“That was one of the best webinars I’ve ever attended.  Clear, concise, linear, well moderated, and presented.  You’ve got my recommendation if you ever need it.”

.

“I just wanted to let you know that I thought the presentation yesterday was excellent!  You presented the material in an engaging fashion, and the information was easy to comprehend.”

.

“Your webinar was extremely well done.  Please put me on your mailing list for future events.  I have recommended to my GC and his electrician that they should attend next month.”

.

.

If you are considering solar photovoltaic or involved in LEED residential projects this is the webinar you’ve been waiting for!

.

The NSHP (New Solar Home Partnership) and many cities in California now require that you exceed the new 2008 Title-24 energy code by 15-35%!

.

The NSHP submittal process can be daunting, and if critical steps are overlooked during the application process the entire NSHP incentive can be forfeited.

.

This new webinar class will address the big questions from architects, builders, developers, and NSHP applicants:

.

How can we cost-effectively qualify with Tier I or Tier II incentives which means exceeding Title-24 requirements by 15% and 30%?

.

How does the NSHP application process work?

.

What forms are required?

.

What HERS third party inspections are required and what forms/paperwork are required for these inspections?

Wh.

This class will examine new Title-24 compliance strategies and options which can take your project beyond the minimum Title-24 code requirements by 15%, 35% and more.

.

The course will provide a detailed understanding of all available Title-24 compliance strategies including HERS compliance measures, (duct testing, QII, refrigerant charge verification, etc) and how they can leverage your project into compliance with utility sponsored incentive programs, the New Solar Home Partnership (NSHP), LEED, and ensure quality control on the job site.

.

We will also go thru the required HERS-PV verification inspections step by step and help you avoid the five common mistakes that can jeopardize your NSHP incentive.

.

.

Feedback from those who have attended our webinars

.

Webinar date:

Thursday,  March 21, 2013

9 a.m. to 12 noon

.

Who should attend:

Solar PV installers, architects, designers, utility reps, LEED AP’s

.

Cost: $50.00

.

.

Subscribe

.

February 23, 2010

This obviously has nothing to do with energy codes, but…

.

I’m a bit of a espresso aficionado, starting most days with a short black from my Rancilio Silvia.  My first demitasse of espresso made correctly pretty much ruined my future visits to Starbucks or Coffee Bean for that matter.  After enjoying a well pulled shot of properly roasted and ground beans at the correct temperature you walk into Starbucks nursing a bit of a grudge.  For years I really thought that espresso was meant to be a dark, bitter, and jarring experience.  Last year the scales fell from my eyes and taste buds as I watched in amazement as the rich, tiger striped espresso flowed from the Silvia’s portafilter into my pre-warmed cup.  Light brown crema so thick you could almost float a quarter on it.  Wow!   Driving by Starbucks has little affect on me anymore.  I’ll wait until I get home, Silvia is waiting for me.

.

But there are coffee houses I cannot drive by and Intelligentsia is one of them.  Since 2007 I’ll even go out of my way when I’m up in Los Angeles (our offices are in Irvine) and swing into Silver Lake to enjoy a Ristretto and pick up a pound of Black Cat at Intelligentsia’s Los Angeles outpost on Sunset.  Most of my clients however are on the west side of Los Angeles so I was very pleased to hear that Intelligentsia’s second coffee house had opened in Venice on Abbot Kinney.

.

The Venice store rolled out a new concept that actually has to be experienced to be believed.  I came late in the afternoon and so found easy parking across the street.  There is no large obvious signage, just a simple coffee cup shape jutting out from the brick front.  The actual entrance is set back creating an open air courtyard that serves as the queuing area for the lines that do form in the peak times.  The space was designed by MASS Architecture, I recommend you take some time and really look at what they’ve done with the space.  A good vantage point is on top of the stadium seating built into the concrete at the rear of the store.  Once you enter you are greeted by your own personal barista who will take as much time as you want or need.

