Office aircos are set to men’s comfort levels: Dutch researchers Jobs

DutchNews, August 5, 2015

Dutch researchers have shown that office air conditioning systems are often set to a 1960s formula based on men’s thermal comfort rather than women’s, according to a report on TheConversation.com. 

The research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows that if the office thermostat is set for men, it will be too low for women, forcing them to put on woollies in the height of summer. 

This is because women are smaller and generate less metabolic heat than men which means they will not feel comfortable in office temperatures set for the opposite sex. 

By the same logic, if the thermostat is set for Europeans it will be too low for Asians, who weigh, on average, 30% less, the paper states. 

Maastricht University researchers Boris Kingma and Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt say that energy consumption in homes and offices accounts for some 30% of carbon dioxide emissions. 

However, a more realistic approach to the temperature needs of a building’s occupants will lead to more efficiency in energy consumption and cut emissions, the researchers say.

Short circuits major cause of fires in Greater Jakarta

The Jakarta Post, Sat, 03/07/2009 2:19 PM  |  City

 

SERANG: An estimated 80 percent of fires that occur in the Greater Jakarta area are caused by short circuits, an official from the National Committee on Electricity Safety said Friday.

 

"Most infernos occur because of faulty installation of mains electricity that leads to short circuits," committee head Tunggono said as quoted by Antara.

 

The committee found mains electricity systems in many premises were not set up properly by property developers, he said.

 

In many homes, electricity was often installed by construction workers who did not understand basic electricity concepts, he added.

 

The committee urged building contractors to comply with proper installation standards by using suitable materials and setting up mains electricity systems properly. - JP

City wants prison terms for safety violators

Mustaqim Adamrah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city property management and control agency said Tuesday it wanted to amplify punishments from fines to imprisonment, for owners of buildings which failed to meet safety standards.

The agency's head Hari Sasongko said the agency was preparing a set of regulations to deter violators and others involved in the making of faulty building designs, following a string of cases pertaining to building safety standard requirements.

"I want violators, including the professionals who are responsible for building designs, to be subject to imprisonment," Harry told reporters at City Hall.

Imprisonment, he said, would be a bigger source of embarrassment for violators since fines had failed to prevent violators from repeating their mistakes.

The agency reported that approximately 80 percent of around 700 buildings in Jakarta at least eight stories high, were yet to receive mandatory safety clearance.

Hari said a regulation on building safety standards already carried both prison terms and fines as punishment.

Until now, however, no violators had ever been imprisoned, he said. In the past, whenever prosecutors had demanded imprisonment for violators, he said, the court had put the case 'on the back burner'.

"In the end, such cases vaporize and disappear from the courts," he said.

The most recent case that came under the agency spotlight occurred Dec. 11, 2007 when 19 employees of a Carrefour hypermarket in South Jakarta were rushed to hospital after inhaling excessive amounts of carbon monoxide (CO).

The incident had been caused by a problem with the power supply which caused the shop ventilation system to fail.

The following day, the city administration ordered the closure of the France-based retailer outlet and its basement parking area below Ratu Plaza on Jl. Sudirman, South Jakarta.

The agency later found the two generators used to back up the power supply at the hypermarket could supply up to 1,000 kilo volt ampere (kVA) each "but the actual output was only 300 kVA each".

"If the machines were working properly the power supply and ventilation would be fine," Hari said.

The agency have sealed the parking lot beneath the hypermarket indefinitely, until the store purchases replacement generators.

Another incident involving building safety standards occurred Dec. 6 last year when a sedan smashed through a one-meter-high concrete barrier on the spiral ramp of Permata Hijau International Trade Center parking garage, in Kebayoran Lama, South Jakarta.

The sedan was on the fourth floor of the garage when the driver reportedly lost control and the car rolled backwards through the wall.

Half of the car protruded from the ramp, four stories up, and sent a shower of debris onto the windshield of a sport utility vehicle below.

