INSIGHT
LEAF Engineers share their expertise in the field.
by Sean Elliston, P.E. The Challenge Addressing the needs of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is receiving increased attention. The outdoor air brought into the building comes with a cost, and enthalpy wheels provide a solution by exchanging the energy between the building’s exhaust air and incoming outdoor air. Enthalpy Wheel BENEFITS= LOW COST, BIG ENERGY...
The LEAF Fresno team has begun design on the New Terry Bradley Education Center for the Clovis Unified School District. The project will be a multi-phased project and ultimately house a new high school, middle school and elementary school at one site. The project will also contain a new 6,000 seat Student Activity Center to...
Jordan High School (HS#9), for Katy ISD, has recently received the award from the Associated Builders and Contractors of Greater Houston as the Top Educational Construction Project. Jordan High School placed first in the "Publicly Funded" category which evaluated the project based on safety, quality, ingenuity and workmanship. This was the third high school that LEAF...
What is it? Green building certifications provide a pathway for building owners to gain recognition of the emphasis on environmental management in their design. The development of Green Building Certifications began in the early 2000s with the launch of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system developed by the US Green Building...
What is it? A healthy building is designed to facilitate and measure the health and wellness of its occupants. Recent studies demonstrate the negative effects of health as a result of prolonged time spent indoors. Spending long amounts of time sitting in an office is now analogous to smoking cigarettes. Updates to the LEED rating...
What is it? One of the more common automation systems that is often used in schools is daylight harvesting. This approach to reducing electric light when daylight is available also has the benefit of reducing energy. Typical daylight harvesting systems use photosensors to detect the amount of daylight coming in through windows or on surfaces...
What is it? One of the fundamental ways to ensure that a building is operating as designed is a process called commissioning. Commissioning in its most simple form is ensuring that the building systems, including mechanical, electrical, and envelope, are properly installed and tested to achieve optimal performance per the specifications and owner’s requirements1. Ideally...
Carbon Monoxide (CO), an odorless, colorless byproduct of gas-fired heating equipment, is a toxic gas that leads to serious and potentially lethal health issues if allowed to accumulate within any building. If your facility includes natural gas furnaces, boilers, water heaters, and/or roof-top heating and air-conditioning units equipped with gas heat exchangers, there could be a risk of CO...
