New England LEED AP Talks About Commercial HVAC Energy Efficiency and Maximizing Building Systems

Since 1954, Arden Engineering Constructors has been a leader in New England’s mechanical-electrical contracting industry. Together with their sister company, MJ Daly in Connecticut, they serve blue chip clients in pharmaceutical, healthcare, higher education, commercial, and heavy industrial markets throughout Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

It’s easy to see how they relate to our central focus on commercial HVAC and, more widely, the overarching issues of energy efficiency, green building, and so on, since their in-house services include HVAC, plumbing, process piping, electrical, controls, fire protection, testing and balancing, and mechanical service and maintenance. They also have a professional engineering department and LEED AP’s on staff. In their own words, “We believe this makes us uniquely suited to take total accountability for our projects and to help clients overcome the vast range of challenges that arise during all phases of design, construction and maintenance on a project.”

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JUST VENTING: Many thanks for granting us this interview, Bill. To begin with, would you please tell us what you do for Arden Engineering Constructors?

BILL BADIALI: My role with Arden is in the Mechanical Services division in a sales engineering/sales management capacity.

JV: What’s the function of that division?

BILL: We work with building owners and facility managers to help them operate their buildings as efficiently as possible. In our Design, Construction, and Mechanical Service Groups both here and at our sister company, MJ Daly, we do everything with an energy-enhancement objective in mind.

JV: What services do you offer?

BILL: We offer service and maintenance programs, optimization of systems performance, and equipment installation and replacement programs. The point of it all is to maximize the efficiency and health of building systems.

JV: Those are very timely concerns, especially right now when everybody’s talking about the new economic recovery package, which includes a significant focus on green practices and energy efficiency. We’ve talked a lot about this kind of thing here at our blog, including issues like the rise of green building and the role of LEED. I’m curious to know how important these kinds of issues are to your company and your industry right now.

BILL: They’re more than just important. They’re central. At this point everybody knows we’re living in an era of diminishing global resources. Green and energy efficient approaches like LEED will always be a crucial focus area for Arden and the broader AEC (Architecture-Engineering-Construction) community.

That said, I should point out that none of this is new to us. Arden was already committed to principles like improved building site design, indoor environmental quality, and the efficient use of energy, materials and water long before LEED gave us a formal measuring system to keep track of it all. Right from the beginning our ultimate goal was to design, construct, and maintain mechanical-electrical systems that reduce building operating costs. Our mission is delivering high-performance buildings that use fewer resources to build and operate. So energy conservation measures and new technologies like the ones LEED recognizes have always been core to use.

JV: It sounds like you’re saying –- to misquote an old country song –- that you were green when green wasn’t cool.

BILL: Absolutely. Maximizing the efficiency and health of building systems is what we’ve been doing for a long time.

JV: What about the uprush of interest in green retrofits that’s come on in recent years? Surely some of this is changing or affecting your business.

BILL: Yes, we really have seen a new surge of interest in “retro-greening” projects.

JV: Do you think these kinds of projects are really effective?

BILL: Oh, they’re great. One of the main benefits of retro-greening existing buildings is that our clients can often see significant cost savings very quickly.

JV: What do you do for your clients in a retro-greening project?

BILL: On these projects, becoming green can mean rebalancing existing systems so they’re operating correctly and as originally designed. It can also mean upgrading to higher efficiency equipment and/or installing sustainable building systems. One particularly useful and effective service we offer is to help clients find out their buildings’ Energy Star rating.

JV: Most of our readers already know what Energy Star is, but for the record, would you explain it and talk about how you work with it?

BILL: Energy Star is a federally funded program that gives buildings a performance rating in comparison to similar buildings in their use category. We use it specifically to help our clients save energy and money. After we help them find out their Energy Star rating, we follow up with an assessment of the facility to identify methods for lowering energy consumption. Once we have a list of these methods, we determine which ones will have an immediate impact and a short term payback. Then we implement those improvements and follow up with another Energy Star assessment to quantify total energy savings. It’s just like tuning up your car and increasing the gas mileage. The upshot of this tune-up for buildings is an increase in property values and rental incomes, which provides building owners with a return on their investment far beyond initial energy savings.

JV: Sounds like quite a detailed program. Given the bad economy, are you maybe seeing a shift in the balance of demand between retrofit projects and new construction projects?

BILL: On the Mechanical Service side, we are seeing a number of customers that want to fix what they have instead of replacing aging equipment, and this is representative of economic conditions. But we always have a talk with these customers to let them know that replacing aging equipment and systems with high efficiency “green” equipment can do a lot more than just reduce their energy costs, since it may qualify them for a lot of energy incentives and/or utility rebates. And this may make replacement a more cost effective option than repairing.

JV: Do you have a sense about whether programs like LEED and Energy Star might also be contributing to a rise of interest in green retrofits versus new construction?

BILL: It’s hard to directly attribute the percentages of retrofit and new construction projects in our portfolio to things like LEED, especially with other factors in play, most notably the current economy like we’ve already talked about. That said, we have seen significant interest in LEED among our clients. The discussion about green and energy efficient approaches is playing an increasingly prominent role in all of our projects.

JV: As you know, Just Venting is the blog of Goodway Technologies Corporation, so our main concern is commercial HVAC. Do you think any of the issues that you and I are talking about here – the rise of green retrofits, the bad economy, the growing interest in LEED and energy efficiency – have led to a change in demand for preventive HVAC maintenance?

BILL: No, not really. But generally speaking, LEED has brought increased attention to the importance of planned maintenance on mechanical equipment. Our experience is that facility managers at buildings that are pursuing LEED certification or a generalized energy reduction are already well aware of the benefits of planned maintenance. These benefits are obvious: decreased operating costs, fewer unplanned emergency repairs, extended equipment life, and a consistent, comfortable environment for the building’s occupants.

JV: LEED is set to launch a significant revision to its standards this year. What impact do you think the launch of LEED 2009 will have on your business and the industry in general?

BILL: Nothing tremendously different from what LEED has impacted in general. LEED for Existing Buildings version 2.0 has been transformed to LEED for Existing Buildings: Operation and Maintenance. The prerequisites and credits have been reorganized, new credits and standards have been added, and some of the credit requirements have modified or increased over LEED for Existing Buildings version 2.0. For example, the Energy Star requirements under version 2.0 were to achieve a performance rating of 60, and now it’s 69 under the new standard. This is going to require a more diligent effort to improve the performance of buildings and their mechanical systems.

JV: We talk to a pretty broad audience here on a regular basis, including HVAC technicians and installers, cleaning crews, and the facility managers and building decision makers that make up your clientele. Do you have any general advice for individuals or businesses that are wondering how they should respond to the very important issues we’ve been discussing?

BILL: The need for highly efficient, sustainable buildings is ever present. We’re facing a lot of serious challenges right now as a nation and a planet, and also in our specific industry. Staying at the forefront of new approaches and technologies for answering these challenges will be crucial for success. Any building owner who’s intent on reducing and controlling the costs of installing, operating, and maintaining mechanical systems should avoid the approach of “just keeping it running” and work with a experienced company that takes a holistic approach to building design, construction, and maintenance.

JV: Thank you, Bill. We appreciate your taking the time to talk with us.