In This Issue: 

 - Guest Writer Fred Bauman on UFAD tool

 - NEW LEED EB: Operations and Maintenance

 - Air Zone AHUs on 2 Very Green Buildings

 - GHP to host Summit on Energy Future

 - LEED Certification at 73% of the Market

Fred Bauman, P.E.
Center for the Built Environment
University of California, Berkeley

Simplified Cooling Airflow Design Tool for UFAD Systems
By: Fred Bauman

  During the past ten years as underfloor air distribution (UFAD) has begun to demonstrate significant growth in new commercial office building construction in North America, the need for guidelines for making cooling airflow design calculations has been one of the most frequent requests among design engineers.  The challenge in this regard has been how to accurately account for differences between a stratified UFAD environment and the familiar well-mixed environment produced by a conventional overhead air distribution system.  Researchers at the Center for the Built Environment (CBE) have recently developed a simplified spreadsheet-based cooling airflow design tool for interior zones as part of CBE’s ongoing development of whole-building UFAD energy modeling tools [Bauman et al.  2007.  "Cooling Airflow Design Calculations for UFAD."  ASHRAE Journal , October].  The design tool predicts required cooling airflow rates and the amount of stratification in the occupied zone for a range of design conditions and two types of diffusers.  The tool accounts for heat transfer to the underfloor supply plenum, which can be a significant portion of the total cooling load.  Future versions of this tool, scheduled for completion later in 2008, will include support for the design of perimeter zones and a user interface.  For more information: cbe@berkeley.edu; www.cbe.berkeley.edu.

Welcome to Air Zone International'sFirst Newsletter! 
We hope that you find this information Insightful, Timely and Thought Provoking.
Air Zone International: The Future of Green Air Handling Solutions | 5220 Ted Street | Houston, TX 77040 | 713.460.4040 | www.airzoneinc.com

USGBC to Issue Updated LEED EB Standard

The USGBC, responding to critics of the current LEED EB standard and its low relative use, has modified (and improved) the requirements and will soon be accepting registrations to this new standard.  It is expected that the new LEED EB standard (now called "Operations and Maintenance") will have an even faster diffusion rate than LEED NC has realized. Among some of the changes include reducing the prerequisites from 15 to 9; revising the total credits to 34 and points to 92, respectively; and requiring a minimum level of 3 months whole building performance data to be submitted with the application.  The scope of certification must include the whole building (both the tenant and owner portions) and once a certificate is received it will be valid for 5 years.  LEED EB is becoming more and more important as building owners push to become green as evidenced by the fact buildings are responsible for 12% for all water use; 39% of all CO2 emissions; 65% for all waste output; and 71% of electrical consumption.  For more information visit the USGBC website link to LEED EB:    http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=221.  For more information on the LEED EB standard and certification process, plan on attending a seminar on Feb 27th sponsored by the IREM Houston Chapter - contact aevans@iremhouston.org for registration

Air Zone AHUs on 2 of the Greenest Buildings in North America

Air Zone Air Handling Units continue to be specified and installed in some of the greenest buildings in North America.  We are currently shipping units for installation at One Bryant Park in Manhattan (Bank of America—2.1M SF LEED Platinum) as well as Financial Center in Manhattan (2.1M SF—LEED Gold).  Both raised floor projects, the BofA project includes 220+ mixing Air Column Units while the Financial Center project involves 150+ environmental Air Towers with cooling coils.  Both projects intend on bettering ASHRAE 90.1:2004 by at least 35%.  For more information on these or other Air Zone International projects, please contact Carl Duke @ Cduke@airzoneinc.com or Andy Bergman @ abergman@airzoneinc.com

Join the GHP for a world-class event featuring a high-level energy symposium, summit and exhibition with world renowned presenters featuring leading energy suppliers, technologies and innovations.  Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton and Representative Ron Paul will discuss energy policy platforms before an international audience in the evening. For more information, contact ksmith@houston.org ; (713) 844-3694

Building Has Workers Health in Mind - See a Great Story by Melinda Spaulding (Fox 26 News) on Green Buildings!

LEED at 73% Market Share in Houston for New Office Buildings Under Construction

Of the approximately 8.6 Million square feet of Class A office space (buildings over 50,000 sf) currently being planned or under construction in Houston, over 6.2 Million SF of that is registered or planning to register for LEED certification (either New Construction (NC) or Core and Shell(CS)).  This represents a significant commitment that the City of Houston is going green!  At about 73%, this means that LEED NC has well surpassed the "critical mass point".  In fact, the only entities/sectors that have yet to adopt LEED on a large scale are smaller office developers, outlying communities, and the Retail, Health Care and K-12 Public School Sectors.  History has shown that these late adaptors will sooner or later adopt primarily from market pressures.  This is good news for the office brokers as much of this newly constructed space is speculative and will finally provide some green "product" for tenant representative brokers to show their clients.  It will also make it easier for tenants to achieve a LEED Commercial Interiors certification in a building that already has a LEED NC or CS certification.  It is believed that this 73% market share places the Greater Houston Area at or near the top of any major market in the US (for LEED Office NC/CS Adoption).

Welcome, Andy! We welcome Andy Bergman to Air Zone International as Vice President, Sales & Marketing.  Andy comes to us from McCoy Specialty Products where he spent 8 years in sales, marketing and management of underfloor air systems and demountable walls among other products.  Andy is a LEED Accredited Professional and brings a passion for Green Buildings and Under Floor Air Distribution and Organic Food.  If you want to spend hours upon hours in the kitchen and have nothing better to do, try these recipes: http://organictobe.org/index.php/category/recipes/

Sustainability Defined.  One of the most common definitions of "sustainability" is the one provided by the Brundtland Commission, led by the former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. The Commission defined sustainable development as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."