I've been remiss in posting. I intend to correct this. Relaunch during Greenbuild. Today I'm attending the monthly meeting of the MN chapter of ASHRAE. The subject is radiant cooling and the speaker is from Uponor. I am most interested in the case studies but I did hear of another low mass radient cooling system called capillary radient cooling. Interesting.

Lots of professional graphics. Good presentation for newbies.

Thursday will be speaking at the MN AIA convention on our work with building benchmarking.

Food thought or at least for lunch

April's Gourmet magazine brought a recipe I wanted to try. (BTW - I only get this because I got it free with some purchase at Amazon) It was actually in an advertisement for a new food show and it was for a 6 minuite pizza dough. I was intrigued and hungry at lunch time so I thought I would try it. First since it was for only me I halved the ingredients - 7/8 cup of flour some salt sugar olive oil and a teaspoon of rapid rise yeast mixed with water to make a wet dough in the food processor, the wetness mixes everything up well. Then add in a bit of flour to make it workable.Roll out really thin, brush with more olive oil and put on a preheated gas grill for a couple of minuites. Flip and put some toppings on and you have a super thin crisp crust pizza, sort of Neopolitian style. Good and fast.




















I have been sick the last two weeks with the flu - I had hoped to keep it off as I was sick in January, but no such luck. This also seems to be the busiest time in my business life in a few months, it weems I'm on the run for the next month. Off to Omaha with Steve McNeill this week. Then prep for a couple speaking engagments next week. I'm really excited about trying to use some new style no bullet point presentation techiques but it's going to take me awhile to get the style integrated into the existing presentations.

Warm?

It's been cold this week. Twenty below zero most mornings warming up to zero or so during the day. It's been beautiful though, super blue sky and water, clear sunny skys, with the big Lake calm with ice chunks floating by. It's funny how you get kind of used to the cold though. Gloves, scarf, hat where ever you go. Hit the seat warmers just as soon as the car is started. Keep a fire going in the wood stove. Throw on a jacket just to take the dog out before bed.


Yesterday morning it was only zero when I woke up. I laughed at my self out at the end of the driveway getting the paper. There I was, no hat, no scarf, no gloves, not even a zipped up jacket. It felt so warm! Later in the day the sun really warmed things up and we saw 20 above. Some of the snow along the sidewalks was even softening up.

It was a beautiful sunrise this morning. I find that I am driven a bit by the sun. I much prefer it when I can wake with the sun. Having it light in the sky when I'm walking out to my car at the end of the work day is great, too. We were out to one of our local watering holes last night to celebrate Aliceon's birthday with some friends - what a fun time - tomorrow we are off to Lutsen's Sea Villas to hang out for a few days as a continuation of the celebration.

Tuna begone

It is a sad thing, but I have come to the conclusion that I have to reduce or eliminate most sushi grade tuna from my life. Its so good and yummy, but the cost to the environment for much of the blue fin tuna has risen to the level (or is it that the cost has always been there, I just wasn't aware of it) where I feel I must change my behavior. There have been a number of articles and pieces about this issue so for some time I have been a bit nervious about this. On Valentine's Day, Aliceon and I were talking about a wonderful tuna taco she had enjoyed at the Scenic Cafe. She said my face just turned so serious she knew something was up. We had a discussion into my thoughts about this issue and my getting a bit more nervous about eating tuna.

Then on Friday I heard the portion of Science Friday (NPR) that discussed ocean health. One of the speakers thinks there should be a moratorium on bluefin fishing. I guess that enough for me, so now I'm on a quest to find a sustainable sushi choice.

Time passes and the cold is back.

Yesterday morning was a great day to be out in Zone 3, in the 20's with a little light snow falling. Aliceon and I took the dogs out into the woods and the Schmidt Creek for a short walk. It was just a great time. You can hear water running under the ice, but it's not deep enough to be dangerous.

BUT THEN: yesterday afternoon an arctic front can through and burr - wind chill in the -40 belows - just fridgid. This morning -18 or so and the thermometer, but the wind continues. We just hunkered down in front of the fire and stayed indoors.


I installed the electric floor warming mat and Jeff is about to start installing tile in our TV/game room. Wonderful Italian porcelain tile in a 16X16 format with stone like veins running through it, StoneTech-StoneBeige 3.0.


I found on the camera a food photo I forgot to post. A Cuban Sandwich made on our Christmas gift sandwich press: seasoned roast pork, ham, dill pickles, swiss cheese, and yellow mustard - yum.

Just a lttle politics

I was riding back from Minneapolis and heard an interview on NPR about supporter created and viral new media works being created to support political candidates. One of the mentioned videos is the following put together by will.i.am:

Is it February already?

