ecoPreserve - Building Sustainability

Easy Clean-up for Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs

noreply@blogger.com (ecoPreserve - Building Sustainability) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 13:04:47 PDT

Jessica Wright, www.ecopreserve.net

Recently there has been a big push for homeowners and businesses to switch their incandescent bulbs for CFL (compact fluorescent light) or LED bulbs. The benefits of CFL bulbs are clear:

§ Longer life (save money)

§ Use of less energy (save money and power)

§ Emits less heat (save power and comfort)

Saving energy helps save money on utility bills and protect the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the fight against climate change. There are many questions regarding the proper handling of CFLs when they are broken. On average, CFLs contain about four milligrams of mercury. By comparison, a single thermometer contains about 500 milligrams, which is equal to the mercury in over 100 CFLs. Below are some easy steps to keep your family safe in case of a broken CFL in your home or business:

Before cleanup

§ Evacuate people and pets from the room
§ Air out the room for 5-10 minutes
§ Shut off the central forced air heating/air-conditioning system
§ Collect materials needed to clean up broken bulb:

Stiff paper or cardboard, sticky tape
Damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes (for hard surfaces)
A glass jar with a metal lid or a sealable plastic bag

During cleanup

§ Be thorough in collecting broken glass and visible powder
§ Place cleanup materials in a sealable container

After cleanup

§ Place all debris and cleanup materials outdoors in a trash container and avoid leaving any bulb fragments or cleanup materials indoors
§ If practical, continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the heating/air conditioning system shut off for several hours

For more information on CFL and causes of COPD, check out these links:

http://epa.gov/cfl/cfl-hg.html

http://eartheasy.com/blog/2010/05/copd

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001153/

Fall into Natural Gardening - Jessica Wright, ecoPreserve

noreply@blogger.com (ecoPreserve - Building Sustainability) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:43:14 PDT

Now that the brutal heat of summer is here, your spring garden may be slowly dying back and wilting. Don’t fight the turn of summer - use the heat to prepare your garden for fall. Summer allows us to compost, solarize, and renew our garden soil for the wonders of the fall.

Here are a few things you can do now to help make your soil healthier, weed free, bug free, and ready for planting:

Weed out the Old

Pull out all the weeds- place in bag for plant waste or compost
Dig out any mold or fungus on the plants or dirt, discard this dirt in your compost pile
Pull out old plants, cut into 6” sections, and place them back in the garden for mulching

Prep for Fall

Add organic compost to your garden and turn soil to mix thoroughly
Look for snails, slugs, or other pests
Treat the soil appropriately for pests: spraying with coffee or salt water and allow to “breath” for a day before solarization
"Bake" the garden pests by covering your garden with plastic - this is called solarization
Check your soil once a month and pull weeds

Plan your Garden

Make a list of the plants you’d like in your Fall garden
Organize and draw out the garden:
Plant flowers close to tender vegetables to protect from pests
Use a trash crop by planting items on the outer edge of the garden for bugs to eat so they don’t eat your good stuff!!
Time your harvests in groups so that as one plant is growing while the other is being harvested and create a time table for starting seedlings
Plant short under tall and you’ll get more use of your garden space
Decide on the best date to plant based on your local climate http://www.farmersalmanac.com/calendar/gardening/ (web site for Farmer’s almanac)

Resource Information

What is Solarization – a chemical free process to kill nematodes and other pests using the heat from the sun.

Here’s what you do:

1. The soil should be worked with a hoe or rototiller to break up clods. Remove all sticks, roots, and clumps. The soil should be moist, but not wet.

2. Cover the soil with a clear plastic tarp and bury the edges of the plastic. Leave the plastic on the soil for at least 4 to 6 weeks. Do not remove the plastic until you are ready to plant.

Here’s how it works:

Sunlight penetrates the clear plastic and heats the soil underneath. The plastic holds in the heat so it permeates the soil. Exposure to the high temperature kills nematodes, as well as many weeds, fungi, and insect pests. The pest free zone is usually 6 to 8 inches deep. Because it depends on sunlight and heat, solarization works best during the summer months. This fits well into the Florida growing season where vegetables are grown in the cooler seasons.

The benefits of solarization may be enhanced by using a second layer of plastic suspended by wire hoops. An air gap is created between the two layers of plastic giving extra insulation. Also, weeds that penetrate the first layer may then be killed by heat trapped between the plastic layers.

