8A — May 31 - June 13, 2013 — Green Buildings — Mid Atlantic Real Estate Journal
www.marejournal.com
G reen B uildinGs
ith no hope of ever getting a reduction of the water rate, By Mark Bourbeau, Green cents solutions owners &mgrs. reduce water usage and educate tenants W
Creating the perfect environment
• MEP Design • Sprinkler Design • Commissioning • Energy Conservation and incentives
look into Aggressive fixtures to save the maximum amount of money. Rainwater/Graywater Every owner would like op- portunity to use water twice before it gets sent to the sewer. Arainwater system and a gray- water system can accomplish that. Rainwater systems basi- cally are a stormwater catch systemwhich brings rainwater from your roof to a holding tank. Once it’s stored the water is used to flush toilets. Asecond set of risers and some piping is needed. The water is treated to make it almost potable. This is great for retrofits and new construction. Graywater systems are more involved. You can reuse any wa- ter coming from showerheads and faucets. This water is held in a tank and is used for toilet flushing. This form of catch system is superior because you are not dependant on the rains. More piping is required so it would be difficult for retrofits but possible. New construction is a more suitable application for this type of system. These systems become valu- able as water becomes more expense and helps the reservoir in times of drought. Using this system insures that your build- ing would be flushing for free. solar thermal Solar thermal does not re- duce the amount of water being used. This addresses another
problem for building owners. The amount of money being spent on heating water for the winter. Solar thermal is a great complimentary product which helps your boiler make hot water. The sun heats the solar panels on your roof. The heat transfers to a solution which gets pumped to a domestic water tank, heating the water to 105 degrees. The efficiency is what makes solar thermal so attractive. It works at a 80% efficiency, to PV’s 14%. Solar thermal units reduce Oil and Natural Gas consumption. The payback on most Solar Thermal applications is around 7 years. With many states expect- ing water shortages as soon as 2015, the price of water will only grow higher in the Tri-state area. Other city man- dates will be coming into effect. Property owners will need to track their water usage and en- courage tenants to save water. We have to make the tenants a part of the solution because they are ones using the water. We should educate them in the problems and inform them about whatever is put in the building in order to make them apart of the solution. Water conservation will become vital to the long term health of prop- erty owner’s survival. Mark Bourbeau is presi- dent of Green cents solu- tions in Pelham, ny. n
real estate owners must look into re- ducing usage and educat- ing the ten- an t s . Th i s can be done by investigat- ing the use of
PO Box 782, Voorhees, NJ 08043 P: 856-988-1890 Email: info@gilbeauxassociates.com www.gilbeauxassociates.com Contact: Jeff Gilbeaux
Mark Bourbeau
low flow fixtures, rainwater/ gray water systems, solar ther- mal, fixing leaks and educating tenants about the matter. Low-Flow Fixtures The majority of the usage in a building can be attributed to tenant use. The idea is to give them the opportunity to use less through fixtures. Aggres- sive low-flow fixtures can dra- matically reduce building wa- ter usage, while maintaining or even improving the experience provided to tenants. Building owners need to demand to the lowest flow possible available from their suppliers. There are products that are far superior in usage compared to products that are WaterSense certified. Some of them actually are twice as effective in terms of usage and performance. Most of these fixtures are already being used by large facilities such as stadiums, parks and airports. If large facilities have done it, it would make sense to commercial property owners to
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