Natural Swimming Pools

Swimming can be great exercise and a lot of fun, not to mention an exciting sport at the Olympics. But the chlorine used in most pools can have some negative side effects, not the least of which is reliance on toxic (and finicky) chemicals.

Chlorine's damaging effects on hair are well known, but few people realize that a number of studies have linked inhalation of the chemical by swimmers to increased asthma rates (in fact a new Irish study published this April reported a significant link between the number of years a boy had been swimming and the likelihood of the child being wheezy in the past year.)

A Norwegian study also documented an increased risk of wheezing among children who swim in pools before 6 months of age. Further, in an unpleasant reaction, pee and sweat in water can react with chlorine to form toxic breakdown products known as chloramines.

For health, environmental and aesthetic reasons, a lot of people have expressed interest in alternatives to chlorine pools, and luckily there are more and more options to get wet without smelling like cleaning products.

Managed properly, natural swimming pools have crystal clear water and require no chemicals to maintain, as they are self-cleaning mini-ecosystems. "You can drink the water if you want to, and you don't necessarily have to take a shower," says Morgan Brown of Idaho-based Whole Water Systems, LLC. The natural pools designer says the systems also have lower maintenance costs than conventional pools, and their installation costs are not much more than standard designs.

How Do They Work?
The materials and designs of natural pools can vary widely. Many are lined with rubber or reinforced polyethylene. In most popular models, such as those offered by Kansas-based Total Habitat, the swimming area is separated from a zone planted with aquatic vegetation, which acts as a biological filter. A small waterfall can add ambiance as well as valuable aeration. A skimmer may be used to collect large debris. Total Habitat typically adds a UV sterilizer to assure any germs are killed.

Worried about mosquitoes? Don't be! According to Total Habitat's president Mick Hilleary, natural predators and moving water make a natural swimming pools practically mosquito free. Hilleary says four tires stacked in your backyard will create 100 times more mosquitoes.

Electricity Energy Audit in Malaysia's Electricity Tariff

NATIONAL ENERGY EFFICIENCY AWARENESS CAMPAIGN (SWITCH!)

You can do your own energy audit in a web based application in Calculate Your Bill

It is a very good initiative toward the energy efficiency.

To use it, firstly you have to list all the equipments that consume electricity with the basic specification such as power input, duration of usage, no. of unit.

How to get the data? Every electrical equipment will have the specification label, just search for it, or go to the manufacturer's website.

For some equipment, such as computer, if the data label in the power supply is for full load, but for normal operation, it is only consume half of it, (i.e: Max Power supply : 300W, Normal operation: 150W)

The most electrical consumption equipment normally goes to Air Conditioned Unit, freezer, lightings system etc.

You can also compare saving between Energy Efficiency Equipment and None Energy Efficiency Equipment.

Just try it.

Daylighting as Energy Efficiency Feature

Before the electric light was invented, and for a good while after that too, designing buildings so that daylight could enter interior spaces was a necessity. Yet despite a long history of using daylighting as a design strategy, building owners, architects, engineers and lighting designers are only just beginning to understand how to use it effectively.

But why would a building owner even want to take on the challenge of using daylight to light a building? In a word, money. A good daylighting design can save up to 75 percent of the energy used for electric lighting in a building. The amount of daylight available, the occupancy pattern, and the control strategy can all affect energy savings. In addition, because significant daylight is often available during utility peak demand hours, a good daylighting design can reduce demand charges. Electric lights also generate significant heat in a building and by turning off or dimming the lights when not needed, 10 to 20 percent of the energy used to cool a building can be saved. On top of that, so-called soft savings attributable to increases in productivity and health of the building occupants can add to the hard savings, researchers say.

Roof Glazing for Daylighting
(Skylight)

Using daylight correctly takes a multidisciplinary approach to design and an understanding of the strategies and technologies available to control the sun.

A facility executive’s daylighting goals of holding down first cost and decreasing operating costs often go unmet when the entire building team isn’t brought into the design process from the beginning.

Improper daylighting system will effect the cooling load, heat gain, glare and thermal comfort.

