Smart Buildings - Living Green in a Big Way

How to live green, find green materials, and go green.

Smart Buildings

In recent years we have heard more and more about how we need to live green, go green with the products we use, and of course build with green materials. In our series of Green Articles, you will read much about Smart Systems, or Integrated Systems in the "Intelligent" Buildings or "Smart" Buildings. What are they, and who is building them?

Intelligent or Smart Buildings (referred to as SB's hereafter) are basically any building that has incorporated streamline operations which deliver better service to their end users. Many would call this a "Smart System". This system will help you live green in many ways.

A decade or two ago, you may have immediately thought of the Jetson's when confronted with the idea, that an elevator could sense you without even touching the button. Or that anyone could program their lights to turn on from down the street, or Internet service would be called Wi-Fi and be hard wired into your apartment building. Look how far we have come today.

One example of an SB is One American Plaza in San Diego, California. The Broadband infrastructure alone in this building affords free Wi-Fi, Tablet PCs and PDAs, to each tenant, and adds to a higher quality service.

Many building owners and developers want to live green, or go green, and they are located in North America and overseas. They are coming to the realization that to compete, they must change, and develop the SB's of the future too. They must use green materials in every step of the building process.

SB's are not built on the same design, construction, and operation process of the past either. The approach needed for the successful development of "intelligent buildings" requires innovative strategies and usually consist of a team of Developers and Architects to incorporate their ideas into reality.

While there is no actual definition for an Intelligent building, or Smart Building, they do have several things in common with each other.

They integrate distinct systems which can be controlled by a centralized common user interface such as a Computer. Every part of the building communications system is a shared network throughout the structure. The high-performance systems of these buildings require that the building owners, and/or property and facility management, are highly trained professionals who understand this technology. This benefits the end-users.

These buildings have a capacity built in, that will maximize its own performance and efficiency. This is accomplished by integrating all systems such as lighting, HVAC, safety, power management, security (access control, video surveillance, and visitor management), seismic and structural monitoring, environmental conditions, including temperature, air flow, and air chemistry and more into one centrally controlled system.

The technology is likened to a Central Nervous System incorporating building strategies set to calculate and then alter its own performance and functions. This has an added long-term sustainable value and overall efficiency and savings to the property.

Jill Manzoni is a Freelance Writer, Web Developer, and Virtual Assistant with over a dozen internet sites of her own. She supports many awards, accommodations, and honorable mentions for her work in print and online periodicals, including the Golden Web Award, the Family Friendly Site Award, Phenomenal Women of the Web Awards, and many other awards for her service to others. Among her books on Natural Health, and Environmental issues, she is a syndicated columnist, and her essays and articles appear in print and on hundreds of internet sites.

http://www.odesk.com/users/~~6df4342456eb94d6

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Invest in Real Estate the Smart Way

Many people think of real estate as a gamble, but a necessary thing to do in India. People usually turn towards real estate agents and agencies like landlord India who will help you in your endeavors to find a perfect home of your dreams! But ultimately, it is you who has to shell out the necessary money and make a smart decision. For most of us, house is an investment for the long run and it is the single most important and large investment of our lifetime! Investing in such a big area is a risky factor and calls for lot of thinking and decision-making process. In fact, house buying in India is also an emotional aspect! Hence it needs to be done with utmost care and precaution. Here are some pointers which will help you in making smart and wise decisions:

- Majority of the ground work needs to be done by the person himself. Gather as much information about the location, market conditions etc as possible

- Make the decision based on returns, rentals, your income, future prospects etc especially if you are buying a house. You need to think of future possibilities also

- Keep an eye on BSE realty index and other such indices

- Talk to as many people as possible - but remember more the people, more the opinions. Ultimately, it is you who has to decide!

- Beware of recent market crashes - keep all options open and have a plan B

- Use expert opinions and past trends to calculate return on investment for that house

- Always keep a margin of safety

One of the main advantages of investing in real estate in India is diversification value. Other advantages are yield enhancement, continuous inflationary trends, ability to influence performance etc. you can paint the house, re decorate it, fix all problems and hike up the value considerably. The owner plays an important role in contributing towards the value of the house!