Benefits of added organic matter

· Improves tilth, condition, and structure of soil, providing better aeration and temperatures

· Supports living soil-organisms

· Improves ability of soil to hold water and nutrients

· Helps dissolve mineral form of nutrients

· Buffers soil from chemical imbalances

· Maintains a steady supply of plant nutrients

· May contribute some degree of biological control of certain soil pests

· Helps recycle organic wastes, thus keeping them out of landfills and waterways

· Cheap energy source, replacing manufactured nitrogen

Convention Centers and Hotels Face Green Competition

noreply@blogger.com (ecoPreserve - Building Sustainability) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 14:28:37 PDT

Shrinking corporate travel budgets and the proliferation of communication platforms like Skype and video conferencing have created a highly competitive market for convention centers and their surrounding hotel partners. Fortune 500 companies, including the likes of Wal-Mart, Dell, Google, IBM, McDonald's and Kohl’s have made sustainability a top priority and many have incorporated sustainability into business travel and venue selection policies.

Meeting planners now have a plethora of venues to choose from in addition to increasing pressure to comply with new sustainability guidelines.

A recent survey of corporate travel managers by the National Business Travel Association indicates nearly 30%of managers incorporate green components into their travel policies and that nearly 25% prefer green meeting suppliers.

Summed up by Al Hutchinson, Vice President of Convention Sales for Virginia Beach’s Convention and Visitors Bureau, “Our commitment to the environment is not only a preferred amenity, but a requirement for some meeting planners looking to book their events. They consider LEED (Certification) to be the premier third-party “Seal of Approval” for meeting facilities in regard to environmental criteria.”

LEED ®

The U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ is a framework for designing, constructing and operating high performance green buildings.

Increased demand for LEED Certified venues has led to growing competition in the convention industry as follows:

· There are currently 15 LEED Certified Convention Centers in U.S.

· There are 25 Convention Centers registered and in the process of LEED Certification

There are two major Rating Systems within LEED: one is for new construction (NC) and the other is for existing buildings, operations & maintenance (EBOM). Both are based on point accumulation through completion of credits.

When submitting for certification, the number of points accumulated and approved by the GBCI (Green Building Certification Institute) determine the level of LEED Certification - certified, gold, silver and platinum. The number of points available for each credit is determined by the environmental impact of fulfilling the credit requirement.

LEED ®

LEED promotes a holistic approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.

In the words of Orange County Convention Center’s Director of Operations, Fred Baker, “We decided to go through the rigorous LEED Certification process in order to create a more competitive business environment, expand our market share, satisfy demand by our clients and guests for a sustainable facility, earn 3^rd party verification of the green technologies already implemented and to contribute toward a more organized focus on our sustainable activities.”

As a LEED consultant & project management company, ecoPreserve’s advice on the topic remains steadfast --- Keep your options open. Regardless of your current desire or ability to achieve LEED Certification, every dollar that goes into a renovation project should incorporate LEED best practices so that you are following solid environmental methodology and are prepared for the eventuality of certification.

Alexa Stone, LEED AP

Jeff Benavides, LEED Green Associate

Lighting Energy Audits and Smart Buildings

noreply@blogger.com (ecoPreserve - Building Sustainability) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 20:29:41 PDT

In this posting, ecoPreserve explores the benefits of lighting audit and smart metering technologies. We are seeing a real focus and movement in this direction in buildings across the country. We hope that you will implement similar strategies at your building!

Energy Audits

“The critical factor when it comes to lighting energy audits is accuracy since the case for the upgrade is made based on actual energy bill savings.” says Mike Siner, Energy Division Manager at Sesco Lighting, who is called upon to do energy audits across the country. “There is great demand for lighting upgrades because owners and operators recognize that lighting is the least expensive way to reduce energy consumption and has the quickest payback even when the lighting is relatively new. The HVAC savings is also significant – for every 3 watts of lighting reduced, 1 watt of HVAC energy is saved.” says Siner.

Mike Siner
Sesco Lighting

Ongoing monitoring through the EPA’s Energy Star Rating System or “smart” electric meters is also critical since “old habits die hard” and that means a slow drift back to previous consumption levels when technicians bypass problems or make changes to satisfy occupant demands without keeping in the mind the long-term schedule.

Smart Meters & Energy Dashboards:

Smart electric meters are being installed in commercial buildings across the country and electric utilities are gathering meter usage data in hourly and smaller intervals. Why? The goal is to help better manage power consumption, limit peak hour up-charges charges and reduce grid-wide load. Smart meters are electronic messengers that communicate with a utility by sending usage data and possibly receiving commands in return.

By combining smart meters and wireless communications, interval energy usage data is available in near real-time. Customers can plug directly into meters for immediate data or access the data via a subscription website to an “energy dashboard”. Dashboard information can include:

Speedometers illustrating live energy use across buildings, floors or loads
Energy usage comparisons over historical consumption
Alarms for demand-response action to limit or cut load
Algorithms to direct which energy source should be used when a choice exists
Tenant or consumer-level feedback about energy efficiency efforts

Mark Thomason
Palmer Electric

Mark Thomason, Director of Business Development, Palmer Electric says “Interest in smart technology and energy dashboards is growing since they directly engage the building’s occupants to use less energy by allowing them to easily track energy use across ALL buildings. After all, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”