In a typical case, the architect’s design offers plenty of glass for light, but that light brings with it too much heat, forcing the engineer to increase the cooling tonnage when the building is complete. It also becomes difficult to decrease lighting energy costs because when the building is complete, occupants demand blinds to cut down on glare. As a result, the blinds are drawn much of the day, requiring the use of electric lights. An owner who thought daylighting was going to save money finds out that the design not only costs more upfront but costs more to operate as well.

Both the location and interior characteristics of a building are important in daylighting design and should be the first things to consider. Because location varies, as does its effect on the interior design, there can be no cookie-cutter approach to daylighted buildings.

Location has everything to do with access to daylight. An urban building may be shaded during part of the day, which will affect, not rule out, a daylighting strategy.

Multiple stories also have an impact on how deep within the floorplate daylight can travel. There are solutions for multiple-story buildings, such as placing little-used, transitional or unoccupied spaces near the core of building — restrooms, copy rooms or elevators.

Good daylighting design will also affect a building’s interior spatial characteristics. A daylighted building’s interior should have the task areas close to daylight sources — whether that is sidelighting from the windows or top lighting from skylights. The placement of transitional or unoccupied spaces should be moved to the core or other areas with minimal windows.

Although the space is air-conditioned, due to the increased in cooling load, the building management is forced to add more facility to improve the thermal comfort .
(inefficient electricity usage).

The taller and higher the windows, the farther light can reach into the interior. Optimally, the ceiling plane and top of the windows are at the same level. And ceilings higher than 3 meters are important to deeper penetration of light. A rule of thumb, is light penetration is equivalent to 1.2 to 1.5 times the height of the windows, assuming that the ceiling is also that high. In fact, properly designed windows and ceilings could distribute light as far as twice the height of the windows.

That doesn’t necessarily mean a huge expanse of glass. When window-to-wall percentage is less than 35 percent, the usual design includes some combination of solar control glass as view glass at the occupant level with clearer glass as clerestory windows. The clerestory windows become the primary source for distribution of daylight deeper into the space while the view glass offers buffered sidelighting.

To achieve the high perimeter ceiling height for clerestory windows without changing overall floor-to-floor height, ceilings can be sloped, or stepped, away from the windows to allow HVAC ducts to be accommodated in the center of the space.

The biggest challenges in daylighting design are controlling glare and heat. The building owner’s choice of glass for a daylighted building is really a function of geographic location.

Once the design effectively distributes cool daylight around the space, the electric lighting needs to be balanced with available daylight.

Unlike other physical features in a daylighted space, whether it’s structural beams or ductwork that should run perpendicular to the windows, the lighting fixtures should run parallel to the windows. This is so the lights can be zoned — dimmed or turned off in sections according to the intensity and penetration of daylight into
the space during various times of the day.







Save energy with daylighting without compromise the thermal comfort.







To save energy, the electric lighting needs only to augment the daylight. In some case, dimming or turning lights off manually can be an effective method and has worked in a number of buildings where the staff has sufficient introduction into daylighting.

In poor examples of daylighting designs, lighting sensors are poorly located and rarely commissioned. The installation is handed off to contractors who have little understanding about the complexities of a daylighting system. Contractors often merely split the distance between the windows and the farthest wall with little regard as to how daylight is actually distributed.

Good daylighting offers a number of benefits, including energy savings, improved occupant comfort and possibly greater productivity. Creating cool, controlled daylight is a complex design challenge that is only possible with a coordinated group effort by the whole building team.

The energy benefits of a good daylighting system are critical to building owners. To achieve the benefits, building owners have to support a design strategy for their buildings that involves all the design professionals — architects, engineers, designers and contractors — working together from the beginning. That’s the only way to be successful and for the building to be cost-effective.

Energy Efficiency practice in Airport Cafetaria

11pm to 7am

7am to 7pm

7pm to 11am

Please use electricity wisely.

Roof of Malaysian stadium collapses

KUALA TERENGGANU, MALAYSIA - Billed as the pride of the state, the RM300mil Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin Stadium in Gong Badak suffered a major blow when its roof collapsed on 2 June 2009 - just a year after it was opened.

No one was injured in the 9am incident, but the stadium, which was the venue for Sukma (Malaysian Games) last year, has been declared unsafe.

