Magazine

As the cost of energy rises, energy efficiency is more important than ever. Here’s how to work toward net-zero energy buildings. The cost-of-living crisis has seen energy prices continue to rise, with many organizations in the US now seeing monthly energy bills up 9 percent from February last year. The sting in the tail is…

  There are two main ways in which fire fighters currently receive information about fire protection features and construction types of a building they are responding to. The first is from a pre-incident plan (see NFPA 1620 for information about pre-incident planning) which is available as a result of prior building inspection and the second…

  Throughout my years as a safety professional, there are specific compliance issues that are found at almost every manufacturing facility. Those issues usually lie in the production or operations departments and the maintenance shop. Here are the four I encounter most often: Guards on bench/pedestal grinders: Since the abrasive wheel is continuously diminishing due…

  Accelerometers, in general, are the most common sensor type for measuring industrial vibrations, but you might wonder why there are so many options. A short and unsatisfying answer is that accelerometers are designed for precise measurements, and that design must account for a lot of variables to ensure the highest level of reliability. It’s…

  Refrigerant leaks are a common occurrence, whether it’s from a supermarket pack, walk-in freezer or air conditioning system, and if it’s been picked up by an expensive third-party external leak detection system, then the leak has already occurred and the refrigerant has been lost. However, most sites don’t have these alert systems for when…

  Over 50 years ago, Milton Friedman wrote an article that sustainability advocates like myself love to hate. He wrote that the social responsibility of business is “to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom.” (My…

  It is a well-documented fact that the price of engineered carbon removal projects is currently prohibitively high, with the eye-watering costs of building and operating direct air capture (DAC) and other projects that remove carbon dioxide directly from the air a major barrier to the nascent sector’s development. It is equally well understood that…

  Being proactive in long-term maintenance planning helps ensure priorities aren’t constantly competing against each other for funding. Planning for, and keeping up with, facility maintenance can be complex and time-consuming, especially for owners with large building footprints. There can be competing priorities, including users with strong opinions about what should be addressed, and limited funding…

  New buildings are sexy. They allow architects to explore aesthetic ideas and enable sustainability experts to test carbon-free renewable energy. But there’s one big problem: From-the-ground-up buildings are carbon intensive—the extraction of materials, the processing of those materials into building components, construction vehicle emissions and so on. It’s almost a cliché in our industry,…

Restrooms are visible evidence of the overall standards in a building, and with the continuing heightened awareness around hygiene in buildings, restroom upgrade projects are moving up in priority. In research conducted by Zurn Water Solutions into the impact of COVID-19 on the restroom experience, respondents ranked “touching fixtures” as their top concern in public…