604 632 3351
Email:  gmcdonell at omicronaec.com
Web:  www.omicronaec.com

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________________________________

From: biggreen-bounces at lists.biggreen.org
[mailto:biggreen-bounces at lists.biggreen.org] On Behalf Of Dean Sherwin
Sent: October 12, 2006 7:42 AM
To: grahame at bsc-worldwide.com; biggreen at biggreen.org
Subject: Re: Big Green: ASHRAE 90.1 and maintainablity

 


At 11:03 AM 10/11/2006, grahame at bsc-worldwide.com wrote:



Building energy systems experts designing new buildings or major 
renovations should be able to provide initial energy performance at
least 50% 
better than ASHRAE 90.1 without installation cost penalty over current 
popular systems selections and sizing. 



"should" be able to, maybe.  Perhaps you can tell the various engineers
on jobs I get to estimate how. 
Right now for example i am working on a school that has a proposed mix
of rooftop units and  air to air heatpumps for the classrooms - the
latter a very short sighted solution IMO.  But they can hardly afford
the building as it is.  Nobody wants to address almost certain rises in
energy costs in the future.  The engineer points at favorable tariffs
given by the electric co right now & I have to shut up.
Problems as I see it (in general) - 
 - lack of up-front capital especially in public funded jobs like this, 
 - lack of financial expertise on the Green side of the table
 - lack of technical expertise and leadership from architects

Dean Sherwin CPE
Certified Professional Estimator
LEED Accredited Professional
CONSTRUCTION COST MANAGEMENT
308 South Avenue
PO Box 11
Media, PA 19063-0011
(610)892 8860
fax (610) 892 7862
dsherwin at constructioncostman.com

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