Amara Rozgus, Senior Editor
Articles
Finding the right LED
Consulting engineers often are tasked with lighting design as part of their overall electrical design or as a subcontract to the electrical engineering team or contractor. Because of the big push for energy efficiency, many clients are now asking about LEDs. LEDs are have been available for lighting systems for a number of years, but first costs, color rendering, appropriate fixtures for commer...
Variable refrigerant systems
Variable refrigerant systems are not well-known in the United States yet. But they may be the right HVAC system for your next project.
Dashboards: not just a pretty face
Dashboards can be integrated with controls, meters, and external resources to display energy, environmental, and economic performance.
Using gray water efficiently
View the full story , including all images and figures, in our monthly digital edition Most engineers focus on lighting, HVAC, windows, and building siting when designing an efficient building. Often secondary on the list is designing a water-efficient building, which can be accomplished with various methods like no-water urinals, dual-flush water closets, and water reclamation, i.e., harvested rainwater and gray water. It’s sometimes referred to as graywater or grey water.
Back in black
According to reports from McGraw-Hill Construction and Reed Construction Data (a sister company of this magazine), the construction industry is set to contract in 2009. Even though new-construction volume is expected remain above $400 billion, negative growth tends to make people nervous. A question that has been popping up in the media is whether the emerging green market will keep its momentum. True or not, green projects still have a stigma of being more expensive, and additional costs are being heavily scrutinized. But the green market is more than green buildings.
Illuminating students
Lighting is such a subjective thing.
Grade A HVAC
The Chicago Public School system, which serves 410,000 students in 650 schools, likes to design its new buildings the old-fashioned way. That's not to say that its new schools are antiquated or out of date—quite the contrary. The Chicago Public Schools, or CPS, has gone back to basics in its MEP system design.