Askthefm’s Weblog

The newest vermin problem is an old one, bedbugs.  I am not even sure how old the saying “sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite” is.  If you manage apartment buildings, hotels or other multifamily buildings this is a problem you will have to soon deal with.

It has always been my understanding that we owe this country’s respite from these bugs to the use of DDT. According to the exterminators I have spoken to, bedbugs are hard to kill and only really diligent methods or really strong poison will do the trick.  Since DDT is no longer an option we are left with hard work and diligence and attention to detail.

From the Mayo Clinic website: (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bedbugs/DS00663)

“Bedbugs will feed on any mammal, including cows and dogs. In North America, migratory birds and bats have been sources of infestation. More recently, as world travel has increased, bedbugs are finding their way into the home through luggage and clothing worn abroad. Another contributor to the resurgence of bedbugs in the West is changing pest-control practices. Sixty years ago the common use of DDT — which kills most insects — nearly eliminated bedbugs in the United States. Today the use of DDT is being phased out due to human toxicity concerns. Further, current extermination practices are more insect-specific — what’s toxic to a cockroach may not kill a bedbug.”

So how do we counter this problem?  Isolating the bed since bedbugs can’t fly is one way, but you have to be sure the bed is clean of the infestation first.  A good beginning primer is from the University of California’s, Davis site: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7454.html

Another site, which unfortunately is trying to sell you there solutions is polite enough and thorough enought that I am going to list it here: http://doyourownpestcontrol.com/bed-bugs.htm It lays out the steps that I have gotten from several extermination firms in striaght forward languages and steps ao that you can atleast not be taken advantage of by an outside firm if you don’t want to try and solve the problem your self.

Finally here is a video courtesy of National Geographic on bed bugs.  It is short and may gross out some folks, fair warning…..

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If you are looking among the various websites suggesting ways to create sustainable buildings you might be amazed at the choices that are available.

Now I have found houses made of all kinds of materials, some of which frankly I can’t see a building inspector in California giving the green light to.  Some of the oldest technology is to be found in building a straw house.  I believe the information presented as far as the insulation values and such however I would be worried about the structural integrity over time.  What appears to be a pretty comprehensive site on this subject is here: http://www.greenbuilder.com/sourcebook/strawbale.html. It is interesting to note that the site clearly shows that there are regulatory problems with this tyoe of construction and all of the associations listed are found in places where earthquakes are very rare.

Another technique that has gotten some press is with used tires and packed earth.  This is different from the rammed earth buildings I have posted about earlier. (http://askthefm.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/rammed-earth-buildings-not-for-me-but-maybe-for-you/)  One of the highest profile advocates of this technique is Earthship Biotechture (http://www.earthship.net/).  They are currently building a demonstration project in the Netherland Antillies during the month of July 2008.  This type of building seems like a good fit for this area as it is massive and is often shown built into the side of a hill.  It would probably survive the the severe weather found in the Carribean.

Now if you aren’t quite this adventerous there are plenty of sites to help you build a converntional house with recycled, used or otherwise sustainable materials. SustainableABC.com (http://www.sustainableabc.com/recycled.html) has a California centric directory for these materials.  Another good one is PlanetReuse.com (http://www.planetreuse.com/how_it_works) that looks to work like a Craig’s List type setup for extra, used or available building materials.  It appears to have current listings in most of the 50 states.

Now if you just want to look at some of this houses, this site shows examples of the five more common types of recycled architecture: http://weburbanist.com/2007/10/23/5-kinds-of-creative-recycled-architecture-cans-bottles-and-other-unusual-building-materials/

On the up and coming front I found a recent patent (http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5241795.html)

Abstract

The invention relates to building materials made from paper sludge,
repulped waste paper, or virgin paper pulp, mixed with clay and portland
cement, or animal protein adhesives, or manufactured resins or polymers.
Specifically the invention relates to a building system using this
material in the form of building blocks that are glued together during
assembly and are intended to be used for above grade exterior and interior
walls. A block design which increases the R-value and other building
products made of this material are covered in this invention. The material
of this invention has unusual compression strength properties such that;
when an imposed load limit is reached which begins to compress the
material, the material does not break apart, but rather compresses
slightly and allows considerably more load to be imposed without failure
of the material to hold the superimposed load.

It will be interesting to see what this stuff actually is…..

Lastly here is my canidate for the house built out of the most unsual material, the Agate House.

