GUNTERMANN ENGINEERING
GREEN BUILDING DESIGN
Today’s emphasis on Green Buildings, “LEED”, and Energy Star is raising the bar
in facility design and operation by targeting the energy and environmental
efficiency in Buildings. These are old topics which are now recognized as
important due to higher energy costs and increased awareness by the building
decision makers. We concentrate on Life Cycle Costing and the use of
the dollar as a common denominator to first reduce the loads and then optimize
the building envelope, mechanical, and electrical the building subsystems to
provide an energy efficient building design. We can assist a LEED AP who
would handle the environmental issues.
In the February 2009 issue of HPAC Engineering titled "High-Performance Buildings", identified ten HALLMARKS OF HIGH PERFORMANCE BUILDINGS and seventeen FUNDAMENTALS OF RESOURCE EFFICIENT HVAC DESIGN. I was instrumental in designing a facility in 1981 that incorporated almost all of the High Performance Building design criteria ...with outstanding results. The final building design for the U.S. Postal Facilities was calculated to use only 22,400 Btu/SF/YR for a building that operated 24 hours 365 days a year. The post office mechanization was projected to use an additional 15,500 Btu/SF/YR. When built, this was US Postal Facilities most energy efficient facility in the country based on Btu/SF/YR and its initial cost came in at 25% below budget. See Austin Co articles: "An Ultimate Energy Study". While there was no emphasis on environmental issues, from and energy efficient building design concept, this was the first green building.
The study was to evaluate the energy guidelines for for the US Postal Service on a new 300,000 sq.ft. General Mail Facility in Santa Ana, CA utilizing a DOE 2.1 computer program, evaluating over 250 alternates with a sensitivity analysis to analyze approximately 60 energy alternates. The results were combined in a final run and the project was built as engineered. The energy efficient alternates included daylighting in the large workroom with small skylights on 30 foot centers and incorporating a dimming system. Offices utilized parabolic light fixtures with electronic ballasts, dimming, and occupancy sensors before they were accepted. High efficiency lights were used through out. Further energy savings resulted from the design of low static, high efficiency chilled water air conditioning system. This included optimizing the selection of fans, pumps, chillers, coils, and filters and the final design utilized off the shelf hardware, as described in my article “Chilled Water Air Conditioning Optimization”.
The analysis of natural heating, cooling, and lighting in buildings is
complicated and difficult to accurately quantify. They offer some minor savings
but can result in increased energy consumption. For example, daylighting can
increase the air conditioning load in the summer and reduce the heating load in
the winter. The effects of thermal storage are especially difficult to
quantify. I was an active member of several related national ASHRAE committee’s
for several years. This provides a strong background in accurate analysis of
these “Green” technologies. There is very little new in this area.
Energy Conservation is in the engineering details. There have been many projected energy savings which have not been fulfilled. I have a long history with these technologies. My first article (19 pages) in 1976, “The Mystery of Future Energy Prices” was important in many areas, including the impact of energy prices on conservation and the impact of conservation on energy prices. Three magazine articles in 1979, 1980, and 1981 took Life Cycle Costing for the first time from a simple payback into a financial “Cash Flow” analysis and major retrofit of many small measures. Further, they took total building costs including: energy, maintenance, aesthetic value, productivity, and resale value and combined them to justify a “total retrofit” based on the cash flow with long term financing. These principals have been widely used and have had a major impact on our nation’s energy consumption.
Today “Building Commissioning” is often used. This is an extra cost to ensure
that all of the building mechanical and electrical systems work properly. My
experiences have given me the ability to design systems that can be easily
installed and work properly. To my knowledge, all of my engineered building
systems are working properly.
Generally, design of a building which incorporates
these “Green” technologies requires additional engineering and the owner must be
will to compensate the engineer for these services. In a Feb
A recent Historical background prepared by peers of Alfred Guntermann was published in the 2005 December issue of the Connecticut ASHRAE newsletter. It is available through the following link: Connecticut ASHRAE newsletter.
