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A growing number of cities are paying multifamily building owners to add green roofs to their buildings. That’s helping to motivate more owners to plant their rooftops.

The condominiums at The Visionaire in New York City start at $690,000. The amenities include a 2,075-sq.-ft. rooftop garden with more than 160 species of ornamental plants, including vertical screens for climbing vegetables and a fruit orchard with dwarf trees.

Adding an extensive green roof that covers most of a building’s roof space adds between $10.30 and $12.50 per sq. ft. to the cost of the roof, compared to a conventional, black roof, according to a study by the U.S. General Services Administration. Annual maintenance for a green roof is typically higher than for a black roof, by $0.21 to $0.31 per sq. ft. Of course, those costs are for the most basic green roofs. Apartment developers can spend millions to create and maintain rooftops gardens for their residents, with plants ranging from trees to roses.

“There are lots of benefits to having a green roof—the short-term benefit is having a usable amenity space,” says Steven Peck, president of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities.

Some cities offer cash incentives to help owners pay for green roofs. In Washington, D.C., owners can get a rebate of the cost to put a green roof on their buildings, though the District of Columbia Department of the Environment’s green roof rebate program. The rebates start at $10 per sq. ft. of green roof, rising to $15 per sq. ft. in targeted sub-watershed areas.

The word “sub-watershed” is an important clue to the city’s motivation to pay for green roofs. Older cities like Washington, D.C., often have sewer systems that combine water from rainstorms with waste. During large rainstorms, the systems often overflow, effectively poisoning rivers and streams. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has ordered cities solve this problem, but it’s not easy. Chicago has spent over $3 billion starting in 1970 dig a series of massive underground reservoirs to keep toxic waters from flowing into Lake Michigan. The latest phase of the Chicago Deep Tunnel Project is now expected to be complete in 2029.Infrastructure like green roofs can help by slowing rain water as it races from rooftops to sidewalks to storm drains. That gives a city’s water treatment systems time to handle the water from storms and prevents flooding.

Chicago is another city that provides cash incentives for green roofs, not surprisingly, since the Chicago Deep Tunnel project still isn’t finished. Portland, Ore.; Milwaukee, Wis.; and New York City also offer cash incentives. These programs are constantly changing as cities expand or start new incentives. San Francisco and Pittsburgh, Pa., are both on the verge of creating green roof programs.

“The best thing to do—the easiest thing to do—is call your local government and ask what incentives are available,” says Peck.

Local also require developments to create infrastructure to keep storm water from pouring off their properties. To please local officials, residential developers in many localities build storm water retention ponds and underground storage tanks.

The Solaire, New York City

The Solaire, New York City

Green roofs can be a relatively inexpensive alternative to other forms of storm water abatement. A green roof can save a building owner $14 per sq. ft. of green roof in local storm water fees or in the cost of other storm water improvements, on average, over the 50-year life of the roof, according to the GSA. The green roof also saves owners an average of between $6 and $8 in the cost of energy per sq. ft. of green roof over the 50-year life of the roof—mostly because the green roof shields the rooftop from the harsh beating of the sun during air conditioning season.

Washington, D.C., is the number one city for green roof installations according to the 2014 Green Roof Industry Survey, from Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, the green roof and green wall industry association.

Toronto, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York City, Denver, Baltimore, Montreal, Seattle and Boston rounded out the top 10 cities when it comes to the number of green roofs. Not surprisingly, many of those are older cities with aging storm water systems that are prone to flooding, and therefore offer generous local incentive programs for green roofs.

 

Source: NREI

This just might just be the most beautiful zero-emission home anyone ever laid eyes on.

Snøhetta, a design firm in Norway, has created the ZEB Multi-Comfort House in Ringdalskogen, Larvik, Norway. The house not only runs solely on solar energy, but collects enough extra solar energy to power an electric car for one year.

ZeroEmissionsHouse2

ZEB took 10 months to build and, according to Kristian Edwards, the lead architect of the project, a very intricate process was employed to ensure that the solar energy would be used at the highest efficiency.

