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Retrofitting Your Office or Propertyby Melissa P. Nelson New computer modeling programs and advanced technology in analyzing energy consumption and building designs are at the heart of EIC, Inc., Lancaster and Lawrence Dinoff Associates (LDA), Strasburg. Helping building owners and developers retrofit their existing buildings for better energy efficiency by the EIC/LDA team is being achieved through multiple steps in an overall consulting plan. One of the first steps in deciding if a retrofit project will help the building owner realize savings as well as pay for itself in a short time is a project qualification. This step analyzes the building's physical use properties and its historical energy consumption data. "Using our archives of other, similar buildings and knowing how they operate, we can compare the building in question and ask, 'Does this building perform at an acceptable level?'" Dinoff says. "We also want to know how many BTUs per square foot per heating degree day the building used." The real question then is, can retrofits achieve payback in the time the owner desires, taking into account the actual physical situation at the building. Advances in computer modeling have also been a boom for LDA in their search for accurate analyses. "It used to be that we manually had to draw up specifications and plug them into models. Then we had to send those figures off for computer analysis," Dinoff says. "Today, with the link-ups we have with mainframe computers through PCs, we are able to do that work a lot faster," he adds. The computer modeling considers a number of factors such as skin transmission and solar influences of a building, window and door transmission and solar influences, infiltration, and occupant-generated internal loads. Dinoff's computer program accounts for errors that some other typical programs do not. It not only allows for errors, it also predicts their outcome on bottom-line performance, according to Dinoff. Using the computer model, EIC/LDA can show and select energy consumption measurements without ever going into the field. On-site instrumental analysis of buildings and their energy consumption are also done. This physical investigation locates and quantifies points of maximum energy use with precision never before possible, according to Ed Carr, president of EIC, Inc. Diagnostic testing includes building pressurization for air infiltration testing, infrared thermography, and system flow-rate measurements. The conclusions of computer modeling and on-site testing help provide building owners or developers with proposed retrofits, financial impact of their findings and helps in discussion on alternative financing sources. Some retrofit projects can be done with special state grants. EIC is then responsible for actual retrofit projects that have been decided upon. Continual testing is done by EIC to determine the accuracy of the retrofit. At the Helfrich Springs Apartment project, EIC's retrofit plans included sealing the air paths between conditioned and unconditioned spaces and the outdoors. Air leakage was reduced by making air-tight seals at the opening of duct connections in the existing supply and return duct systems. Carr and Dinoff agree that with better building diagnostic tools, sophisticated instrumentation and computer technologies, the building owner can evaluate energy investments as part of his overall business plan with new heightened accuracy. Central Penn Business Journal -- April 1989 Reprint |
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