The damage at the east wing has been estimated at RM25mil.

The stadium is part of the modern Gong Badak sports complex, which was built at an initial cost of RM250mil but the amount surged by an additional RM50mil due to soaring prices of building materials.

The indoor stadium, which is also part of the complex, was built at a cost of RM160mil.

The roof on the stadium's left wing was ravaged after the iron frame structure supporting the 300m-long roof destabilised, causing it to fold. The affected zones were the main entrance, royal podium and the public seating area.

How to run a GREEN Offices

While most employees make attempts to be energy efficient in their homes their environmental conscience tends to be less active once they get to work. It's up to office managers and employers to bring green attitudes to the workplace.

According to research by consultants Logicalis, nearly 60% of workers would become more energy efficient at work if employers took the initiative. By adopting sensible measures to run a greener office, businesses can save thousands of pounds on their annual energy bills and reduce the carbon dioxide they emit.

Any office should create and adopt an environmental policy which not only encourages more energy efficient practice, but actually makes these positive changes a conscious part of the company work ethic. To do this, the correct incentives and facilities need to be in place so workers can and will be more energy efficient in the office.

Lights Off

While, according to Logicalis, 94% of workers surveyed turn their lights off at home, only 66% thought about doing the same at work. Turning the lights off all too often gets ignored by offices, whose lights continue to shine even after everyone has gone home.

Make it company policy that whoeve

r is last in the building, switches off the lights. Indeed, whenever workers leave a room, the lights should be turned off. Also, where possible, install energy efficient or energy saving light bulbs.

New Technology

A lot of energy wastage comes from old and inefficient equipment. When it comes to budgeting for new office items, consider investing in ones that are better for the environment. This can be as small as purchasing a more energy efficient kettle, new office lamps, or printers that print paper on both sides. In the long term, office managers should also consider the effectiveness of often ill working air conditioning systems.

Investing in new technology such as video conferencing equipment is a great way of connecting people across the world without an expensive and gas guzzling flight. Simpler additions to the office will also assist in its becoming more environmentally friendly. Instead of using paper cups for water, a set of glasses or mugs for workers to use aren’t just better for the environment – they’re much nicer to drink from too!

New Habits

It’s not only lights that need to be switched off at night. So too does every other piece of equipment in the office. In the same Logicalis survey, almost half said they would leave IT equipment on standby at work. In contrast, 85% o f workers would switch off their computers at home.

Encourage workers to carry on their energy efficient habits in the workplace. Send reminder emails to employees reminding them to turn off their computers at the end of each working day or unplug their mobile phone chargers. Make som

eone in the office responsible for switching off equip

ment each week, and offer incentives to those that complete the job well. Even colourful posters around the office will give people a helpful daily reminder.

Recycling

Businesses should be aware of the amount of waste they produce every year, and seek ways to reduce this. All businesses have a legal duty to provide arrangements for waste disposal. There is usually a charge for commercial waste collection, so reducing how much waste needs to go to landfill will also save money.

Offering workers a good recycling service is one way of doing this. There are many commercial recycling services available that will offer a weekly collection of paper and other materials directly from the office. Designate a small area in the office where people can place their items.

Also encourage reuse of paper by ensuring that e

mployees use the other side of each sheet of paper when printing. Importantly, try and encourage electronic rather than paper based communication. By making energy efficient habits part of the company culture, it won’t take long for workers to create a more efficient office as a whole very quickly. It’s important to lead by example and to get involved in the same energy saving activities as everyone else. It’s no good if em

ployees can see that you’re not making the same effort. Offering incentives – a work night out, extra facilities or a competition - is also a great way of kick starting a green campaign.

Malaysia’s first Green Building Index

The iconic buildings of the future will no longer be grandiose but green. With shrinking resources and ever rising energy costs, it makes sense to design or modify buildings to comply with Malaysia’s first Green Building Index, introduced yesterday.

GREEN is symbolic of spring and new beginnings. How apt it is to start the year, then, by introducing Malaysia’s Green Building Index, our first certification tool that will provide guidelines for environmentally friendly construction.

