Green Buildings, Energy Efficient Construction Technologies

Green Buildings:

A concept which allows you to Design and build buildings so that they help in minimizing the consumption of earth’s resources helping maintain the ecosystem balance and in return save you money not just during construction but also year after year.

One of the main features of Green Building design is to save energy and water consumption during the life time of the building. It also involves using simple but cost and material saving techniques. It involves integrating modern science with traditional construction practices to achieve the most efficient, long lasting and comfortable building spaces.

It involves building planning and design which incorporates techniques and systems which help reduce consumption of electricity and water to an extent of 10% to 100%.

Energy Efficient walls

The first and the foremost planning involves designing the building as per the general seasonal variations and the location and movement of sun.

Thus providing windows and sunshades in such a manner that there is minimum sunlight falling during peak times on walls and windows during summers and the maximum sunshine entering and falling on walls during winters.

It also involves modifications in the ways the normal 9" brickwork is done creating internal hollow interconnected spaces. These spaces can now be filled with inorganic fireproof insulation materials.

We can also use these hollow interconnected spaces in walls to circulate air so as to either remove heat from walls or add heat during winters. Simple concepts which reduce the air-conditioning loads during summers to reducing heating loads during winters. We call them breathing walls.

It involves using insulated Cementous plasters rather than the normal wall plasters on outer walls facing the sun thus turning normal walls into insulated walls at a very nominal increase in initial cost.

Energy Efficient Roofs

A major source of heat entering the building is the roof todays RCC roofs quickly heat up a building during summers and cool it during winters, thus increasing the air-conditioning loads.

Thus, it involves evolving various procedures to insulate the roof and intermixing both traditional and modern systems of construction to achieve this.

Energy Efficient Windows Systems

Windows are a major component in buildings as they allow Light to enter inside the building and reduce the use of electrical lighting systems. But they also bring in heat.

Thus, it involves planning and designing the windows so as to allow the maximum light into the building while blocking the travel of heat through it.

It also involves designing the making of the windows so as to make the air tight when closed, and proper sealing of window glasses positioning of moldings etc.

It involves introducing insulated or energy efficient glazing systems in sun face windows.

Geothermal Heating & Air-conditioning

Earth is a major resource of all our needs but few know that it is also a thermal storage system. The temperatures inside earth do not change to a large extent due to variations in temperatures above ground. Thus, it is colder during summers and hotter during the winters. This aspect of earths thermal capacity is utilized to heat or cool buildings at the minimum cost.

Various systems are used to take the benefit of this aspect a few are briefly given below.

1. Circulating building air through a piping system laid below ground in such a manner as to reduce the temperature of returning air to the temperature below earth. These temperatures can vary between 20 Deg. C. to 27 Deg. C. Thus, during summers, the air gets cooled to these temperatures and during winters heats up the air to these temperatures. A very simple and low-cost solution.

2. Circulating water through a underground pipes heat exchanger and connecting it to a water to water air conditioning system. This allows us to extract the colder temperatures below earth and passing it through a air conditioning unit which extracts the cooler temperature and further cools it and supplies it to the building during summers. Thus, making the system very efficient and reducing energy bills drastically. This is done by using Geothermal heat pumps which chills during summers and heats during winters. This allows us to maintain a single temperature inside throughout the year and achieving cooling temperatures between 12 to 27 Deg. C.

3. Using Geothermal insulated thermal storage systems which can store cold or hot temperatures equivalent to the requirement of the building. This storage can be equivalent to the requirement for a day or to a month.

4. In large projects fresh air is a major consumer of energy and air-conditioning loads. This can again be reduced through geothermal heat exchange and storage systems where in colder temperatures from outgoing cold air are extracted and stored in a thermal storage medium and then imparted to fresh air entering through the geo exchange system. This can help reduce the initial air conditioning systems tonnage and thus its cost and the cost of Backup generators and electrical systems. And as a whole reduce the running costs.

Solar Power and Space heating

Solar energy has been used for a long time now only before the systems were heavily subsidized and now the subsidy component has been removed. But still with the advent of low energy CFL bulbs and the advent of LED lighting systems and 12 volts fans some planning can still make it viable. Solar pumps can circulate water from underground storage to above ground storage.

Thus, a comprehensive planning in advance as to use of energy efficient lighting systems at the right points in the building can reduce the initial cost on the solar system and save you recurring costs.

Solar water heating systems have again been available for a long time for use but there technology and systems have improved very much overtime and today at a very nominal cost you can very efficiently heat water even on semi cloudy days.

For places located in the colder regions Solar space heating systems for buildings can centrally heat the buildings for at least 80 to 95% of the year. and when combined with a thermal storage system can provide heating for nearly the full year at most places.

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