.

My barista,  Christopher “Nicely” Abel Alameda, took my order (double shot of house roast La Tortuga, from Honduras) then served me a shot of palate cleansing sparkling mineral water.  He positioned a small saucer in front of me, stepped over to his two group Synesso machine and the show began.  There wasn’t a single misstep.  He dosed the grounds into the naked portofilter, leveled and tamped competition style, locked it into the grouphead and pulled the shot.  Twenty eight seconds later the goopy, dripping wonderfulness was shimmering in the pre-heated cup.  No sugar necessary.  Smooth, creamy, and a nice chocolate finish.

.

This all might seem a little over the top when you read about it but the concept really does work.  If you are into making your own espresso at home it’s a great place brush up on your technique while watching the your barista at work.  I’ve learned very little at chain coffee houses as I watch their “barista’s” push the start button on their automatic machines and watch the coal tar drip into pre-chilled cups.  And the Venice location completes my goal of triangulating Los Angeles with quality coffee/espresso houses.  I now have Keane Coffee in Newport Beach (excellent espresso, well trained staff), Intelligentsia in Silver Lake and now in Venice.

.

Here are the links:

Intelligentsia Silver Lake

Intelligentsia Venice

Kean Coffee Newport Beach

.

- -Mark Madison

.

Update:

.

Ana Henton designing new Intelligentsia Coffee
to open in Pasadena this summer

Betty Hallock recently reported on the Daily Dish blog that coffee-loving Pasadenians are rejoicing over the forthcoming arrival of a new Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea outlet, the third in the Los Angeles area.

.

Design fans know that Intelligentsia coffeehouses have style as strong as their espresso, and this one surely will follow suit. Ana Henton of Mass Architecture & Design, who designed the Venice outlet, will be tackling the new site (exact location to be announced). Their Sunset Junction spot was designed by Barbara Bestor of Bestor Architecture.

.

Mass Architecture & Design quickly became one of the hottest restaurant design outfits in town. Based in Silver Lake — across from an early client, Silver Lake Wine — the firm has left its stamp on the distinctive eatery spaces all around town, including Corkbar, Bacaro and Breadbar.

.

For a look at some of Mass Architecture’s other projects, go to the jump.

Photo: The display, high above the bar inside downtown L.A.’s Corkbar. Photo credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times

Photo: Bacaro wine bar in West Adams. Photo credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Photo: Breadbar bakery on L.A.’s West 3rd Street. Photo credit: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times

– Lisa Boone

Amy EastwoodThe architecture firm HyBrid, which specializes in designing buildings from recycled shipping containers, created this solar-powered house for Sunset Magazine.

.

When it comes to architecture, sustainability and affordability can mean many things: Salvaged wood becomes new flooring, old newspapers are shredded into insulation.

.

But a few architects are taking green building one step further: creating entire homes and businesses out of discarded shipping containers — an approach some have dubbed “cargotecture.”

.

Approximately a quarter-million shipping containers pass through Oregon’s Port of Portland each year. These are big boxes — 40 feet long and weighing thousands of pounds.

.

“As you look across the container terminal here, they look like giant, multicolored Legos stacked up out there,” says port spokesman Josh Thomas. Each one is full of cargo moving in or out of the Portland region.

.

Shipping containers are ubiquitous on trucks, trains and ships today; about 20 million pass through American ports each year. But as critical as they are to modern life, the containers date back fewer than 60 years.

.

“We started to see containerization,” the freight shipping system based on the boxy containers, in the 1950s, Thomas says. “And since then, increasingly, just about anything that can be shipped inside of a container is.”

.

But traveling so many miles takes its toll, and eventually the containers are retired. Some are melted down, and some sit around old lots.

.

And some become buildings — like taquerias.

.

Portable Buildings With A Story

.

