Magazine

At a time when building maintenance budgets are under intense pressure, facilities managers could do worse than refer clients to the ongoing scandal over reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC). Hundreds of schools have had to close buildings and thousands of children have had their education disrupted. The crisis has spread to hospitals, prisons, and social…

It’s important for facilities to maintain quality drinking water and stormwater not only to protect public health but also to follow local, state, and federal regulations. Brian Davis, director of enterprise accounts of water quality testing for AQUALIS, gave a presentation titled “Understanding Water Quality Testing for Drinking Water & Stormwater” during Facilities Management Advisor’s…

The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has released a new guide focusing on the critical role of grid interactivity in the decarbonization process. The Grid-Interactive Buildings for Decarbonization: Design and Operation Resource Guide is the second in a series of guides developed by the ASHRAE Task Force For Building Decarbonization (TFBD) and provides information on…

According to the European Union Climate Change Service, the summer of 2023 was the hottest on record, coinciding with extreme weather events that have increased in severity over the past 30 years. Responsible for an estimated 39 percent of global energy-related carbon emissions, buildings present a significant opportunity for reductions. Specifically, 28 percent of these…

Offices have had to manage their own indoor air quality standards until recently. In the absence of guidelines and uniform benchmarks, providing a definitive answer to “is my indoor air quality good?” has been at best, subjective and at worst, impossible. Pre-COVID, unless it was an industry requirement, few people were likely asking how healthy…

Technology seems to advance at an hourly pace these days, with generative artificial intelligence (AI) seeing a significant uptick in use this year. Free and open tools such as ChatGPT and Google Bard have shown how generative AI can be used for learning, content generation, coding, and other tasks. This has prompted many industries and…