Hastily Composed VOC chemistry update

One axis of dilema in building-- does the chemistry of the products we use to assemble and attach our buildings together always in tension with other things such as durability, efficiency, tightness, etc.

This afternoon, I've spent a little time pulling together some resources on what resources we have now, and who's really pushing on the boundaries.

1.  Standard MSDS sheet:

We check it out, and scan its pages.  It's mostly not terribly helpful.  In other words, if you're looking for information related to acute exposure to specific high risk chemicals, and maybe some vague VOC content, then MSDS sheets will be awesome!   As a document for green building research, they answer few questions.
But, by law, they must indicate any regulated chemicals into the MSDS sheet, but not much more than that.   So, in the least, you could look up those chemicals in other databases and learn so much about the niceties of chemical exposure.

In fact, this leads me to...
2.  California's database of nasties to eschew indefinitely:

http://www.oehha.ca.gov/air/allrels.html 

3. One great hope for the future:  The Pharos Project

Continuing to ask the questions, digging into the truth, is the laudable Pharos project.  It is starting with transparency first-- understanding what chemicals are built into the products we use in our projects, and being explicit about the risks.  They also host some very interesting information about the current events of 

http://www.pharosproject.net/

Cash 4 Appliances

So it's almost officially Earth Day, and there's yet another rebate program associated with trying to undermine the counterfactual, or in other words, get us to use energy and water more efficiently than you would be if you didn't buy new stuff.  

Before I get off on a rant, here's the website.

http://www.cash4appliances.org/

Note how it shares the orthography of hip-speak, supplanting the homophonic for for 4  (whoa!  Parse that Batman!).

"What for?"  you ask...

I'm really just talking about your standard fridges and dishwashers and washing machines, etc.  They just want you to buy new ones!  Why?!  Cuz it's a win win win for everyone!

It turns out that white goods salez (wait, is there some embedded racialism in there?) are good for the economies of our spaceship earth.  That's win #1. Of course, the program is trying to do good by making sure you properly "recycle" or "downcycle" your old appliances with certified, or "platinum" dealerships.  I'm not sure what precious metals that are highly productive as catalysts (like in the current lecture I'm not listening to on photoelectrochemical cells).

Of course, you'll probably save money on your utility billz too.  That's win #2

And, it's being funded by ARRA monies for it, so its coming from future us's!!!  How awesome is it that future me is investing is present me!  

Heat balance of nudist colonies

One of the three mechanisms for heat transfer is Radiation.  Just about everything outside of a lab that has a temperature radiates light in some visible or invisible form.  The hotter the temperature, the more visible the light (which is how our incandescent lights work). Radiation at the temperatures we live in (70 F) are not as small as I originally thought-- ~400 Watts per square meter of surface, and it's almost entirely in the non-visible infrared light spectrum.  Fortunately, everything around is throwing ~400 Watts/m^2 back and forth, so if the environment itself is enclosed, with no heat loss outward, then everything is just throwing out 400 Watts/m^2 while simultaneously absorbing 400 W/m^2 back.  

--In a sort of gross approximation, imagine two of those heat dishes facing each other, radiating to each other, keeping each other mutually warm.  awww... Loving...

Our radiant environment and the human body:
Us mortals are homeostatically around 98.6 deg F (actually, proven to be more in the 99 deg range, but 98.6 is exactly 37 deg C, so the math is easier).
The Radiant heat transfer given ideally by the Stefan-Boltzmann Law, which equals (5.67*10^-8)*([Temperature of one surface]^4  -   [Temperature of other surface]^4)
If we think of one surface as the human body, and the other surface as everything else around us (let's say, at 71 deg F, or 22 C), the net radiant heat transfer between the body and the room is roughly:
5.67*10^-8 * (37^4 - 22^4)= 84 Watts/m^2.
If we multiply by 1 square meter (a guess at the area of the human body exposed to the environment), then we get ~80 Watts net heat loss to the environment.
If we add in conductance, that equation looks like this, assuming a thermal conductance of the skin to the surrounding air of R-2:  (98.6 F - 71 F)/(R-2)*3.412[Btu/hr-Watt]=  255 Watts of heat loss to the environment.  YIKES!  brrr....
And, if you were wondering about that R-2 of the convection resistance next to the skin, I am indeed assuming for all of this that we're totally naked.  You'll see soon why we invented clothes.

[Caveats here for those who really can see what's going on and want to rightfully criticize my spherical cow approach here-- this will be a rather conservative estimate, as we'll see later.  The skin of the human body is not usually 98.6 deg F, but a bit lower, resulting in lower radiation as well as convective heat losses]

So, to keep track, we've got the following heat losses:
84 Watts of Radiation  +
255 Watts of Conduction/Convection
~330 Watts lost to the environment

Ok, now what about heat gains?  us mortals are also little power plants, converting food into thought, and waste heat (with about 20% efficiency overall).  Given our diets and average activites, we eat about 2000-3000 kilocalories of food a day.  Do some conversions, and we get a total of about 150 Watts of heat production  from just being living breathing things.

So, the net heat balance:
330 Watts loss-150 Watts of heat gain= 170 Watts of net cooling off.

Again... brrr.  We invented clothes for a reason.  It's because 70 degrees is a little chilly of a radiant environment to be naked, or so it seems.  Due to the aforementioned conservativeness of the calculation, it not actually as bad as 170 Watts of heat loss, and it's also a dynamic system, so our bodies are pretty good at reducing heat loss in these situations by lowering skin temperature.

But while continuing on the theme--
how warm would it have to be to be comfortable nude, standing, in a radiantly heated room?
The answer, per all my assumptions here is:
87 degrees Fahrenheit!  exhibitionists take note!  or put on some clothes already.


Ok, now on to some real work.

Green Building Incentives: 94301 version

Recently, I was reminded that I should once again turn my attentions to reviewing all the various monies and incentives available to green building/energy efficiency/water efficiency professionals and citizens trying to do better things.  I mean, solar energy systems, water efficiency technology, 

Fracking Fractalling fragmentation: What's good in your neighborhood?

If you've ever looked into these sort of incentive programs, being knowledgeable of them is similar to being expert in distinct island ecologies in the mist of Papua.  And, by that, I mean it's complicated to simplify.  There are large amount of incentives, but they are all spatially and temporally confined.  The City of Palo Alto has its own programs, which sometimes piggyback off of the Santa Clara Valley Irrigation District's incentives in just the "Water" category, and not the "Energy" category.  Technologies, such as washing machines, are spliced up like financial tranches, with their water savings incentivized by one entity, and their energy by another.  

All this makes it exceedingly complicated to be general and comprehensive about such rebates, since they change constantly, and they each have particular requirements.  

So, I've tried to assemble a mostly comprehensive list for the South Bay Aria.  

Here's the list all colorful and databasey.  

All the Rebates for Palo Alto are on top, and comprise most of the list.