After all, some of the biggest culprits guzzling the earth’s energy and water resources are man-made structures. The Index means that, for the first time, buildings in Malaysia can be assessed on their impact on the environment, and the construction of new buildings can be guided and managed to lessen their impact on their surroundings.

Could this be the way of the future? This is Malaysian developer SP Setia’s Setia Eco Park project in the Klang Valley where all the houses have photo voltaic panels on their roofs to harness solar energy. – SP Setia

And not a moment too soon! The effects of climate change and the depletion of earth’s natural resources are keenly felt around the globe today. Malaysians too have experienced the consequences of unprecedented floods and landslides resulting from the mismanagement of and disregard for nature.

What’s perhaps more pertinent to us is that green dwellings can save us money. Because going green is not only about being environmentally responsible, it also yields huge savings for building owners – up to 30% savings in energy consumption, according to Dr Tan Loke Mun, past president of the Malaysian Institute of Architects (Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia/PAM, pam.org.my).

For example, an intelligently built home that is orientated away from the sun, has sun-shading features, allows for natural ventilation, and has reflective internal surfaces to maximise daylight, does away with the need for artificial lighting during the day, and airconditioning.

This building can go further in lessening its impact on the earth by using environmentally friendly building materials and opting to be powered by renewable energy such as solar energy.

Tan explains that, while it is impossible to make green buildings mandatory in Malaysia as the country comprises widely diversified cities, towns, and villages with a multitude of buildings, Malaysians themselves will come to want such structures.

“I believe Malaysians will care about having green buildings because it offers practical savings for us,” argue Tan.

“Many homes in the Klang Valley have already incorporated insulation in their roofs and solar panels. Green homes are not necessarily more expensive; it’s only about 3% to 15% of additional cost, which they can easily recover in utility bill savings.”

Another aspect that will be covered by the Green Building Index is that of transportation. Architect Chan Seong Aun explains how public transportation accessibility in a housing project has important environmental and monetary impacts.

“Transportation constitutes 40% to 70% of household energy use,” he says. “A family makes about five to 10 trips daily shuttling to work and back, shopping, buying groceries, sending children to school, and tuition classes, and other activities.”

An effectively planned neighbourhood can reduce such energy costs by clustering activity areas sensibly – having small shopping areas within walking distance of a certain number of houses, for instance.

Another way of saving lies in construction materials, the cost of which will only keep going up in the future.

Says Tan, “We have been throwing away useable materials that can be recycled into building materials, such as steel and timber. There are many possibilities of becoming more sustainable, and the Green Building Index is one of the steps.”

So, what’s this Index about?

The Green Building Index is a green rating tool to guide architects, designers, government bodies, building owners, and developers towards constructing environmentally responsible buildings.

It was initiated and will be managed by PAM’s newly formed Sustainability Committee. The committee comprises 40 members selected from the building industry as well as the academic world.

The Index was introduced yesterday in Kuala Lumpur by Malaysia-born Penny Wong, Australia’s Water and Climate Change Minister.

“Architects (in Malaysia) have been using foreign benchmarking tools over the years, and yet, we lack a single green-branded building,” says Tan.

“However, many of the foreign tools cater to temperate climates. Singapore’s Green Mark, which started in 2005, is the only tool for tropical countries to date. But Singapore’s priorities in energy and water resources differ from Malaysia’s.

“It was also costly to hire foreign consultants to work based on their country’s ratings tool. As such, there was a need to develop Malaysia’s own ratings tool.”

In August last year, PAM endorsed the formation of the Sustainability Committee and a panel to certify green-rated buildings. Full support was given by the Building Industry Presidents’ Council, and the Association of Consultation Engineers of Malaysia.

The Sustainability Committee visited Singapore for comparative studies on its Building and Construction Authority’s Green Mark, and Australia to study its Green Star programme.

“It was vital that all the professional institutes involved in the building industry support the Green Building Index,” explains Chen Thiam Leong, a Sustainability Committee member and past president of the Association of Consultation Engineers.

“The Green Mark and Green Star authorities were immensely helpful in helping us put together our own ratings tool, which incorporates internationally recognised best practices in environmental design and performance in buildings.”