The incident, which did not result in injuries, was the second of its kind after a similar fatal accident May 17 last year. The May accident killed a family of three, whose car plummeted from the sixth floor of the same parking garage, after breaching another faulty barrier.

Energy efficiency a great New Year's resolution

Zenin Adrian, Contributor The Jakarta Post

For those who do not have a New Year's resolution yet, may I propose a good one?

The recent UNCC conference in Bali highlighted global warming as an important problem which requires a global effort. Although the agreement the conference reached did not satisfy all parties, the impact is still real and it takes each one of us to start making a difference.

Buildings are a good place to start. According to a report by the USGBC (United States Green Building Council) and IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the buildings sector consumes 40% of the world's energy and material and accounts for 30% of carbon dioxide emissions.

Measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings fall into three categories: (i) reducing energy consumption in buildings; (ii) switching to low-carbon fuels, including a higher portion of renewable energy; or (iii) controlling the emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases.

The first method, energy efficiency, has become the primary focus.

In the complete life cycle of a building, starting from preconstruction, construction and operation to demolition, energy consumption can be split into two categories: (i) embodied energy and (ii) operating energy.

For typical standards of building construction, embodied energy is equivalent to only a few years of operating energy. Thus, over a 50 year time span, reducing the operating energy is normally more important than reducing the embodied energy.

Occupant behavior, culture, consumer choice and use of technology are major determinants of building emissions.

Generally, for hot countries, especially Indonesia, the main agent in energy efficiency is reducing the lighting and cooling load.

There are many strategies that can be applied, including changing behavior, increasing the efficiency of appliances, using a high-performance building skin, tapping into alternative energy sources, and using an integrated design process.

The simplest way to change our behavior is adjusting our notions of comfort. This means that we need to stop pretending that we are in a cold climate where we can use our winter clothing.

Raising the thermostat to 24-25 degrees Celsius is generally acceptable to most people and requires less electricity than setting it at 15-17 degrees Celsius.

At home, the next step is reducing our reliance on air conditioning. You can start using the timer and set it in accordance with your daily routine.

Consider using air conditioning only in the first two or three hours of sleep, then setting the unit to increase the temperature slightly each hour.

Lighting loads can be reduced with natural day lighting as well as combining ambient (general lighting) and task lighting. Maximize your use of day lighting by organizing the interior furniture based on daily activities and arranging it so you can get the most natural lights from the windows.

Ambient lights are grouped into zones corresponding to natural light, so you can switch on the lights depending on the amount of natural light penetration in the room.

Blinds, louvers, or curtains are conventional devices used to control daylight. Controlling daylight reduces not only the lighting load, but the cooling load. For commercial or apartment buildings, retrofitting with shading devices and light shelves can increase the efficiency of both lighting and cooling.

Ideally, energy efficiency measures should be included starting from the design stage through an integrated design process, in which building performance is optimized by involving all members of the design team from the beginning.

However, the fragmentation of the building industry and the design process into professions, trades, work stages and industries has become a barrier to this approach.

Retrofitting existing, inefficient buildings, most of which will still be here for the next 20 to 50 years, is key to energy efficiency efforts.

Cost-effective measures can be undertaken without major renovations. These include improving the building envelope and replacing inefficient boilers, water heaters, air conditioning and lighting. This can dramatically affect emissions.

Thus, we can achieve substantial reductions in emissions from energy use in buildings over the coming years using mature technologies that already exist and have been widely used.

Changing our energy consumption can play a key role in achieving greenhouse gas goals, and would be a great New Year's resolution for all of us.

So, before going to sleep tonight, turn off the lights and start using your air conditioner's timer function. Happy New Year!

Zenin Adrian has a website www.zadl.net and can be reached at zenin.adrian@zadl.net

Buildings yet to be declared safe

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Eighty percent of about 700 buildings more than eight floors high in Jakarta are yet to receive mandatory safety clearances, an official said Tuesday.

"Many building management teams are unaware of the regulation concerning the safety and appropriateness certificate ... as the regulation is relatively new," head of the Building Order and Supervision Agency, Hari Sasongko, said.

