A casement is a window that is attached to the frame on the side with one or more hinges. They are more air tight than double hung windows due to the door like construction. The windows are often operated with a crank or lever.
A double-hung window is one that has two sashes that are able to move up and down. These windows are harder to make air tight due to the connection when closed between the top and bottom sash.
Windows can be made of vinyl, fiberglass, or wood. There can also be combination materials such as a fiberglass clad wood window. These are wood on the inside and fiberglass on the exterior.
Some of the qualities that should be looked at when selecting a window is the Design Pressure, U-Factor, and Solar Heat Gain Coefficient.
Design pressure rating measures the amount of pressure a door or window will withstand when closed and locked. The higher the DP numbers the better the performance.
U-factor correlates to the rate of heat transfer. The lower the number the better a window is at keeping heat inside the structure.
Solar Heat Gain Coefficient measures how well a product blocks heat from the sun. In warm climates, the lower the number the better. In cold climates you want a higher number to allow the heat into your structure.
HVAC stands for the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning system in your home or business. The system should be able to heat and cool your home to create a comfortable living environment. It should also have a source for bringing in fresh air and to control humidity. An HVAC system is designed by a mechanical engineer based on the principles of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer.
An effective HVAC system will keep the fresh air in your home comfortable and healthy. A proper ventilation system has air filtration that removes toxins from the indoor environment. A properly designed system should include a ventilation strategy as well as heating and cooling capacity. Ventilation includes both the exchange of air to the outside and the circulation of air inside the thermal envelope. Keeping your home green and your energy bills low starts with clean air.
Air Infiltration – The uncontrolled inward air leakage through cracks and holes in the building envelope and around windows and doors of a building. Its typically caused by the pressure effects of wind and/or the effect of differences in the indoor and outdoor air density. This can be a garage door opening or even a light breeze against a garage door, a forced air heating and cooling system, or unbalanced pressures room to room in a home.
This time of year, comfort issues in your home are highlighted while we all try to stay warm. A breeze running down a wall, under a door, or from an attic access makes it really hard to be comfortable. This comfort issue is a big signal that you have energy-efficiency issues in your home. Finding the leaks and plugging the leaks will not only make your home more comfortable, it will reduce your monthly electric bills. The best way to find the leaks is doing a blower door test and using thermal imaging technology. However, a smoke stick or even a candle can identify the big leaks.
The average American spends a large amount of their time indoors in our current society (according to an EPA survey, 90% of our time is inside). This makes the Indoor Environmental Quality of your built environment critical. This is the air that you breathe, the type of light, the sounds, and the comfort you feel.
Indoor air quality is impacted by carbon monoxide, radon, VOC’s, particulates, mold, bacteria, and smoke. I just had a meeting in my office this week where those visiting came in just as the lawyer upstairs went out with his pipe lit and no respect for others. If your HVAC system is not designed to provide ventilation all the products and their associated chemicals you bring into your space off-gas and have nowhere to go. In turn your lungs become the filter for these chemicals.
The type of lighting you use for a space is critical for your comfort. It does not matter is you use LED or incandescent, using it in the correct way is more important for comfort. Of course, bringing in natural daylight into a space has been shown in many studies to be the best for your health. This may not apply depending on the task you are performing – ever try to see a computer screen that faces a window? Of course you can create appropriate lighting in spaces through design.
In our office it seems that headphones are the way to go, but I remember back when I started we simply played a radio in the background. The level and type of noise in a space can have a huge impact on your environmental quality. Living near a heavily used road, airport, or nightclub impacts how your able to rest and recharge. I know I rarely go to the restaurant across the street from my office because the music is always so loud – yes I realize that this makes me old. You can control the noise in a space through design.
The average American family of four uses 400 gallons of water per day. On average 70% of that water is used indoors with bathrooms being the largest contributor. Older toilets use as much as 3.5 – 7 gallons with each flush while standard models use 1.6 gallons or less. The good news is that WaterSense labeled toilets only use 1.28 gallons per flush. Through water conservation the average household can cut total water usage by 60-70%.
Water Conservation takes into account activities to manage fresh water resources, protect the water environment, and to meet current and future demand for fresh water.
Strategies for water conservation include low-flow shower heads, low-flow toilets, composting toilets, dual flush toilets, faucet aerators, rainwater harvesting, efficient washers, and in ground irrigation systems.
Recycling is the universal sign of “going green.” It is a process that takes a waste material and converts it to a new product, thus reducing the consumption of raw materials, potentially reducing energy usage, and diverts materials from a landfill. Recycling is not only a great way to save our planet but a spectacular way to save money.
Recycled materials include wood, glass, metal, paper, plastic, electronics, and even fly ash. These materials used in a new product are counted as “Recycled Content.” There are two types of recycled content: “Pre-Consumer” and “Post-Consumer.”
Recycling should not be confused with composting, which is a great way to further reduce the amount of trash going to a landfill. To learn more about composting click HERE.
Pre-Consumer materials are generated by manufacturers and processors, and may consist of scrap, trimmings, and other by-products that were never used in the consumer market.
Post-Consumer material is an end product that has completed its life cycle as a consumer item and would otherwise have been disposed of as a solid waste. Post Consumer materials indicates the product was made with these materials that were recycled by residents and other businesses. Post consumer materials can introduce contaminants into the stream of products which makes recycled material harder to manufacture than pre-consumer or virgin raw materials. Additionally, items like paper and plastic have raw materials that degrade in quality each time it is recycled.
Recycling has become more of a challenge over the last few years with global supply chain changes. While the total amounts of products being recycled continue to grow, it is harder to find a place to send everything, for example, #3-#7 plastic, and manilla envelopes with interior plastic cushions cannot currently be recycled in Harrisonburg. On the other hand, more products are now readily available that are made from recycled content materials, such as plastic lumber for park benches, picnic tables, and lawn furniture. Newspapers are commonly recycled into building insulation, construction paper, and even countertops. So as you are thinking about whether to throw it away or recycle it, think about how that small decision, multiplied over a year’s worth of trash, can impact our future.
HVAC stands for the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning system in your home or business. The system should be able to heat and cool your home to create a comfortable living environment. It should also have a source for bringing in fresh air and to control humidity. An HVAC system is designed by a mechanical engineer based on the principles of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer.
The average American family of four uses 400 gallons of water per day. On average 70% of that water is used indoors with bathrooms being the largest contributor. Older toilets use as much as 3.5 – 7 gallons with each flush while standard models use 1.6 gallons or less. The good news is that WaterSense labeled toilets only use 1.28 gallons per flush. Through water conservation the average household can cut total water usage by 60-70%.
