Category Archives: TASK AREAS

Thermal Imaging is So Hot Right Now

On Valentine’s Night, things “heated up” when the Mark Group performed Thermal Imaging on Building 661, the future headquarters of The Energy Efficient Buildings Hub at The Navy Yard.  The thermography test — basically, taking pictures that show infrared radiation — is an important part of the retrofitting process.  These images can help the team understand where heat leaks out of a building, which in turn informs decisions about the retrofit.

Before taking the pictures, Building 661 had to get warmed up (the goal is to have the indoor air temperature at least 30 degrees warmer than the outside air temperature).  With the power of 12 propane heaters, the interior of the building reached around 80 degrees Fahrenheit.  That way, the team could see what areas had the most heat loss. Outdoor conditions were around 38-43 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was a dry night.  These cool, dry conditions are ideal for thermography testing, since warmer or wetter conditions would provide skewed results and less contrast in the images. Pictures were taken using an A600 series FLIR camera, and emissivity (the measure of a surface’s ability to emit radiation) was preset to 0.95, which is standard for brick.

Here’s what the team found at Building 661:

• the current doors and windows allow warm air to escape at the edges (you can see the temperature escaping with the “warmer” colors in the images)

• At the Main Entrance (East Facing), heat loss is occurring through the roof and walls
• 

EEB Hub Profiles: Steven DiBartolo

Organization: Hill International, Inc. /Penn State University

Title: Vice President/Project Manager

Years with Organization: Five years

Past Professional Experience: 27 years of Construction, Project and Program Management.

Education: Bachelors of Architectural Engineering, Penn State University, 1980

Role within EEB Hub: Project manager for the renovation of future EEB Hub Headquarters Building 661 and construction of Building 7R, a classroom space for Penn State at The Navy Yard

EEB Hub Platform Kickoff Materials Available

The Energy Efficient Buildings Hub has launched building industry stakeholder groups to get critical feedback on our project work and to provide an organizational infrastructure to connect the EEB Hub with the regional marketplace. These groups, called Platforms, will be engaged to review, test, and in some cases pilot EEB Hub content and programs.

Since the beginning of the Hub’s work, member investigator appetite for engagement opportunities with local market actors to understand the sector’s current practices, tools, and readiness to innovate has grown. The stakeholder Platforms are intended to support learning, testing, and deployment of EEB Hub content by creating engagement opportunities. They are essential for Hub success, as they ensure that we are interacting with the market in an effective and organized manner.

If you’d like to become a member of one of the Platforms, we are always accepting applications. We balance membership to provide a good mix of industry representation: professional mix, firm size mix, skill mix. Membership requires the time commitment of to attend between 2-4 half day meetings per year. The four Platforms are:

1. Building Owners/Operators/ Occupants
2. Retrofit Architectural, Engineering, and Construction Firms
3. Retrofit Suppliers
4. Retrofit Education & Workforce

The May launch of the Platforms was planned with the goal to gain a better understanding of the customer experience and the most relevant challenges to participating in the energy retrofit market. The EEB Hub will use the meeting’s results to tailor its work moving forward. The feedback will also serve as a highly useful reference going forward to sharpen EEB Hub-wide project agendas. Over the two day kickoff, 125 market actors participated from a diverse group of public and private organizations. The agenda for both of the days separated the participants into four discussion groups focused on different components of the retrofit value chain:

1. Retrofit Project Initiation and Financing
2. Retrofit Design
3. Retrofit Construction
4. Retrofit Operations and Maintenance

The full report of the May 1 and 2 Platforms Kickoff is here. In addition, summaries for Owners, Operators and Occupants, Architects, Engineers and Construction Managers, Retrofit Suppliers, and Education and Workforce Providers are each available.

Are you Philly’s Greenest Innovator?

For the second year, SCA and Clean Air Council are excited to announce Greenfest Philly’s Green Innovators Program. SCA, one of Philadelphia’s most sustainable companies, is providing a scholarship fund for “Green Innovators” in Philadelphia at Clean Air Council’s Greenfest Philly event on Sept. 9, 2012. The Green Innovators program highlights businesses and organizations with ideas and products that are effective and on the forefront of sustainability in Philadelphia.

To nominate or apply to the Green Innovators Program, visit Greenfest Philly’s website at www.greenfestphilly.org. All selected Philly Green Innovators will be invited to exhibit for free at Greenfest ($500 value), present their product or idea on the main stage at the event and have Greenfest Philly attendees vote on their favorite Green Innovator. The attendee-selected winner of Philly Green Innovators will be announced on stage at the conclusion of Greenfest, featured in Clean Air Council’s upcoming newsletter and highlighted on Greenfest Philly’s website.

Philly Green Innovators scholarship application deadline is Monday, Aug. 29 at 5:00 p.m.
Greenfest Philly will be held on Sunday, September 9, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at Headhouse Square, 2nd and South Streets. It is Philadelphia’s largest environmental festival and free and open to the public. The goal of Greenfest Philly is to educate the public that being green is something we all can do.