Facility managers everywhere are tasked with improving energy efficiency to control costs. Those strides cannot be achieved at the expense of system performance and reliability, or the comfort of the people within those properties. There are few places where this is truer than in schools and universities. K-12 schools and university lecture spaces…

One of the fastest growing trends in school design is Net Zero Energy Schools. There are now at least a dozen or more schools completed or in construction that have achieved, or have committed to, this incredible level of energy efficiency. In this article, the author examines this trend and take a brief look at some of the exemplary projects that…

Reducing school district energy expenditures has become a universal goal. However, school board members, superintendents, and directors of buildings and grounds are often unaware of the many options available to conserve energy. School energy conservation used to be relatively simple: turn off the lights and turn down the heat in the winter and…

Operating facilities more efficiently is always a worthwhile goal, but when education budgets are shrinking, the quest for efficiency becomes a necessity. In the funding climate that schools and universities find themselves, building managers will be fortunate to hang on to the budget they have, let alone receive the resources they need to address…

A 2008 study by the management-consulting firm McKinsey & Co. projected that the world's data centers would surpass the airline industry in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Certainly adding to those emissions are K-12 districts, whose data centers hold the equipment that serves as the backbone for an ever-growing number of computing initiatives.…

Our community has faced many challenges since May 4, 2007. The rebuilding of all the town's school facilities was just one of them. However, as we approach the end of the first year in the new building, we are happy with the outcome. The facility already feels like home.

Displacement ventilation (DV) units use the natural buoyancy of warm air to improve ventilation and comfort. Although relatively new to the United States, DV has been used in Scandinavian countries since the 1970s. Two types of DV can be used in a classroom: (1) Conventional displacement ventilation (CDV) units which are situated on an interior…

Explore how melting ice sheets affect global sea levels. Sea-level rise (SLR) is a rise in the water level of the Earth's oceans. There are two major kinds of ice in the polar regions: sea ice and land ice. Land ice contributes to SLR and sea ice does not. This article explores the characteristics of sea ice and land ice and provides some hands-on…

From around the corner to around the nation, schools and universities are looking to reduce their energy bills. Some are concerned about fuel costs and the impact on their operating budgets; others are motivated by the desire to reduce their carbon footprints and their impacts on the environment. Professionally installed window film can play a key…

When schools and universities look at saving energy in their facilities, they are likely to review the efficiency of their heating and cooling systems, or the quality of their building envelopes. When facility managers focus attention on school bathrooms, they are more likely to consider issues such as cleanliness and safety as more critical than…

Education facilities managers are faced with a daunting set of challenges: They must find new ways to reduce energy consumption and carry out greener energy policies. HVAC typically accounts for more than 30% of a building's electricity costs, so there is a clear incentive to eliminate unnecessary heating and cooling of unoccupied rooms. With more…

In the past eight years, the design standards of classrooms have improved significantly. This movement was instigated by the introduction of the classroom acoustics standard in 2002 from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), in collaboration with the Acoustical Society of America. The standard, formally known as ANSI S12.60, has become…

Education institutions perpetually are challenged to deliver high-quality education with limited budgets. Part of an institution's success depends on finding creative solutions to reduce building operational costs and still provide an environment that promotes learning. With the recent spikes in energy costs and increased focus on environmental…

When the subject of buildings and daylighting arises, most people's thoughts will turn first to windows. To the uninitiated, it seems a simple formula: more windows, more daylight; fewer windows, less daylight. But designers know that effective use of daylighting in a building design involves more than just letting in light to otherwise darkened…

Every year, K-12 facilities waste millions of dollars in excess energy consumption. Those dollars may take the form of lost heat through walls, windows, doors, and roofs. Or the villain may be poorly conceived or mismanaged control systems. Those excess funds that districts are sending to the local utility companies could be invested "at home" to…