Tuesday, March 5th, 2:00PM – 5:00 PM
Each half-day workshop receives 3 continuing education units from the following professional organizations: AIA, BPI, GBCI, InterNACHI, NAHB, and NARI. To receive your credits, you must sign in at the beginning of each workshop.
Commercial Passive House Design Principles
Workshop Speaker: Adam Cohen, Structures Design/Build
Description: We will explore the basic principles of commercial Passive House Design and give an overview of commercial concepts and how they differ from residential projects. We will undertake an exploration of three commercial building types: Standard, Complex and Special. Case studies of both European and US commercial projects will be presented. There will be a hands on exercise to help attendees put into practice the ideas presented. Attendees should have familiarity with basic Passive House Design Principles.
Fundamentals of Energy and Buildings: Calculating and Understanding Heating Loads
Workshop Speaker: Peter Temple, Keene State College
Description: This workshop will give all participants the basic knowledge and skills to understand and do heating load calculations for a simple building. No previous knowledge or experience is required. We will accommodate those with somewhat more advanced knowledge by dividing into working groups as appropriate, with assistant instructors helping each group. Participants will not only learn the basics, but will gain experience by calculating, evaluating, and comparing heat loads for a few different types of buildings. We will explain and use simple hand calculation methods as a useful tool for analyzing various design options. Related energy principles, concepts, and their corresponding calculations will be demystified and practiced.
Getting Real About Primary Energy – What it Means for Passive House Standards in North America
Workshop Speaker: Katrin Klingenberg, Passive House Institute of US
Description: It’s becoming essential that architects, engineers, consultants and builders of ultra efficient homes such as passive houses understand the difference between site energy and primary energy to optimize their designs for what matters most: the environment. “Site energy” is the energy consumption of a building as measured at the building; “primary energy” is the total energy required to generate and deliver that site energy to the building, and can be a factor of three or more times the site energy, depending on location. In other words: site energy is what the ratepayer cares about; primary energy is what the environment cares about. The current European passive house primary energy guidelines fall short here in North America because they are not region- or climate-specific. As a result, they may favor solutions that lead to higher primary energy consumption counteracting the goal of reducing carbon as much as possible. This workshop will explain the nuances of calculating primary energy; demonstrate how fuel choice and geographic region can have dramatic impacts on site versus primary energy; suggest how the current passive house standards and practices can be improved to deliver better primary energy results; and increase your knowledge of design strategies for optimization for primary energy and consequently for carbon in a passive house.
Lessons Learned from High Performance Buildings: What Went Wrong?
Workshop Speakers: Scott Greenbaum, Greene Energy Consultants, LLC; Steve Di Giacomo, EMA – Energy Management Associates, Inc.
Description: We will review numerous projects we have commissioned, retro-commissioned, and energy audited and illustrate common issues we have witnessed in design, implementation, and control strategies that have resulted in high energy consumption and therefore poor performance. The session will start with our definition of High Performance Buildings and a surprising list of ones that are and ones that are not. We will review common mistakes with VAV systems, CO2-based demand control ventilation, over-sizing equipment, simultaneous heating and cooling, EMS controls, EMS specifications, Sequences of Operation, Trend Logs, etc. We will show how we corrected these common mistakes and provide some common sense ways to avoid them.
Structural Detailing for Energy Efficient Building Envelopes
Workshop Speaker(s): Jim D’Aloisio, Klepper, Hann & Hyatt; Russ Miller-Johnson, Engineering Ventures, Inc.
Description: This workshop will provide practitioners state-of-the-art strategies to minimize thermal energy losses caused by structural elements in the building envelope. This is a topic that frequently gets mentioned as problematic in terms of improving building energy efficiency, but has never been comprehensively addressed in the U.S. We’ll cover detailing strategies, design techniques, new developments in advanced practice, and the current state of ongoing research. The material is based on Jim and Russ’ work with the Structural Engineering Institute’s Thermal Bridging Task Committee. At the end we’ll have a Structural Detail Jam Session to critique some good, bad, and problem conditions. Bring your details!
Trade Secrets for Getting to Deeper Savings in Commercial Buildings
Workshop Speaker(s): Kendra Tupper and Coreina Chan, Rocky Mountain Institute.
Description: This workshop will provide a working understanding of principles and tools for realizing cost effective deep energy savings in existing commercial buildings, by engaging attendees in interactive learning activities. Specific content focus areas include: Integrative whole-systems design, right-timing, bundling measures to capture savings, life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) and making the business case. This workshop will feature RMI’s “Deep Retrofit Scenario Game.” This is a dynamic team exercise in which participants evaluate a simple retrofit prospectus in order to explore the application of key concepts such as establishing performance-based goals, bundling integrated energy efficiency measures (EEMs), tunneling through cost barriers and identifying key triggers and right-timing indicators.
Advanced PV Design for Practitioners
Workshop Speakers: Steven Strong, Luke McKneally, Pat Retelle and Robert Erb, Solar Design Associates
Description: This workshop compares system and component efficiencies – which hardware and systems configurations work best for different project types – as well as how to match an inverter with an array, solar access, grid interconnection, code compliance, disconnects, fusing, labeling, grounding and ground faults, fire safety issues, common errors to avoid, system commissioning and outlook for the PV marketplace through 2016.