You can also think of investing in smaller apartments or duplexes and condominiums. They are comparatively smaller in terms of financial investment and return on investment is usually good! At the same time, pride of ownership is also there.

It totally depends on your knowledge and vision as to how you play with market trends and convert them into money for you! Beware and make sound investments.

For most of us, house investment is the single most important and big investment of our life! Hence we want the maximum returns on it. Here are some tips to make a smart investment decision.

For more information about Real Estate Properties for Sale, Visit: Indian Property Portal

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Save Water On A Landscape Combining Smart Controllers and Good Irrigation Management

Presenting a good, positive image is important to any business, and an attractive, healthy landscape definitely helps how the public views a commercial property. However, maintaining a quality landscape is not cheap since sufficient water needs to be applied by the irrigation system to keep the grass, shrubs and flowers healthy and vibrant. That's why installing smart irrigation controllers can help. These devices provide a great way to reduce irrigation water use, simplify landscape maintenance, and keep a landscape looking great.

Smart controllers lessen water use by collecting and applying information about site conditions (like rain, wind, slope, soil, plant type, and more), and applying the proper amount of water based on those factors to maintain healthy growing conditions. During hot weather plants need more water than during cooler weather. Smart controllers adjust the amount of water used based on these changing conditions. If enough rainfall takes place, rain sensors adjust by lessening the volume of water as needed. If the soil is of a type that absorbs water slowly or the landscape has steep slopes, smart controllers will use that information and run less water, but more frequently, to lessen water run-off.

A vital point to keep in mind with these types of irrigation controllers is how these devices are programmed. All of the variables (e.g., soil type) affect the final amount of time water will run. Adjustments to the initial programming will have to be done to get it right, which is a matter of good management. In fact multiple tweaks are needed since this whole process is as much of an art as it is a science. Simply put this human factor is the most important variable in the programming process.

In order to get the most out of a smart irrigation controller:

Inspect the Irrigation System: Smart controllers work best when the entire irrigation system is working well. Such an inspection will check for leaks, proper water pressure, malfunctioning hardware, and other similar issues that might affect the effectiveness of the complete irrigation system. Repairing problems like these will ensure the controller is able to provide the expected water savings.

Work with a Professional: These controllers are generally only available through irrigation or landscape contractors instead of retail outlets. The Irrigation Association (the umbrella organization for irrigation manufacturers, contractors and suppliers) has compiled a list of professionals who are certified to install "smart" irrigation controllers. To locate an Irrigation Association certified professional, or to confirm the status of any irrigation contractor in your area, please consult this list of Certified Professionals.

With the right combination of hardware, programming and hands on management, these types of irrigation controllers will provide long term, ongoing water savings.

Irrigation Management Systems (IMS) has saved water and money for its clients since the late 1980s, long before green was fashionable. Using the right combination of technology and management practices, IMS has long worked on keeping that delicate balance of saving water while keeping shrubs, turf and flowers sufficiently watered. Get to know us a little better at http://www.irrigationmanagementsystems.com/

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Irrigation Management Tools - What Is Better? Central Control Irrigation or Smart Controllers?

The weather in the Portland area continues to be more April than July. This past Sunday, July 17th, the slight chance of showers in the weather forecast turned into a multi-hour rain event that eventually totaled over half an inch of rainfall. Suffice it to say that very few irrigation controllers in the region adjusted accordingly for that night's watering. Instead they ran as if it had not rained at all because it would require an on-site visit by someone to actually reduce or shut off irrigation schedules. That rarely happens and on Sunday it does not happen at all. What about them new fangled smart controllers? You know the ones that receive some type of weather data that adjusts the irrigation run times without a personal visit? Well, they very well may have adjusted appropriately. However, how do you know?

Were there any problems with the communication of said weather data?Was the weather data source recording the weather properly or at all?Is the smart controller in the right mode to incorporate the weather data or was it accidentally set to run in stand alone?