What the Index measures

A green building can be defined as a building that uses its resources efficiently; these resources include energy, water, and materials, explains Tan, who is the Sustainability Committee chairman.

The Index will assess a building for its compliance with six key criteria: Energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, a sustainably managed sustainable site, optimal use of materials and resources, water efficiency, and innovativeness.

“The building also has to sit well within its locality, climate, and culture,” emphasises Tan.

Points will be awarded for four levels – platinum, gold plus, gold, and certified – in two categories of buildings, residential and non-residential.

“Our ultimate goal is to reduce the carbon footprint of our urban cities, as the impact left by buildings is immense,” says Dr Tan.

“Buildings last a long time, and over that lifetime they play a part in contributing to the destruction of our environment. Over its life cycle, a building uses many resources and is the source of much pollution emissions. The Green Building Index can be likened to a health check for buildings both new and existing.”

While there are similarities between our Index and Singapore’s Green Mark, the scoring system differs. Being an island republic with scarce natural resources, Singapore places great emphasis on energy efficiency, giving that criterion a whopping 62% of points. In Malaysia, the same category gets 35% of total points.

Malaysians’ infamous lack of a maintenance culture in even the best designed and constructed buildings will undoubtedly be a huge hindrance when it comes to assessments.

“Many old buildings have ineffective air-conditioning as the filters are not maintained or cleaned regularly,” Tan gives an example. So the air-conditioning is turned up, and more and more energy is used to cool the same space.

“And in some offices,” Tan points out, “the air-conditioning is overly cold because it is not adjusted to cater to the number of people actually using the space. It all amounts to huge wastage.”

A green building does not need to be big, iconic or expensive. We need look no further than the Federal administrative capital of Putrajaya to see the many grandiose buildings languishing in what has been reported to be an “urban heat island” with average temperatures 5°C hotter than other Malaysian cities, rising up to 40°C.

This is due to a combination of limited trees, maximum use of granite and asphalt bricks, and lack of shade. Authorities there are scrambling to plant more trees in a feeble attempt to address the symptoms of an ailment that could have been prevented at the design stage.

Green buildings are becoming so critical that in April 2008, it became mandatory in Singapore for all new buildings, or works on existing buildings exceeding 2,000 sq m in floor area, to achieve a minimum Green Mark rating.

The Singapore Government has also launched a Green Building Masterplan and allocated S$50mil (RM121mil) for research and development in green building technologies.

Its Building and Construction Authority’s vision is simple: to have every major building go green, says Tan Tian Chong, the authority’s technology development division director.

In fact, the need for green buildings is becoming such a worldwide concern that the International Union of Architects, a global network dedicated to the architectural profession (uia-architectes.org), has decided on the theme of Sustainable Architecture for 2009-2011.

Challenges and possibilities

But can environmentally friendly buildings retain a sense of cultural and local identity? And that is vital if we are to live with these buildings for several generations.

University lecturer and StarMag’s Architecture Inside Out columnist Prof Dr Mohamad Tajuddin laments that many green buildings – such as well-known Malaysian architect Datuk Dr Ken Yeang’s Mesiniaga building in Subang Jaya, Selangor – are “a courageous attempt at energy efficient tropical architecture but lack local cultural references”.

“Some green buildings are stylish and claim to be green, but are they actually green and how much can they withstand a test?” he asks.

“The Green Building Index is a welcome step forward for Malaysian architecture. But when clients insist on iconic imagery for their buildings, how far can our architects go in advising them not to fall for the trappings of such imagery and opt for green features?

“Green features can also be interpreted in social cultural aspects. How about examining our vernacular architecture to see their fantastic features adapted to tropical climates?

“I also blame our academics for not educating students enough on green buildings and for not disseminating information to lay people on such architecture. Because if the public is unaware of green building technologies or features, they don’t demand for them.

“As such, housing developers may as well cater to the educated elite by providing houses in the RM300,000 and above category. What of the vast majority of people who can’t afford that?”

National House Buyers’ Association of Malaysia secretary-general Chang Kim Loong has mixed feelings about the Index.

