Josh Howell, Commercial Territory Manager at Dynamic Air Quality Solutions, discusses costs and saving money when investing in air quality improvement for buildings.

Josh Howell, Commercial Territory Manager at Dynamic Air Quality Solutions, discusses costs and saving money when investing in air quality improvement for buildings.

Josh Howell, Commercial Territory Manager at Dynamic Air Quality Solutions, discusses air quality improvement for buildings.

Katie Kimmel and Matt Hinkle of Boland talk with Michelle Dawn Mooney about open control systems.

Del Johnson discusses the benefits of professional development classes at Boland.

Del Johnson discusses the benefits of professional development classes at Boland.

Host of Ten Minutes to a Better Building, Tyler Kern, sat down with Geoffrey Gilg, an energy engineer at Boland — the leading commercial provider of HVAC systems, services and building energy solutions. The pair discussed the efforts building owners can make to lower their energy usage intensity (EUI). A factor in measuring EUI is through the ENERGY STAR score, a one to 100 score that annually ranks just how much energy a building is consuming, per the official website.

“The best way to analyze it is to put it into the ENERGY STAR’s portfolio manager, and that will give you an ENERGY STAR score that rates you anywhere from one, which is very low, to 100, which is high. That tells you how you rate relative to other buildings of the same usage type,” said Gilg.

Gilg added that this is comparatively done only between buildings that house the same facilities, such as office buildings or hospitals. So, a building that has an energy star score of 50 simply means that its energy usage is 50% better than other buildings in a similar category. Naturally, many buildings and companies aim to have the highest score, but that can't always be the case. Luckily, there are solutions that come in levels to help them get there.

Most solutions involve actions such as reducing energy use at all hours of the day (unless the building is operating 24 hours), thermostat controlling, and overall proper management of energy-efficient mechanisms. However, building owners must reach various tiers in numerical order before they can obtain a better score. These tiers are:

1.Occupant health and safety

2.Space requirements

3.Occupant comfort

4.Energy efficiency

When it comes to scaling a business or upgrading any building, having the right proposal and the right source of financing is key. Boland’s very own Optimization Engineer, Bri Widmoyer sat with host Tyler Kern of Ten Minutes to a Better Building, to discuss just how grants work and major keys to unlock in the grants and financing world.

“Grants are created to serve a specific purpose with very specific funding avenues, and they can either be competitive or noncompetitive,” Widmoyer said.

Competitive grants are just that competitive, those awarded will come from a pool of applicants, while the noncompetitive grants often work on a first come first serve basis.

The best part is “it’s free money which doesn't have to be paid back, it’s why its attractive and a lot of times it goes unspent if there are not enough applicants,” she said.

The drive for many grants follows government officials. Industries that focus on energy, sustainability, education and infrastructure, environmental justice, low-income housing, rural entities and companies thriving for diversity and inclusion are more highly ranked when competing for grants. “The good thing to know is that no two grants are the same. It’s always going to be different,” Widmoyer said.

When Widmoyer works with clients at Boland, the key, she said is finding grants to directly align with clients wants and needs. After the match making process for grants is complete, Widmoyer begins “with putting pen to paper” and assisting clients with the application process.

“The agencies are closing looking at how the applicants’ priorities align with the agencies priorities, so if we can make them align it will make for a more outstanding application and the more likely they are to award it,” she said. “Knowing the client's timeline and the construction process for a building is important in grants. It’s how all those pieces fit together.”

Building owners and property managers may be familiar with the various rebates and programs associated with equipment within the scope of their buildings. Still, there are other utility incentives available that aren’t as known. Emily Herchenroeder, Energy Solutions Team Leader at Boland, joined Tyler Kern to shed more light on some of those other utility rebates and incentives.

"The purpose of the incentive program is pretty simple," Herchenroeder said. "It's designed to reduce demand on the utility grid by incentivizing businesses to do capital improvement projects at a fraction of the cost." It's a two-part saving with money back through rebates and cash saved through energy usage reduction.

One example of a beneficial incentive Herchenroeder pointed to was AFDs. "We found a chiller plant in D.C. that qualified for a really good rebate for AFDs," Herchenroeder said. "Since Washington, D.C. already has a relatively expensive electricity rate, we found this payback was for one AFD, roughly one-to-three years payback, and then a second drive would be five years or less for both."

Belimo Energy Valves are another item Boland’s found incentive opportunities for clients. “Boland did a retrofit project in Berkeley County where a number of outdated system components were replaced with Belimo Energy Valves,” Herchenroeder said. “This reduced their HVAC energy usage by more than half.” Once installed, these sophisticated valves helped detect flaws within the existing piping of this Berkely County project.

In a recent project Boland developed with a client, they found a significant rebate using dynamic air filters. “In this particular project, we estimated enough kWh savings to produce a rebate of almost a hundred and six thousand dollars,” Herchenroeder said. “That’s a large and substantial key factor in moving forward with a project. Not only are you reducing your energy usage, you’re getting a rebate back, and drastically improving indoor air quality.”

When it comes to building and maintaining better buildings, one might say water is the lifeblood of the entire operation. Ben Feeney, Water Technologies Manager at Boland, dropped in to provide Tyler Kern with a deeper understanding of how water impacts building systems and equipment.

Water’s high heat capacity and relatively inexpensive costs make it a valuable source for distributing and removing heat from a building. One downside is the impurities and minerals water brings that can deposit on and erode equipment over time. “Water treatment chemicals are important to stop corrosion, bacteria, and scaling,” Feeney said. “We can keep the equipment lasting quite a long time if we’re doing those things.”

One strategy for conserving water in a building is recirculation. “In water treatment, what we do is we have a controller that senses the minerals in the water,” Feeney said. “And when you get up to three to five cycles, that water treatment controller will dump some of that water to get some of the impurities out.” Keeping the proper balance of mineral concentration with the right chemicals and precise controls will extend the lifecycle of equipment and systems that come in contact with water.

Another tip to keep water systems from creating more harm than good is the use of water softeners, which remove calcium from the water. “Most minerals dissolve under warm temperatures,” Feeney said. “The problem with calcium is it’s the opposite. As temperatures are warmer, they will drop out of the water. If we can remove that, then we look at chlorides and other elements in the water, but it allows us to push those cycles up higher.”

Planning is everything, and starting a building off with a proper water treatment strategy will mean fewer headaches and costs over time. “Brand new pipe from a manufacturer wants to corrode quickly as soon as the water is put in that piping,” Feeney said. “There’s pipe slag, oils, and greases from manufacturing that pipe, so at startup, as soon as the water is put into that piping system, it is important that a water treater is involved.”