The bottom line is that you don't know with these smart controllers for a couple of reasons. First, there is no communication option (outside of a spendy upgrade) that allows a user to contact the smart controller to check on its status. It still needs an on-site visit to do that. Second, there is no way to retrieve any kind of stored data within the controller to produce a report to review.

Now a rainfall event like this past Sunday certainly is a clearcut example of how a controller that is accessible via telephone, wi-fi, cellular, etc. is such a key part of effective irrigation management. Whether from a website or a central computer, an irrigation manager can check that the irrigation is shut down due to such a rainfall amount. That is tremendous peace of mind for the irrigation manager and a huge water savings for the property owner. This is no different for less dramatic weather changes like a week's worth of scorching hot weather followed by a weekend of mostly cloudy weather. Again, the irrigation manager can check that the weather data is recorded properly, transmitted properly and watered properly...without visiting the controller in person.

Smart controllers do none of this. Now smart controllers are a step in the right direction when compared to traditional controllers. However, they are woefully incomplete. There is no way to retrieve data, produce reports, check on communication links, make programming corrections or see if the irrigation controller actually has electrical power and is running irrigation schedules. In contrast, central control irrigation systems provide all of these management benefits. Whether it is via a website or software loaded onto a desktop or laptop computer, an irrigation manager can check on the controllers without a site visit. The technology is readily available for these central control irrigation systems. Why settle for a partial solution?

Irrigation Management Systems (IMS) has saved water and money for its clients since the late 1980s, long before green was fashionable. Using the right combination of technology and management practices, IMS has long worked on keeping that delicate balance of saving water while keeping shrubs, turf and flowers sufficiently watered. Get to know us a little better at http://www.irrigationmanagementsystems.com/save-water/ and you can also get some free tips to saving water.

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Is Your Future Smart House at Risk to Hackers?

For those of us who now have SmartGrid electrical meters on our homes, we realize that in the future we will have more tools to help us monitor our electricity usage. When General Motors, Honda, Toyota, and Ford started putting in real-time gas gauges which showed drivers their miles per gallon based on whatever they were doing at the time, drivers immediately noticed that they were attempting to keep that number as highest possible, almost as if they were playing a videogame, therefore increasing their miles per gallon. Obviously when gasoline in the United States is four dollars per gallon it makes sense to do this.

Now then, in the future with a SmartGrid electricity meter on your home, with a control panel, you will be able to see the difference in your electricity usage when you have a TV on in the other room that you're not using, or an extra set of lights on. Indeed, I imagine, as do analysts who study consumer conservation for energy, that this will make it impact on the amount of electricity we use in the United States. It could actually drive the electricity usage from the consumer markets down 10%. That might indeed stave off the need to build more energy generation plants in the future.

This also means that we will need to build fewer coal-fired plants, and therefore we will also put less CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Now then, this article isn't about global warming alarmism, because I don't believe in that. Rather I'd like to talk about these new features in your future smart house. And I'd like to discuss the risks from our electrical grid being hacked, and poisonous software being introduced from the point of consumption through the SmartGrid, or someone entering through your smart house's Wi-Fi system, perhaps a hacker putting in a virus, malware, or monitoring software without you knowing it.

There was an interesting article in the USA Today by Byron Acohido titled "Hackers Ooze into Printers, Copiers - Digital Thieves Fine Entry through Office Equipment," published on August 5, 2011. Who is to say in the future that hackers won't come in through your refrigerator, your washing machine, your dishwasher, your microwave oven, or your garbage disposal and hack into your smart house? Now then, on August 16, 2011 there was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal this one by Ian Sheer which was titled "H-P Looks to Kitchens, Cars" and the article stated;

"H-P hopes that webOS on appliances and in cars will create an ecosystem of devices around it."

Now then, this sounds all well and good, however it better be safe, and if someone hacks into your house, the same way they hack into your computer peripherals, then no one is safe from a hack attack, and the hackers are coming to a home near you. Please consider all this and think on it.

Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes writing 24,500 articles by August 24th or 25th will be difficult because all the letters on his keyboard are now worn off now..

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