HPAC Engineering's Most Popular Articles
HPAC Engineering's Top 10 articles for the past three months.
While there has been some criticism of the LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP) credentialing process, it remains a valuable professional designation and one that is likely to grow more valuable in the future. That's because the LEED governing body, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), has done a good job marketing itself and the LEED process. Interest in green design continues to grow, as does the demand for LEED AP participation in sustainable projects....
Commercial-building-owner sentiment regarding ground-source-heat-pump (GSHP) systems ranges from, "They are the only system we want in our buildings," to, "We will never do one of those again." Installation costs can range from $12 per square foot to more than $50 per square foot, while operating costs and occupant comfort also can vary across the spectrum. However, successful applications can be found in a wide variety of climates and building types....
A boiler can consume several times its initial cost in fuel in a year. That, coupled with escalating utility rates and an increasing focus on energy and the environment, has engineers and contractors turning to an ever-expanding array of super- efficient condensing hot-water boilers....
Though intended to provide comfort, HVAC systems often are a major source of noise in buildings. While the primary focus of designers understandably is temperature and humidity control, the more experienced among them know the importance of keeping sound and vibration in check. ...
With its copper-and-granite-covered, geodesic-shaped exterior and 85-ft atrium, the 231,000-sq-ft McNamara Alumni Center at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis is a campus gateway and showplace, serving as a visitor and conference center, as well as an office building. But despite its ultramodern architecture, the building relied on a single 550-ton chiller for cooling throughout its first six years of operation....
Buildings are not created to use energy, but to provide healthy and productive indoor environments. However, efforts to save energy may cause a reduction in health and productivity by degrading indoor-air quality (IAQ). Therefore, maintaining buildings that provide healthy and productive indoor environments requires testing and measuring of key IAQ parameters. As often is said, if you do not measure energy, you cannot manage it — the same is true for ventilation performance. ...
Demand-controlled ventilation (DCV) can reduce the cost of operating an HVAC system. But implementing DCV based on indoor levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) is not as straightforward under the 2007 version of ANSI (American National Standards Institute)/ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) Standard 62.1, Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality, as it was under previous versions....
The development and application of steam- and hot-water-boiler technology forever is evolving—and has been for decades. Not only is this technology responsive to the market's expectations, it looks ahead and offers innovative solutions to emerging challenges....
Once simple, variable-air-volume- (VAV-) box selection has become an iterative process complicated by energy- and ventilation-code requirements. What's...
The No. 1 question about fire and smoke dampers that mechanical engineers and contractors ask is, How do the controls work with the actuators? This article...