Frome the waymarking.com website: (http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM14DV)

“It is not so much the shape that makes this building unique, but its on-of-a-kind building material. It is petrified wood! The location is Petrified Forest National Park, where, 225 million years ago, a lot of tall trees were washed into a floodplain, where a mix of silt, mud and volcanic ashes buried the logs. The sediment cut off oxygen and slowed the logs decay. Silica-laden groundwater seeped through the logs and replaced the original wood tissues with silica deposits. Eventually the silica crystallized into quartz, and the logs were preserved as petrified wood. Since the quartz rock of the petrified logs was a lot sturdier than all the other building materials (clay and sand stone), petrified wood was an obvious choice.”

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Solar water heating is a pretty mature technology at this point. I suppose that it isn’t surprising that it might become a standard feature of new residential construction.  However ti has now become mandatory for all new construction in Hawaii.  That is residential construction, new homes.

I think that overall I am in favor of this for a couple of reasons.  First is that it will generate economies of scale by making it a requirement and thereby making the overall cost less. Second is that it simply makes sense to employ every affordable technology to reduce our footprint on the planet. the fact that it can be packaged as a selling point is a bonus.  The full article is here on Metaefficient.com (http://www.metaefficient.com/news/solar-water-heaters-now-mandatory-in-hawaii.html#more-1519)

For those of you who might need a primer on solar hot water here is the government’s site that covers it pretty well: http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/your_home/water_heating/index.cfm/mytopic=12850

There is also another way to harness the thermal energy for your building.  There is a new product called Solar Duct that allows you to pre-heat air that would then be used to heat the building.  (http://solarwall.com/posts/from-solarwallr-to-solarduct-conserval-launches-new-rooftop-line62.php)

Also from the same company is a configuration that combines the heating of air and conventional solar panels.  This setup helps the effciency of the panels by lowering their overall temperature. (http://solarwall.com/media/download_gallery/SolarWallPV-T_Spec.pdf)

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What with all of the attention being paid to all things “green” these days, one of the items I see most frequently mentioned are cleaning supplies.  I am not sure if this is because these chemicals have gotten such bad press in the past that they are trying real hard to seem safe and relevant.

Now if you put the words “green cleaning products” into your search engine of choice you will get back a great many sources for these items ranging from Simple Green (http://www.simplegreen.com/), which I recommend by the way, to articles on how to make your own cleaning supplies.

The main reason to even think about this for commercial buildings has to do with indoor air quality and minimizing the residents of a buildings exposure to toxic chemicals and fumes.  Previously the focus was on changing your chemicals out to supposedly safer alternatives.There is however some discussion about the value of making this change as is covered in this Live Science article: (http://www.livescience.com/environment/070806_green_cleaners.html).

The LEED certification guidelines coming out this month steers away from just substituting chemicals to get your credits but is emphasizing a complete approach to green cleaning.  On ENN.com (http://www.enn.com/business/article/37513) there is an article that covers this change. There is also another article on Cleanlink.com that go even more in depth on this issue: (http://www.cleanlink.com/hs/article.asp?id=5609&keywords=green,%20leed).

The current thinking is that you should develop a complete janitorial program with environmentally sensitive cleaning agents, best practices to insure a clean building and energy efficient equipment. The main difference I have found is that with the “green” alternatives in chemicals you have to take a little more time and use a little more elbow grease.  Although “Seventh Generation” (http://www.seventhgeneration.com/) is working to make their products the equivalent in effectiveness .

Lastly as a general rule chemicals that are rated by Green Seal (http://www.greenseal.org/) qualify under the LEED and most other rating services guidelines and generally are of good quality and good value.

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A historic coalition of disability advocates, businesses and supporting organizations has succeeded in negotiating a compromise to restore the original protections and intents of the American with Disabilities Act!

Organizations from the US Chamber of Commerce ( http://www.uschamber.com/issues/letters/2008/080624_ada.htm) to NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness: http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=June9&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=63384) worked together to get this passed.

A basic summary from the NAMI site:

“The ADA Amendments Act of 2008 reaffirms civil rights protections dismantled by a series of Supreme Court decisions that narrowly interpreted the definition of disability, leaving people with epilepsy, diabetes, cancer and mental illness without the protections Congress envisioned when the ADA was originally enacted in 1990.

Business, human resource, disability and civil rights organizations have recognized that the courts went too far in some decisions, leaving out many people with disabilities Congress intended to protect. In a 2007 case, a Court even held that an individual with severe intellectual disabilities (“mental retardation”) was not covered by the ADA because he had failed to adequately demonstrate his impairment substantially limited a major life activity. The alliance of employer and disability advocacy organizations negotiated the compromise to clarify elements of the ADA Amendments Act, a bill first introduced in July of 2007.

The new compromise bill clarifies for the courts that people with disabilities should not lose civil rights protections because their condition is treatable with medication or can be addressed with the help of assistive technology. The bill also clarifies the definition of disability to include all individuals whose impairment substantially limits a major life activity.”