The southeast Portland restaurant Aprisa Mexican Cuisine is one of them. Kirk Lance bought the old container that houses the restaurant for $2,500. He worked with architects and structural engineers to overhaul the steel frame, spray in insulation and cut out windows.

Aprisa Mexican CuisineBefore: Kirk Lance worked with architects and engineers to overhaul a steel shipping container to house his Mexican restaurant.

.

“There’s no construction methods that are extremely intricate or technical,” Lance says. “Other than getting the blueprints permitted through the state of Oregon,” he adds. “That was technical. But the construction itself? Fairly simple.”

EnlargeAprisa Mexican CuisineAfter: The cargo container is now home to Aprisa Mexican Cuisine in Portland, Ore.

.

A cargo-based business is flexible, as well. It can be hauled to a new location or loaded on a cross-country train to set up a new franchise.

.

But for Lance, cargotecture was about more than just portability.

.

“This thing, it’s had a life,” Lance says. “It was born somewhere, and it’s traveled the world and hauled millions of pounds of who-knows-what. And it ends up as a little restaurant in a street corner in Portland, Ore.”

.

The buildings are popping up elsewhere, as well. Cargotecture designs have been used for student housing in Amsterdam and a pop-up art studio at New York’s Whitney Museum.

.

A Seattle firm, HyBrid Architecture, has used shipping containers to build cargotecture one-room cabins and multistory office parks.

.

HyBrid co-founder Robert Humble says the containers pose some specific challenges: They have industrial paints and coatings to deal with, and they’re just steel boxes with no real frame. But essentially, he says, it’s a building material.

.

“The mechanical equipment, the plumbing, the electrical, is really quite traditional,” Humble says. “But it is that wrapping in a container that allows the house to be so portable, so flexible and overtly sustainable on the outside.”

.

Like many in the cargotecture movement, HyBrid emphasizes that sustainability in its designs. The company leaves on the original stickers, longshoreman’s marks, and all the other little dents and dings that, as Humble describes it, tell people the story of where the containers have been.

.

“They can imagine the container on a ship, they’ve seen it on a truck, and they kind of take an emotional journey with that container,” Humble says. “And finally, it’s at rest, and they can live in it.”

.

‘Better Than A Lot Of Apartments’

.

As Nick Radecki and Kelly Cook do. They rent a bright turquoise house made from two welded-together shipping containers in southeast Portland.

.

“It’s a big bathtub — shower up in the ceiling, pedestal sink, nice window,” Radecki says, showing off the bathroom. “It’s better than a lot of apartments.”

.

More On Cargotecture

Building An Office Of Shipping Containers

Architects recycle the familiar steel boxes into relatively cheap, unique homes and living spaces.

.

Cook, Radecki’s wife, initially took some convincing. And the couple has had to deal with the pros and cons of an open floor plan, as well as curious people who stop in to ask for a tour.

.

But the couple likes that the home is recycled. And ultimately, Radecki says, it’s a good house.

.

People often say they want a green house, Radecki says, but “truth be told, the only green home is a well-built home.”

.

Although with two young boys, two dogs and a cat, Cook and Radecki both admit it may not be long before they outgrow this particular piece of green cargotecture.

Title-24, Title-24

November 15th, 2012 we will be presenting our monthly 3 hour training Webinar/class that addresses the new changes to the residential Title-24 lighting & ventilation codes.

.

The new 2008 Title-24 Building Efficiency Standards became effective January 1, 2010.   One of the most sweeping changes involve residential indoor and outdoor lighting requirements, particularly kitchen lighting and the new adoption of ASHRAE 62.2 indoor air quality code.

Kitchen Lighting, Title-24

New restrictions, control requirements, high efficacy fixture requirements and incandescent allowances, and interior lighting worksheets will add an additional layer of complexity to residential lighting design.  This class will bring you up to speed on the new changes and address the underlying principles, calculation methods, strategies to assist you in complying with the new code changes and take you step by step thru the new CF-6R-LTG-1 lighting certificate of installation which must be filled out before the final certificate of occupancy will be issued.