“The Green Building Index is a positive move forward,” he says. “Such a ratings tool will undoubtedly better our built environment, especially for the future. Developers must initiate the concept for their buildings.”

But Chang wonders if we’ve got the cart before the horse: “A main issue is that Malaysia hasn’t even made it mandatory for developers to adopt a quality standard of building. Ask the buyer of a shoddily constructed home or an abandoned project, and he will tell you he just wants a house, any house.

“Green buildings are vital for any society. But in our current state of affairs, only a niche market can afford to think about green features. The majority of Malaysians will be thankful if they can just have a roof over their heads.”

Real Estate Housing Developers’ Association president Ng Seing Liong points out that many developers are still learning green building technologies.

“PAM has consulted us on the Green Building Index, and we have pledged our full support. We believe this is the right step for the future but we will let it progress steadily and not in a haste.

“Also, we do hope that the Government will introduce some sort of tax incentive for incorporating green features. The additional cost of building green homes is one factor; there has to be public acceptance first. But certainly, many green building ideas are workable here.”

In the Klang Valley, well known Malaysian developer SP Setia has won acclaim for its Setia Eco Park project which features houses with photo-voltaic panels that convert solar energy into electricity.

Houses developed by Bandar Utama Development Sdn Bhd in April 2007 include a rainwater harvesting system that costs just an additional RM300 to install. Almost 500 litres of harvested rainwater can be stored and used for gardening, cleaning drains, and washing porches – all of which lead to savings.

But for green buildings to really work, owners must play a role, says Tan. For example, he says people in his office have taken to turning off all lights and air-conditioning during lunchtime.

“Just that simple act of flicking off the switches for an hour or two a day saved me 25% of my electricity bills every month. Small offices that pay about RM1,000 in monthly utility bills can save at least a thousand ringgit annually. It does pay to go green.”

Many countries such as Germany, Britain, and America have set ambitious targets to achieve zero energy or carbon neutral buildings, the ultimate goal of research and development in green buildings. While Malaysia has started a little late, the Green Building Index is a vital step forward in the right direction. Malaysians just have to do our bit by embracing it wholeheartedly.

Drive Smart: 10 Ways to Save Petrol and Money

Want to save 20% or more on fuel costs? Follow these 10 simple tips from the Consumer Federation of America.

Check Your Air Filter

A clean air filter can improve gas mileage by as much as 10%, and nearly one in four cars needs an air filter replacement.

Cost Savings: 28 cents a gallon.

Straighten Up

Poor alignment not only causes tires to wear out more quickly, but also forces your engine to work harder, which can reduce fuel economy by as much as 10%.

Cost Savings: 28 cents per gallon.

Tune Up

A properly tuned engine can improve mileage by 4%.

Cost Savings: 11 cents a gallon.

Pump 'em Up

More than one-quarter of vehicles have improperly inflated tires. The average under-inflation of 7.5 pounds causes a loss of 2.8% in fuel efficiency.

Cost Savings: 8 cents per gallon.

Check Your Cap

It is estimated that nearly 17% of cars on the road have broken or missing gas caps, which not only reduces gas mileage but may harm the environment.

Cost Savings: 2 cents per gallon.

Slow Down

For every 5 mph you reduce highway speed, you can reduce fuel consumption by 7%.

Cost Savings: 19 cents, by reducing speed from 70 mph to 65 mph.

Drive More Smoothly

The more smoothly you accelerate and decelerate, the better your gas mileage, with potential gas savings of 33% on the highway and 5% around town.

Cost Savings: 48 cents a gallon.

(Don't) Give Your Foot a Brake

Riding with your foot on the brake not only wears out brakes but can also increase gas consumption by as much as 35%.

Cost Savings: 96 cents per gallon.

Lighten Up

For every 100 extra pounds carried around, your vehicle loses 1 to 2% in fuel efficiency.

Cost Savings: 4 cents per gallon, per 100 pounds of weight removed.

Don't Be Idle

Besides causing pollution, idling wastes gas. If stopped for more than 30 seconds, turn off the engine, and don't bother to 'warm up' your car before driving -- it is not necessary.

Cost Savings: 1 cent per gallon, for every two minutes you avoid idling.