Comments on: CHCP saves carbon? the question is moot.

By: IF Kite

IF Kite — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 12:23:03 +0000

oooh, now there’s a question.

What I’d say is that there are barriers in large cities like London which are all there to stop you even trying to design out cooling; the heat island effect being one of them.

I think it can be done but dismantling the barriers poses major economic and social questions.

One key question in city centres being: what business is going to accept 40% less people on a floor plate to conform to the nat. vent. strategy?

We need to accept, on some projects, we have a client/brief/site that can have low emissions associated with cooling, but can’t rely on natural techniques to give them comfort.

By: Casey

Casey — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:52:00 +0000

@IF Kite-

Is it your view that cooling can be designed out of buildings within an urban heat island like London? It seems the key question in what you’re proposing is: what is “acceptable” in terms of comfort levels.

By: IF Kite

IF Kite — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:33:28 +0000

In examples like this to avoid cooling you really need to revisit the architecture and the brief. The form of the building: it’s ceiling heights, floor plan depths, occupational density and acceptable comfort levels will all help you design out as much cooling as you want.

If any of these items are constricted by the architect, client or tenant then get on the phone to Airedale, York, Carrier or Powermaster.

By: Casey

Casey — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 21:30:03 +0000

The cooling load is lower but not by much. The efficiency measures bring the heat loads way down but there’s less we can do about the cooling peaks apart from, as you say, shading to reduce the solar gain and thermal mass to shave the peaks. Even so, it’s easy to imagine an efficient office where both heating and cooling peaks are in the neighbourhood of 40W/m2.

By: Jonny Marrion

Jonny Marrion — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:41:36 +0000

How come the peak cooling load=peak heating load. Is this in the UK? Surely simple good design measures to over over heating (solar shading, exposed mass etc) would reduce the cooling load and hence the pipe work and therefore the cost.