Kitchen Lighting, Title-24

You will also understand which fixtures will comply as high efficacy (not all LED fixtures are certified as high efficacy), the lighting control requirements for each room type and the new fixture and control requirements for residential outdoor lighting.

Title-24, Title-24

California has now adopted the requirements of ASHRAE 62.2-2007 which means that starting January 1, 2010, all low-rise residential buildings are required to install whole house mechanical ventilation and satisfy other requirements to achieve acceptable indoor air quality.  Openable windows will no longer be an acceptable method for satisfying outdoor air requirements.  This will involve calculations for determining the minimum ventilation cfm and designing a system to provide the necessary airflow with proper controls.  You will learn the proper method for determining ventilation airflow, strategies for designing a cost effective ventilation system, and how to fill out the new ventilation Certificate of Installation.

Kitchen Lighting, Title-24

Learn from one of the leading experts in California’s Title-24 Building Efficiency Standards (Title-24), Mark Madison, a state certified Energy Plans Examiner and Certified Energy Analyst, HERS rater, Greenpoint rater with over 25 years experience with building energy code compliance analysis, enforcement and training.

Title-24, Title-24

Feedback from those who have attended our webinars

Title-24, Title 24

Lighting, Title-24

Webinar fee: $50.00

Kitchen Lighting, Title-24

This class is for architects, interior designers, electricians HVAC contractors, and building officials.

Title-24, Title-24

Location, date, & time:

Webinar

November 15th, 2012

9a.m. to 12 noon

.

.

More upcoming webinars

Subscribe

.

Registration payment page   (if you haven’t registered yet click here) .We

.

To make payment and finalize the registration click the yellow “Buy Now” button below

.

$50.00 .

.

>

.

.

There’s a solar trade war going on inside the U.S., sparked by an invasion of inexpensive imports from China.

.

The U.S. solar industry is divided over these imports: Panel-makers say their business is suffering and want a tariff slapped on the imports. But other parts of the industry say these cheap panels are driving a solar boom in the U.S.

.

On the manufacturers’ side, there’s Gordon Brinser. He’s an Oregon native who says the company he runs there, SolarWorld, is not only green, it’s red, white and blue. “The mission that we have is to build products here in America, for America’s community, for America’s energy independence, and really leave the world a better place,” he says.

.

Brinser claims China is threatening that vision by flooding the U.S. with cheap solar panels. He claims China subsidizes its solar panel industry to the tune of $30 billion a year, yet uses only a small percentage of the panels it makes. “So obviously,” he says, “these subsidies have gone into the industry, and their full intention is to export and control markets in other countries.”

.

Brinser claims the imports contributed to the collapse of some U.S. manufacturers. Three did go out of business in 2010, though the exact cause may or may not be cheap imports. But Brinser has petitioned the U.S. Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission to slap tariffs on imported Chinese panels.

.

So far the feds say, yes, American panel-makers have been harmed by Chinese imports. Yet to be determined is whether China is doing anything illegal: for instance, subsidizing panel-makers so they can sell below cost, a practice called “dumping.”

.

Brinser acknowledges that if he wins and tariffs are added, Americans will have to pay more for panels. “The prices will have to increase, you know, a little. They will find their new, natural balance in a competitive and legal environment,” he says.

.

Higher Prices Could Hurt Installers

.

But CASE, the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy, says higher prices are bad for companies that install solar power. These companies far outnumber panel manufacturers.

.

Kevin Lapidus works for CASE and is vice president of SunEdison, which builds and operates solar power systems.

.

More About Solar Power In The U.S.

.

Solar Panels Compete With Cheap Natural Gas

.

Cheap natural gas due to fracking makes more expensive forms of renewable energy less attractive.

.

Big Solar Project Moves Forward Without Uncle Sam

.

