Elemental

These are my links for May 5th through May 11th:

• BREEAM: BREEAM Extranet – Elements of the BREEAM Extranet are now available to all with a public log-in option – loving how BREEAM are continuing to open up to all.
• Multiple monitors boost productivity by 35.5% | 18 Feb 2009 | ComputerWeekly.com – Some bias in that Fujitsu have an interest in selling more screens, but good to see some data on something I've suspected a long time (and I'm still hankering after Terry Pratchett's 6 screen set up): "Employees can perform a typical knowledge-sector job much more efficiently at a three-display workspace than at a conventional one, according to a laboratory survey by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO), supported by Fujitsu.
  Fujitsu said this is particularly relevant for jobs where digital information has to be processed very frequently, as is the case for scientists, editors, engineers or insurance company employees.
  Overall, the study showed that larger screen areas increase productivity, and with the three-display workspace interconnected to form one desktop, Fraunhofer IAO scientists recorded increases in productivity of 35.5%."
• Andrew Winston – " I have a new book coming out this summer called Green Recovery. It focuses on going green in hard economic times. It lays out ways to get lean quickly, which can help companies survive today and preserves capital to invest in people and innovation. This plan can prepare companies to emerge from the downturn in a much better competitive position.
  My publisher is making a core part of the book available for free now. You can download my special report here:
  www.tinyurl.com/WinstonReport
  This pdf includes the introduction and the core chapter on getting lean. The other chapters on how the green wave is evolving, and how to get smart, get creative, and get (your people) going will be out by August in the full book."
• Andrew Winston: Is Bjorn Lomborg Dangerous or Helpful? – "Lomborg has a long habit of tilting at windmills that he mostly imagines. His most famous argument is that we shouldn't prioritize climate change over other pressing social priorities like poverty alleviation — as if they're all separate. The poorest people in the world are energy poor and don't have access to clean water — the two biggest environmental challenges of our time. He's always setting up false tradeoffs to establish his more "reaonsable" middleground…
  Lomborg's arguments are more subtle than he usually gets credit for. Probably 75% of what he says is dead on — but that's what makes him so dangerous. It's the other 25% that gets us in trouble."
• Ben Casnocha: The Blog: Procrastiflation: Procrastination + Inflation – I'm a procrastiflator!: "The longer a task goes un-completed, the harder it is to do it.
  If you say you're going to call John Doe on Monday, and you don't, and you continue to procrastinate on Tuesday, and then Wednesday, it becomes harder and harder with each passing day to ever complete the task."
• Dave Gorman: Limescale – Hilarious post from Dave Gorman in which he fixes the economy by rerouting hard water from London to Scotland.
• Commissioning strategy to be included in revisions to Part L – Building Sustainable Design – "The proposed changes to Part L were due to come into effect in April 2010, but this target is now likely to be missed. A government spokesman said the April date “is becoming increasingly challenging and the revisions to the regulations could be put back to October 2010”."
• Wales introduces green building standard – PlanningResource – A sign of things to come for the rest of the country? "Housing developers will have to meet the Code for Sustainable Homes Level 3 while non-residential buildings will need to achieve the BREEAM ‘Very Good’ standard.
  The legislation will come into effect on 1 September 2009.
  Davidson said: "I am determined to use the planning system to move towards zero-carbon buildings. We need to do everything we can to make new buildings, from our homes through to our offices, as environmentally friendly as possible. The new policy will play a key role in achieving this.""
• Defra, UK – Sustainable Development – Need to write a sustainable policy? "The Stretching the Web tool was developed with the aim of helping practitioners to integrate Sustainable Development into their policy making as well as project or programme work. The web is a simple graphic that allows you to easily explore a broad range of key positive and negative impacts."
• Aecom buys Savant to boost European presence – Building – More familiar names go, as AECOM assimilates Faber Maunsell and EDAW further – now to be known as AECOM Europe. Follows the news that Whitby Bird now to be known only as Ramboll.

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In a follow up to this post, I went on to the BSJ site and in the feedback form asked for RSS feeds.  Unbeknownst to me, they had already sneaked them in without my noticing!  The feed can be found here. (edit 13 Feb 2009: the BSJ archives are now available on the BSD website, as are the BSD feeds)

It is not widely publicised on the site (in fact I can’t find the route from the front page), and they aren’t yet using the orange box symbol which seems to be the current standard, but I’m very happy to see the feed.

The email suggested that all publications in the stable had RSS feeds.  I shall hunt them out and if successful, let you all know.

mel starrs Uncategorized Knowledge, News, Productivity, Resources

Now I know I am probably the only person out of the 17,000+ CIBSE members who uses RSS and I have complained in the past about the lack of feeds for the news area of the CIBSE site.  But never let it be said that I complain without seeking solutions.  To the right of the screen, approximately where the Jobs section used to be is the RSS feed for the CIBSE news page.

Being the persistent nuisance that I am, I went to the very useful website, FeedYes.  I added the news page from the CIBSE website, imported it into my Google Reader and then used the public sharing function to add the clip to my sidebar.  Consider it a public service. I might do the same for BSJ if that isn’t violating any copyright issues (Phil?).

mel starrs Uncategorized CIBSE, Google, News

Thanks to Mark for this one:

“our assessment is supposed to be a purely visual one. We are not obliged to be thorough.”

Steve Younger, HIP provider

Oh dear.  As anyone who has ever tried to do a post construction heat loss calculation for any building built before 1985 will know, it is a minefield of supposition and estimation.  Which is not to say that the calculation shouldn’t be done.  Within the SAP methodology there are ways of making fair assumptions on building construction.  The issue in this case appears to be the availability and the applicability of information which would improve the building’s rating.