This is major step forward and I salute all of you who worked hard to make this possible!

For those of you tasked with ensuring compliance under the ADA rules, take heart this would seem to make things simpler as the sometimes hair splitting decisions about whether someone qualifies under the act becomes very easy. Also new guidance will be issued by the US Department of Justice.  You can check for updates and general ADA news at: http://www.ada.gov/adahom1.htm

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This may be a little bit esoteric for some you this evening, but this is a very important topic and part of my particular advocacy.  The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has for some time been interpeting the rules applying to the way low income tax credits are used as to severly restrict their effectivenss in getting housing built.  This is critically important to the many Americans who would qualify to live in this housing if it were only made available.

To construct a new apartment building cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $350,000 an apartment, including the property acquisition costs.  It is impossible without government subsidizing the construction and operation of these units that they will get built.  They just don’t pencil out when the people who qualify for the low income units can only afford $450 a month for a one bedroom apartment.  (Note: I live in Southern California where a one bedroom aprtment in a marginal area goes for $900 a month if you can find one)

The article on the Southern California Assocation of Non-Profit Housing Developers (SCANPH) can be found here: (http://www.scanph.org/node/552) and full text of the Senator’s Letter is Here: (http://www.scanph.org/files/Final%20Occupational%20Letter.pdf)

So please write you Congressional representitives, both in the Hous and Senate to get them on board on this issue.  Because you never know where life will take you and the housing you build or save today may someday be you own!

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The news broke to day that over in London England hackers succeeded in cloning or duplicating the cards that most Londoner’s use to ride on mass transit.  These so called Oyster Cards are a version of smart card that is used in a great many other places for access control to secured areas.  The Dutch government has issued a country wide security alert due to the fact that they use the same or at least very similar technology at most of their government buildings!

Both Wired Magazine (http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/06/hackers-crack-l.html) and the Evening Standard in London have articles on this story (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23454596-details/Oyster+card+cloning+fears/article.do).

This is just the latest problem with this technology to come to the surface.  The main problems with these systems is that they are often specified incorrectly and sometimes just installed poorly.  Also they are only as good as the people who have administrative access.  I took over the management of a fairly simple system at a large corporate site and was amazed that the functionality of the software wasn’t even fully enabled and the previous administrator had made no real effort to audit the system.  I spent a very hectic 3 weeks auditing the system, inventorying the access rights of several hundred employees and getting the reporting module actually working!

There is a very good white paper on some best pratices for these systems here: (http://www.smart-id.com/documents/Access_Control_Industry_Best_Practices_wp_en.pdf).

The news is full of successful attempts to bypass these systems. Another story from Wired magazine: (http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/open-sesame-acc.html)

Now I am not saying that I am dead set against using these devices, just that you need to realize that they are far from perfect or fool proof.  Just like any other similar system such as a burgler alarm they need to be designed carefully, used with their limitations firmly in mind and monitored constantly.

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Compact fluorescent bulbs have been on everyone’s short list of an easy way to shave dollars off of their electric bill.  However there is this small problem with them, they contain mercury and known environmental problem.

We have all supposed to have been recycling them and we haven’t.  The levels of mercury in the environment have been slowly increasing and the bulbs are the obvious suspects along with their larger cousins. Also note that coal fired power plants also put forth a significant amount of this substance also. Here is what the EPA is saying about it: http://www.epa.gov/bulbrecycling/

Now there are starting to be lots of options to recycle the smaller bulbs and even a few for the larger tubes.  The first option I would like to bring to your attention made the Building magazine top 100 products list. It is a pre-paid recycling kit from Veolia Environmental Services (http://veoliaes-ts.com/recyclepak).  This is pretty exciting not from an individual perspective but what is possible when you talk about sponsored programs.  Here is an article about one sponsored by the Hawaiian Electric Co. (http://starbulletin.com/2008/03/20/news/story12.html).  This kind of service facilitates the kind of commercial sponsorship that we are all familiar with.

Another company that has the option of pre-paid recycling as well as more traditional equipment and programs is AirCycle: http://www.aircycle.com/#08197452547246975281 This company offers everything from bulk pick ups to the pre-paid programs mentioned earlier.  Especially if you have a large facility where you might have a large amount fo traditional bulbs to recycle, this company’s Bulb Eater product is one you should consider.

