Building Simulation 2017 Conference – Technical Summary
Building Simulation 2017 Conference – Technical Summary In August, I attended my first IBPSA International Conference. It was a three-day parallel session program in which people from different organizations came together to share their knowledge and experience. As an entry level practitioner and an IBPSA newbie, it took me a while to digest what I heard and […]
What’s the Innovation Rodeo?
Luxury condo and commercial office property managers, building engineers, developers – all in one room to discuss trends and share insights in our industry. We witnessed great conversations taking place and exciting ideas being born around the topic of wellness last year, and we are excited to do this again this year! With our 2nd Annual Innovation […]
Broken Buildings
Are you in a broken building? Don’t answer no, until you benchmark! I spend quite a bit of my time educating people about their buildings and how to improve them. I get a lot of questions like: “We’ve done a lot of projects, are we missing anything?” Or, “Are projects X, Y, and Z worth […]
The Most Confusing Incentives IMHO #3
Packaged Rooftop Unit Advanced Controls Retrofit What does this incentivize? This incentive provides funds for installing–yep–advanced controls on existing packaged rooftop units (RTUs). The affected RTUs must be between 7.5 and 25 tons and serve constant volume systems. To be eligible for it, you must implement the following three things: Variable speed controls on the […]
The Most Confusing Incentives IMHO #2
This is the second in a series of three posts about incentives that I think are confusing. You can find the first post here. Comprehensive Energy Savings Incentive What does this incentivize? At its core, the Comprehensive Energy Savings incentive gives you a bonus for completing more than one efficiency project at a time in your building. […]
The Most Confusing Incentives IMHO #1
When I was five years old, I watched Kristi Yamaguchi score 5.8s and 5.9s in figure skating at the 1992 Winter Olympics. I knew 0 was the worst and 6 was the best, so she was practically perfect, and then she won gold. Easy! Then at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Kim Yuna won […]
Got a Chicago Energy Benchmarking Notice?
Quick – pop quiz! Which sector in the U.S. uses the most produced energy? A) Transportation B) Industry C) Buildings The correct answer? It’s C) Buildings. Surprised? Most people are! In fact, as of 2013, buildings in the U.S. used almost half (~48%) of the energy that was produced.[1] That includes all single-family homes, multi-family buildings, and commercial […]
Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day
I read an article a few weeks ago in the Atlantic that was really troubling. It described a study where a University of Illinois psychologist described a “really, really smart person” at work to groups of children. He then showed two photos of men and two photos of women to the children and asked who they thought […]