There is of course a bigger issue at hand here.  Does a few weeks training and a certificate prepare individuals (who may have no previous experience of assessing buildings except for dwelling in them) to make what are essentially judgement calls?  Obviously not.  Those who would be qualified to do so are in too short supply.  So the methodology needs to be absolutely water tight, with no room for subjective opinion.  Which devalues the process in itself.  Sigh.  We’ve got ourselves into a bit of a pickle with this one haven’t we…

The fact that the two assessors in the article got different answers would lead me to conclude that the methodology (or the delivery of the training of the methodology – it would be interesting to find out if the 2 inspectors were qualified with different providers) is insufficiently ‘idiot-proof’.

Of course, there is an opportunity screaming out here – differentiate yourself above the rest of the pack, charge a few quid more and market yourself as a ‘thorough’ HIP inspector, unlike poor Mr Younger.

mel starrs Uncategorized Green Building, News, Steve Younger

Germaine Greer (yes, the feminist) has solved the world’s building problems with just over 1000 words. In the Guardian. Why? I have no idea what purpose this serves. Plus Jane Jacobs said it all a lot better and with significantly greater authority.

Germaine might want to think about physics and math, too:

Following Lloyd Wright’s basic concept of the tree/house, we begin with the tap root that anchors the structure to the earth; this can be used for geothermal heating, hugely reducing the building’s carbon footprint as well as the cost of living in it. The height of the building stands in direct relation to the depth of its tap root, at a ratio of about 10:1. The building could be covered with photovoltaic cells that provide more than sufficient power for all the residents’ needs, the surplus of which, fed back into the grid, would provide income for essential maintenance.

Germaine, have you heard of shadows and orientation?

What is it about the industry that invites opinion from outsiders? What do they think we are all doing here? Staring out the window, waiting for Germaine to uncover FLW’s masterstroke of genius? Hmphhh.

edit: BTW, I’m not disagreeing with the message of building upwards, necessarily. I just object to sloppy journalism touting PV and geothermal as salves without proper quantification.

mel starrs Uncategorized Germaine Greer, Green Building, Jane Jacobs, Lloyd Wright, News, the Guardian

Among my (many) past employers, I have 2 stints at Babtie, both before Jacobs took over.  Reading this in the Times, it could easily be about any of the larger engineering firms in the UK.  There seems to be a certain size in a company’s life when common sense fails to prevail over corporate bureaucracy:

It (Jacobs Babtie) has told staff at its 36 offices across Britain that they must drive or use public transport. They can use bicycles only if they are working away from roads, such as on canal towpaths.

In an e-mail to all employees, a copy of which has been obtained by The Times, the company’s health and safety manager says: “It’s patently obvious that if you are struck by a wayward vehicle when you are on a bicycle or motorbike you are going to be more severely affected than if you were in a car. The reason for this policy is to protect our employees from other vehicles on the road.

There will be a few limited exceptions when employees will be permitted to travel by bicycle, but that would be when that mode of transport is required to undertake the job, for example, carrying out surveys along river banks and tow paths.”

The ban on cycling on company business has infuriated several staff, who have been cycling without any serious safety incidents for years. They believe the ban is partly the result of conditions in the company’s insurance policy. The e-mail acknowledges that staff are unhappy about the ban and admits it “could be construed as being at odds with our environmental policy and the requirement to be environmentally responsible”.

It also acknowledges the concerns among employees that the company will lose important contracts because the ban “will not please our environmentally friendly clients”.

Sadly, it’s not an April Fool nor a Dilbert cartoon.

mel starrs Uncategorized Britain, Engineering, insurance policy, News, the Times, United Kingdom

I’m going to have to change all my rss feeds from TheyWorkForYou.com.  Except for Yvette who now has a seat in parliament “when required”, which sounds like when they need someone to point and shout at (or maybe they’re being kind and relieving her of the tedium of having to attend all the time). 

The question is will any of them write a blog, like David Miliband has been?

mel starrs Uncategorized David Miliband, Hazel, Hilary, News, Ruth, Yvette

I’m a bit very late in commenting on this, but the inevitable delay to HIPs has been announced.  The government’s phased roll requires HIPs for properties with four or more bedrooms from 1 August, followed by three-bed homes once 2,000 energy assessors have qualified, and all homes when 3,000 have qualified.

On 22 May NHER made this statement:

mel starrs Uncategorized accredited energy assessors, Energy, energy assessors, energy bills, energy performance certificates, European Union, Friends of the Earth, News, Part L, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Sustainability, United Kingdom

Using 8 criteria, universities have been ranked on Environmental performance.

Leeds Met comes out top with 85% of energy coming from renewables, Queens in Belfast is joint 5th, and Leeds Uni is joint 8th.  Bradford gets a 2.1 with joint 16th place and 59% of waste recycled.

mel starrs Uncategorized energy coming, News, People and Planet University Green League, renewables, statistics, Sustainability

Catching up on gossip, I have come across the following highlights:

• Low Carbon Kid has a hilarious parody of carbon offsetting here (fart jokes aplenty).  He then goes on in later posts to do a dressing down of the new Energy White Paper (he’s very anti-nuclear with some well reasoned arguments).
• LCC can earn 10% more than fellow CIBSE members (via isite).  I would love to know where CIBSE got their facts from?  Has anyone from CIBSE surveyed you on what you currently earn?  Not me, anyway.
• As well as the Energy White Paper, a planning white paper is out too.  Much comment made on that around the blogosphere.

I’ll have something on HIPS and EPC soon…

mel starrs Uncategorized CIBSE, News