The result? A home with striking features like a tilted roof that is slanted at a 19-degree angle to accommodate the photovoltaic panels (the ones that provide electricity) and the solar thermal panels (the ones that provide heat and hot water). Edwards told The Huffington Post that the roof also provides a dramatic flair to the inside of the home. “It is perhaps the most striking element of the upper floor,” he says. “Relatively small bedrooms gain great volume, hugely beneficial to sleep comfort, light transmission and of course, a certain drama.”

ZeroEmissionsHouse3

In the atrium, Edwards used recovered brickwork from a barn that was being demolished. “The recovered brick serves a thermal mass which passively contributes to balance temperature spikes,” says Edwards.

ZeroEmissionsHouse4There are currently no tenants in the home. However, Edwards says that there are plans in the works to have families occupy the space “in order to realistically test the building and system performance.” Feedback from visitors has been “generally extremely positive,” he adds.

ZeroEmissionsHouse5Despite it’s forward-thinking approach, Edwards says the goal of ZEB was to create a place that is welcoming and comfortable, with energy-saving features that virtually disappear into the background. “Our goal was to ensure that the house, whilst advanced, is predominantly welcoming,” says Edwards. “The outdoor covered atrium with a fireplace gives a welcome extension of the outdoor season that is fundamental to the Norwegian culture. This shows that the steps toward zero carbon housing need not represent a quantum leap in lifestyle, and therefore, makes it simpler and quicker to make the switch.”

ZeroEmissionsHouse6

 

Source: Huffington Post

Everyone wants to save energy; everyone feels the pressure to reduce costs and improve the bottom line of their business in a lousy economic climate.

Energy Savings Companies (ESCOs) come in two varieties, guaranteed savings or non-guaranteed savings. So where does the facilities manager start? The answer: get an energy study done.

Common Sense
First and foremost, be honest about the goal of your energy savings program. Whomever you hire needs the facts so they can get down to serious work and be successful. You owe them your honesty to give the energy savings program a chance of working out to your company’s benefit.

Before the Study
Utility Bills: 
This is like the EKG for your building. Compile the bills and understand them. Know the patterns so you understand how much energy your building is using during the day, the night and season to season. Make a spreadsheet, trend the data and study it.

Metering: This is the calorie counter of your building. The biggest loads should be metered. You cannot save where you do not measure. ESCO’s of all stripes will implement metering strategies early on, so get this done to be in charge of baseline data and save money.

Equipment: Make a detailed list of every piece of energy consuming equipment in the building with all of its pertinent data. This quest to save energy can quickly move from merely saving money to asking yourself why you are behind on maintenance, since well-maintained equipment uses less energy. Get ROI quotes now.

Lighting: Knowing how everyone circulates through the building at every hour will help you to understand lighting needs within your facility. Carefully scheduling lighting patterns can far out-pace the payback period of a re-lamping project. Get quotes with pay-back periods for controls and re-lamping to compare.

Building Envelope: Invest in an infrared camera or have an IR scan done by a professional to know where the heat is going in your building. An IR scan may show an area that has been vexing you for years. Execute a plan to plug the holes, and do it now.

Controls Strategies: Make sure your building works well. This is the place where the ROI is typically the most attractive for energy projects.

Now you’ve got a list of things you can control, all you need is time and money. So, let’s look at what is really working against you (apart from time and budget crunches) in all of this.

Human Behavior
The occupants in your building are people. People have habits, both good and bad. It is nearly impossible to change these habits, especially when it comes to their work environment. All day employees give their sweat and effort, so they demand comfort. To better provide this comfort, ESCO’s need your common sense and understanding of the building and its occupants to truly weigh the validity of the Energy Savings Measures (ESM’s) they propose.

Handling energy in buildings is one of the biggest issues facing facilities managers, and most aim to become better stewards of the planet’s resources. No matter how old or what type of building you manage, there is something more you can do to make the energy spending go down. However, obtaining the money to implement it and the sheer will (and consensus) to make the changes are the biggest impediments to any challenge, that and the human behavior thing.

 

Source:  Facilities Magazine