I looked back at January while I was doing my expense reports and I was on the road alot. The majority of the trips were fruitful, but still it does get you tired, especially when you are trying to get rid of a cold. Next week is no exception, a trip on Monday to look at the Target Center, we are working with those folk to assist with an evaluation of the building for a "green" roof and LEED-EB, and Wednesday down to St. Peter for a Medical Office Building Project Interview. A highlight of the last few weeks and one of those road trips was a report back from the Northwest Professional Center in Sartell, MN that my revised morning warmup scheme did the trick and additional perimeter radiation will most likely not be required. The Control contractor had decided to use the average of the exterior rooms to determine the length of time the warm-up should occur, one or two of the high glass percentage rooms never got warmed up, so I had the contractor watch for minimum temperatures instead of average and that seems to have worked. (Also, not only were the rooms high glass percentage, but it looks like there is some problem with the storefront glass system allowing way too much air into the rooms which made the problem worse)


View Larger Map
In the last week I have been working on parts of a very large multi-use project in Wayzata Minnesota. We are in the preliminary stages, but at this time we are trying to consider a large geothermal heat pump heating and cooling system to save site energy and operating cost along with snow melting throughout the paved areas to reduce the use of salt and sand during the winter. Additionally, all storm water falling on the site at a level less than a 100 year event, will be kept on the site and not sent to the city storm system. Due to the size of the heating and cooling plant, the geothermal well field will cost in the area of $5,000,000, but should pay back in about ten years. since the project is being designed for a 100 year life, this is a pretty good payback. The high performance pieces allowed the city and developer to work towards a bit higher density and building height than would otherwise be allowed - part of trend in city planning and zones where green features are incentivised using the free market instead of mandated.

Today I'm out to the local home improvement store to pick up materials needed to install ceramic tile in our TV/game room. The room is located above our tuck-under unheated garage and has a patio door in it so during the winter it can be a cold place. We will install floor warming system with tile to make the room more usable. This room used to be a bedroom, but we installed a Murphy bed kit so we could use the room for something else unless needed for the rare guests we have. The tiling is part of our 10 year plan to hard surface every room in the house, we have the Master bed and bath along with the upstairs hall remaining after this project.

Twenty Something (Below that is)

One of our usual January cold blasts is in control this weekend. Lower than 20 below zero with wind chills in the 30 to 40 below range. I would feel better about it if it weren't for the last vestiges of the cold I've been living with, every time I'm out I risk an asthma attack due to my heightened sensitivity. The new furnace seems to do the job, and the new ceiling fan helps our woodstove keep up even below zero. Before we installed the ceiling fan we were lucky to keep the house comfortable using just the woodstove at temperatures below about zero, now it was comfortable all day in the house. We have a tall cathedral ceiling area in our living room and the heat from the stove would go right to the ceiling.

Friday I took a trip over to St. Cloud with Evan to visit with one of our clients and some heating issues he has been experiencing. Luckly it was as cold as it was as we were able to identify a significant lack of performance in the storefront glazing system used on the north side of the building. The aluminum frames were COLD! when we went into the unfinished areas we noted a lack of insulation around the framing system and even daylight through parts of the framing system that just let cold right into the spaces. The cold air coupled with the high ceilings and overhead heating system really caused problems, especially in the corner rooms.

Inspiring TED talk

Driving home today (in the MINI 'natch), I listened to James Howard Kunstler speak about the business I am in , that of creating places for people to live. While I am not an architect, I totally get this view of needing to create spaces and comunities that are worthwhile to be in. The importance of public spaces. this is a bit old, 2004, but even so listen to his words about global warming and the change that we will be living with.

I love his quote about how living in the future is "is going to be about living locally."

Blogs and a Cold

Sorry for yet another gap in blogging. Between Aliceon and myself, it
s been over two weeks of colds, coughing, sneezing, and blah. Those that know me know that if a cold gets down into my lungs I can sound like I am about to cough one up about every fifteen minutes. I t has something to do with my asthsma and a dunking I took in Lake Superior 30 years ago - ever since then I have had this issue.

LHB's Green Team steering committee met yesterday and discuss our new year. One of the items discussed was the idea of a blog discussing additional issues of importance to the Green Team and it's audience. This will be a collective blog to keep the work load of a blog down.

Last week several of us went down to Willmar , MN to help with a charrette for a project at Ridgewater College, a 2 year campus, where they wish to remodel reconfigure, remove, and add space to improve space utilization and programs. First phase is about 3.5 million, second is about 14 million - to be finished in 2012.

tomorrow Rick Carter and I are off to present a one day seminar on LEED-NC and B3 to local government officials in Apple Valley, MN under the sponsership of the MN PCA/ I've stocked up on cough syrup and Abuterol so I should be good to go.

Corporate Greening

Aliceon and I have been laughing our way through the holidays by watching 30 Rock on Netflix and now on HULU. There was a really funny episode where the owners of the network the "show" is broadcast on, decided to create a Green Mascot - watch for the cameo by Al Gore at the end.