A gubernatorial decree issued in 2000 stipulates that all buildings more than eight floors high must have the clearance to ensure the safety of occupants.

However, the decree does not specify any sanctions to be handed down to those in violation of the law.

Hari said all building management teams should enlist in the help of experts to check the safety of buildings regularly.

The gubernatorial decree authorizes the Building Order and Supervision Agency to issue the certificates, which are valid for a five-year period. The certificates are issued when buildings are proven to meet official safety requirements, including the appropriateness of building installations.

Every six months building management teams are also required to report on the condition of their buildings to the agency, Hari said.

The agency recently closed down parking areas at ITC Permata Hijau and at the Carrefour branch of Ratu Plaza, both in South Jakarta, due to poor safety levels.

At ITC Permata Hijau, the agency found that the barriers on the spiral ramp in the parking lot were only made of brick, not steel frames as required.

The Ratu Plaza building management team did not provide enough power for all installations to operate in the basement area, where the Carrefour hypermart is located.

"Test results showed that only one of the installation systems could be switched on. For example, if they switched on the ventilation system, they would have to turn off the fire alarm system. This is not right," Hari said.

He said the agency had a limited number of officers, making it impossible to check all buildings in the city.

"We hope people inform us if there is anything wrong with a building in the city," he said.

However, many people have complained about the extent to which the agency allegedly abuses its power. Instead of enforcing the rules, they have been accused of extorting building owners in the past. (tif)

An environmentally friendly past

The Jakarta Post

Oil prices have escalated dramatically in the last few months and some people harbor concerns this will lead to the next energy crisis in the very near future.

And building and construction operations account for 40 percent of energy consumption and is responsible for 33 percent of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.

But this sector will suffer from the impact of the crisis -- in addition to the effects the industry will see from global warming.

Architects and engineers are at the frontline of the building, construction and operation industry and are responsible for making buildings more energy efficient.

In some countries in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America, there have been growing efforts to promote environmentally friendly building practices -- popularly known as green building.

One focus is to reduce energy loads by optimizing heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.

Internationally, there are growing numbers of new building designs that comply with this effort.

New fa‡ade designs are today equipped with shading devices in order to reduce interior heat from direct sunlight.

In Jakarta's past, a growing interest in design driven by efforts to minimize energy load or to reduce the need for air conditioning (AC) is evident in some buildings on the main street of Jakarta.

Cheap energy costs and our dependency on AC units have provided shortcuts to achieve interior thermal comfort.

Glass cladding technology has preceded design exploration in solar shading devices.

Images shown here include traces of past efforts made toward energy efficiency.

All of them are interesting patterns, characterized by modern tropical building facade designs.

These familiar patterns have a significant role in cooling the building's outer skin layer and contribute to lowering the energy load for air conditioning needs.

The first and second images show stainless steel patterns from the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta.

Built in the 60s, the design still looks contemporary.

Designed by the late F. Silaban, the mosque shows early efforts in contextualizing modern buildings with a tropical climate.

Silaban also was responsible for the fa‡ade design of the Bank Indonesia Building on Jl. MH Thamrin, shown here in images 3 and 4.

Both building's fa‡ades represent the movement toward environmental concern in Indonesian architecture.

Not too far from the Bank Indonesia building, lies the dusty and old United Nation Building, shown in images 5 and 6.

They comprise cellular louvers designed with a slanted profile.

These cells enclose the entire building and provide the impression of one single object.

Similarly, the S. Widjojo Center building on Jl. Jend. Sudirman employs deeper shading devices for the fa‡ade skin.

The envelope's design created a more distinct and unique look compared to other adjacent buildings.

The functional pattern produced an elegant image and helped save the environment.

These buildings show us past efforts made to create energy efficient building designs and they become more and more relevant with today's environment crisis and escalating energy costs.

It is time for us to rethink and to learn from the past.

Zenin Adrian can be reached at zenin.adrian@zadl.net