Now for some time IKEA, the world’s largest home furnishings retailer has had a take back program to CFL’s in every store. (http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/about_ikea/social_environmental/environment.html).  This si something that Walmart sponsors periodically through out the country and that Home Depot is now starting! (http://www6.homedepot.com/ecooptions/stage/pdf/cfl_recycle.pdf)

Let’s all start recycling before some government agency decides to put a deposit on these bulbs like a soda bottle to encourge our correct behavior.

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I know that there has been a lot of coverage in the news and on various blogs including my own about all of the new and wiz bang new things you can get for your building to make it more energy efficient. However with all of this concentration on the newest and most high tech a lot of buildings aren’t taking care of the basics to save energy and money!

These basic items are truly low hanging fruit not only easy to do but with return on investment times calculated in months if not days in some cases.

First let’s talk about lighting, plain old fluorescent tubes.  It is estimated that and very large percentage of the total electric load of a commercial building is found in the lighting.  If you haven’t changed out those old T-12 light fixtures or at least modified them to use T-8 bulbs with electronic ballasts, do this first and do it now!  The cost to upgrade is around $100 a fixture which can be recovered in as little as 12 months.

Next on the lighting hit parade is parking lot lighting.  These fixtures tend to be big and expensive to run if you are in retail environment.  It is common for these fixtures to be left on all night and for them to be run by a simple time clock.  There are several suggestions I can offer here.

First is to add to the time clock circuit a photocell.  It works like this.  In the circuit the photo cell is inserted between the time clock and the activation relays.  This dynamically adjusts the on and off times of the system to the ever changing sunst and sunrise times.  Estimated cost $200, ROI 30days.

Also you should look at your lighting plan and see if there are lights that can safely be turned off at closing time.  A photometric analysis may be required for a good set of data to make this decision.  However the savings here could be pretty large as sometimes these light may be up to a 1000 watts each.  After you have determined if any can safely be turned off you will have to do some rewiring of the lighting array, perhaps adding another time clock and photocell. Estimated Cost $1000  ROI 3- 6 months.

Now with all the publicity I hope that you have changed out all of those incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescents or even LED bulbs.  However if you haven’t get started!

Another often overlooked task that helps with the electric bill is air conditioning and heater maintenance. Changing filters and cleaning condenser fins can net as much a 20% efficiency boost for the system.  Also if it is in your capital budget look into changing out your oldest unit with a new higher SEER rated unit.

Lastly tonight I would suggest considering and old solution that hasn’t gotten much good press lately, window tinting.  At least in California you get no credit under Title 24, our energy efficiency code, but that doesn’t mean that if won’t do you some good.  Window tinting has several advantages including lessening heat load on your building by 1-2%, lengthening the life of the textiles in the office spaces and in earthquake prone areas providing some extra security against flying glass.

I hope that these suggestions help you and if you have any questions specifically about the calculations on the ROI or other related questions please drop me a line at the email address below!

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I have been looking for some time into ways to reduce my utility bills.  I have of course looked a solar power in its various forms and have decided to wait a little longer.  However if I can find a wind turbine small enough and with a low enough start up speed I may be a buyer.

I am especially interested in the vertical axis models.  All reports of these suggest that they are more effcient and generate more power at lower startup speeds.  A recent article covering the American Wind Power Associations’s recent conference suggests much promise very soon.

http://cleantechnica.com/2008/06/20/vertical-axis-turbines-the-future-of-micro-wind-energ/

I mentioned in an earlier post about Jay Leno, the Tonight Show host installing one of these on his private garage.  The maufacturer of that particular unit is here: http://www.pacwind.net/

My problem is that most of the micro sized units need a start speed of around 8 mph and of course a fairly constant wind.  Now I live some what near the beach in Southern California and get a fairly constant breeze every afternoon and early evening.  The wind I get on this regular basis does not provide enough for the current crop of equipment to generate any useful amount of power on a regular basis.

A good listing of these are to be found here: http://cleantechnica.com/2008/03/21/the-five-best-micro-wind-turbines/

This is where my interest in the vertical and horizontal units comes in. In many cases these configurations have a lower start speed ( as low as 4 mph), require less overall space and are more friendly to local birds.

The two most interesting sites on these types of turbines that I have found are:

BroadStar, an English firm: http://www.broadstarwindsystems.com/home.php

And Windside, a Finnish firm: http://www.windside.com/products.html

Lastly I have a recommendation for a book on the subject that I have ordered:

Wind Energy Basics by Paul Gipe: http://store.sundancesolar.com/wienbagutosm.html

This is subject I am continuing to follow and hope along with you that it advances significantly soon and becomes affordable to the masses.

As always I thank you for your time and interest. Please take the time to Digg, Stumble Upon or add to the other social network of your choice to help me spread the word about these issues. Please forward any questions or suggestions to: askthefm@gmail.com

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