The BE Blog | Building Enclosure

Subscribe

For over 120 years, the NFPA’s Standard 780 has stood as the definitive guide for effective lightning protection. Within the standard lies a crucial tool: the Simplified Risk Calculator, designed to quantify lightning risk for specific structures, empowering architects and engineers to shield properties from nature’s electric wrath. 

Statewide energy codes are important for several reasons—not the least of which are reduced energy consumption, mitigated greenhouse gas emissions, minimized building operational costs, and improved climate resilience. Yet, at the time of this writing, ten states do not have a statewide commercial energy code.

Recent advancements in thermal imaging will take roof inspection tools to the next level. What is a forensic roof inspection, and how does it combine with thermal technology to make structures secure?

The latest 2030 By the Numbers report details the aggregate impacts of 23,276 project reported, including a 48 percent overall reduction in predicted (modeled) energy use intensity (pEUI) and 41.8 million metric tons of CO2 emissions avoided relative to baseline-equivalent buildings.

The prospect of decarbonizing the electrical sector is riddled with myriad economic, technological, political, and outright physical challenges. There will be unanticipated setbacks and some nascent technologies will offer staggering breakthroughs. Goals notwithstanding, the future has yet to be written. 

One of the more subtle ways to make a building temperature controlled while considering the planet is ventilated facade systems. This cladding system changes a building’s envelope, improving the building’s efficiency and impact.

In recognition of the carbon intensity of our landscape, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) have made several recent moves toward deeper climate action.

No matter how good you are at providing your customers with a watertight roofing – or re-roofing – system, installing, connecting and/or disconnecting a lightning protection system is a task better left to specialists.

Construction firms today have many waterproof membranes to choose from, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Project managers must go over the following seven considerations to make the right choice.

Tree-rich ecosystems serve as "carbon sinks" by absorbing more carbon than they release, which could potentially help offset the carbon emissions from human activities such as using fossil fuel-based energy resources for building construction and operation.