We all recognize LEED; it has been around now for some time. While there are several high performance accreditations available, earning LEED certification can provide significant value to a building owner — including energy savings, increased market appeal, and tenant or employee pride. However, for a renovation project, it’s not as easily achieved. Unforeseen additional… Read More
Summer Consultants Article Featured in The Military Engineer
Summer Consultants’ article “Improving Energy Savings Through Retrocommissioning” is featured in the March/April issue of SAME’s The Military Engineer magazine. The article, co-authored by Anne Juran and Jim Gawthrop, discusses the use of commissioning techniques to help reduce energy usage and costs in existing buildings. The article was included as part of the magazine’s energy… Read More
Brault Administration Building Earns LEED Silver
Six months after I started at Summer Consultants, I joined the design team to renovate and expand the Brault Building at the NVCC Annandale campus. The project had a goal of a LEED Silver rating. I had been very interested in sustainable technologies in college, and this was the first project that I would get to… Read More
I2SL Conference
Last week Amanda and I attended the I2SL (International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories) conference in Raleigh, NC. There were a broad range of individuals in attendance, including: government, university, and private labs users, health and safety, procurement, and facilities groups lab equipment vendors HVAC and controls equipment vendors sustainability champions architects and engineers The sessions… Read More
Chilled Water Piping Corrosion
When designing new systems or upgrades to existing systems, we are focused on equipment and system selection to prevent corrosion of the interior of hydronic piping systems. While this is important for system longevity, in real life there are widespread vapor barrier failures in almost every chilled water system, leading to leaks and failures caused… Read More