Large-scale plan to install solar panels on military homes doesn’t rely on federal loan guarantees.

.

“Fully 52 percent of the U.S. jobs are in the installation business,” he says. “These are U.S. workers who wake up in the morning, put on a tool belt, and they go and build something.” He says manufacturers of solar panels in the U.S. are only about a quarter of the domestic business.

.

Lapidus says solar power is just now shaking off its reputation as too pricey for regular people. “We’re finally reducing the price of solar,” he says. “We’re driving down the cost to grow the solar base — installations, jobs, etc. And the SolarWorld trade case will increase the cost of electricity; it will set the industry back by years.”

.

He says it could also start an international trade war with China. American solar industries export well over a billion dollars of products to China per year.

.

Most Customers Just Want The Best Price

.

At Solar Energy Services in Millersville, Md., a single stack of solar panels sits on the floor of a warehouse. Engineer Rick Peters says he got them cheap because the manufacturer folded — they couldn’t compete. He’s run out of Chinese panels for the moment. “Probably about 70 percent of what we install is Chinese panels,” he says.

.

Peters points out that some homeowners like to buy American, but most, about 90 percent of his customers, just want the best price. And Chinese panels are about 10 percent cheaper.

.

A tariff could double their price, and Peters says that could push everyone’s prices up.

.

“I’m very concerned about that,” he says. “I think that it could significantly increase the price, because of the limited number of manufacturers in the U.S. Potentially, they could take advantage of the marketplace.”

.

By raising their prices as well? “Absolutely,” says Peters.

.

He fears that could have ripple effects for other U.S. manufacturers. He illustrates by cutting open a big cardboard box on the floor of the warehouse. Inside is an inverter, a device that every solar installation needs to convert direct current to the alternating current in your home. It costs about $4,500.

.

“This one is made by PV Powered,” he says, “which is a U.S. manufacturer. A lot of the inverters are manufactured in the U.S.” Fewer installations would mean fewer inverters sold.

.

Over the next several months, the federal government will decide whether China is playing fair or not.

.

Great article on the history of McKim, Mead, and White.

.

.

.

.

Question: For the 2008 Title-24 Residential Kitchen requirements what assumptions can I make for the wattage of recessed incandescent can lighting when I’m calculation the low-efficacy/high efficacy wattage in the kitchen when filling out the CF-6R-LTG-1 form?

.

Answer: You will need to use the larger of either the rated wattage of the recessed can fixture that is listed on the UL label or the wattage indicated in Table 6-3 found on page 6-15 of the 2008 Residential Compliance Manual.  The wattage assumptions in Table 6-3 vary depending on the size of the recessed fixture (diameter of the aperture) and the ceiling height.   click on table below to enlarge

.

.

.

How do I calculate the conditioned floor area of a building?

.

For the purposes of Title-24 energy code compliance analysis the Conditioned Floor Area (CFA) is the total floor area (in square feet) of enclosed conditioned space on all floors of a building, as measured at the floor level of the exterior surfaces of exterior walls enclosing the conditioned space.  This term is also referred to in the Title-24 Energy Code simply as the floor area.

.

This is an important value for the purpose of compliance since the annual energy use is divided by this value to obtain the energy budget.  In the prescriptive packages, the maximum fenestration (glazing) area is expressed as a percentage of conditioned floor area.

.

CFA is calculated from the plan dimensions of the building, including the floor area of all conditioned and indirectly conditioned space on all floors.  It includes lofts, mezzanines but does not include covered walkways, open roofed-over areas, porches, pipe trenches, exterior terraces or steps, chimneys, roof overhangs or parking garages.  Unheated basements or closets for central gas forced air furnaces are not included, unless they are shown to be indirectly conditioned.

.

The floor area of an interior stairway is determined as the CFA beneath the stairs and the tread area of the stairs themselves.

.

The diagram below provides an example of how CFA is calculated (click on image to enlarge):

.