myfacilitiesnet

Water shortages have occurred so often in California, and are now so severe, that the state has good reason to practice water conservation. With that in mind, it’s interesting to look at the results of a new Building Operating Management survey...

I recently saw a rerun of the old television show Columbo. Columbo, you may remember, was a rumpled detective who just kept asking questions. He got no respect from each episode’s criminal, usually a person in a position of power. But wee...

How important are goals? Not general goals, like do more or spend less, but specific, numerical targets? That question occurred to me because Building Operating Management’s recent training-budget survey asked facility managers if they had goal...

Every year at NFMT Baltimore , the new FMXcellence honorees and Building Operating Management editors get together on the night before the opening session. This year, the conversation turned to the benefits of FMXcellence recognition. Of the three rea...

The long-awaited ASHRAE standard on Legionella is now available. ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 188-2015, Legionellosis: Risk Management for Building Water Systems establishes minimum legionellosis risk management requirements for building water systems. ...

In a welcome act of bipartisanship, Congress passed and President Obama signed a measure that authorizes a new Tenant Star program to recognize tenants for their energy efficiency efforts. As the name suggests, the initiative is modeled after the hig...

It’s not really a surprise to see the Wall Street Journal reporting on trends in workplace design. But when I read about office design in an airline magazine, or see it on the local news, I start to wonder whether something is up. What’s up, I think, is interest. It’s no secret that work patterns are changing. Easy mobile access enables many employees to be productive outside the office. And when...

Buildings offer substantial opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And that fact puts facility managers on the front lines of efforts to address the issue of climate change. Which got me wondering: What do facility managers think about climate change? When we’ve written about climate change, we have inevitably heard from a handful of readers who deny that human activity is causing changes in the climate...

For facility managers who are aiming to achieve a high-performance building, one challenge is deciding exactly what a “high-performance building” is. There’s no single industry-wide definition. But that doesn’t mean that the term lacks substance. One good way to understand the concept is to say that you know it when you see it. A high-peformance building is extremely energy efficient in operation...

When things change, the lion’s share of the attention goes to what’s new. Think of the shift to new office designs, to outpatient facilities, to megawarehouses. But what stays the same — occupant comfort, energy efficiency, support for the organization’s mission — remains essential. Both aspects are evident when veteran personnel retire, as many facility managers know well. New staff bring...

When Target’s point-of-sale network was breached by hackers, who then stole millions of credit and debit card numbers, some early reports said the hackers had gained access to the Target network by way of the building automation system. As it turned out, that wasn’t true . But if hackers are interested in breaking into an organization’s network, the BAS could be a starting point. And a recent Building...

What would it mean for greenhouse gas emissions, if the whole world used air conditioning the way we do in the United States? Consider that, according to one study, India would have 15 times the demand that we do. For China, the multiplier would be five. The answer, of course, depends on how efficient the cooling equipment is, and how the electricity that powers it is produced. I’m not suggesting that more air...

When the subject of top management comes up in conversation, you can divide facility managers into two categories: the eye-rollers and the shruggers. I’m only half kidding. Top management makes more than a few choices that, to a facility manager, seem to fall somewhere between short-sighted and foolish. Confronted with one of these decisions, some facility managers roll their eyes and shake their heads in evident...

With pro basketball season approaching, things are looking pretty good for small-market teams. The defending NBA champs — the San Antonio Spurs — are the sport’s long-running small-market success story, with five titles under the current head coach. And this year’s title favorite is another small-market team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, which lured the league’s biggest star, LeBron James, back...

When I see the words “water problems” and “California” in the same headline, the first thing that comes to mind is drought. But what made the headlines recently is the water main break in Los Angeles, which cost the city millions of gallons of water. When I hear “water problems” and “Lake Erie” in the same newscast, my first thought is pollution. And it was in fact algae...

I’m sure there are times most facility managers feel that way. When your budget has been cut again. When you’re the last one to find out about a change in the way the facility will be used. When the umpteenth ludicrous complaint hits your inbox or voicemail. Well, the fact is there are tens of thousands of people who care about what you do. That’s because they do the same thing. And tapping into the...

How many times have you heard someone say, “people are our biggest asset”? Maybe you’ve said it yourself. It isn’t news that people play a critical role in getting buildings to perform efficiently. For example, Energy Star numbers have shown for years that older buildings can perform just as well as newer ones, on average; what matters for performance isn’t how new the building systems are...

The sign hanging on the door of the bathroom assured me that this hotel was sensitive to concerns about the environment, so it was going to let me choose how often I would have my towels laundered. I’m always happy to see those signs. They seem like such a painless way for a property to enable guests to save a little water and energy, while, of course, saving the hotel time and money. But I have to say that I...

Here’s an interesting way to look at energy use by U.S. buildings, courtesy of the Rocky Mountain Institute : Existing buildings in the United States account for 72 percent of our electricity use, which is more electricity than any country in the world (except for China and, of course, the United States) uses in total. For all of us concerned about climate change, that number offers some good news. It’s...

Facility managers are often told that they should speak the language of the boardroom — ROI, IRR, and NPV instead of kWh and Btu. But top management isn’t the only group that may require facility managers to do some translating. Two sessions at NFMT showed that it’s far from a given that the message is getting through when facility managers talk to building occupants, and vice versa. One session had...

One thing that makes facility management, ahem, interesting is variety. There is no end to things that can go wrong with the building itself, to say nothing about complaints from occupants. Fortunately, there are also plenty of opportunities to add value. A look at this year’s FMXcellence honorees shows how many ways there are to do that. Westminster Schools is a great example of bootstrapping an energy and water...

I have always thought that the real secret of Apple’s success was software. Apple didn’t invent the PC, but the Mac operating system blazed the trail that Microsoft followed in the 1980s. There were MP3 players before the iPod, smartphones before the iPhone, tablets before the iPad. Without giving it much thought, I assumed that iOS and platforms like iTunes and the App Store defined Apple. So I was surprised...

A few months ago, our senior editor, Naomi Millán, showed me a draft of a survey on occupant complaints for the cover story of the January issue . The last few questions were open-ended, asking readers to share their tips, pet peeves, and horror stories. The usual rule with surveys is that open-ended questions dampen response. Three open-ended questions seemed like a lot to me, but since they were at the end...

I found myself unexpectedly out of the office recently. Most of the day was spent waiting around. Fortunately, I landed in a 10th floor room with a nice view, and the facility had a good WiFi connection. It wasn’t quite the same as being in the office, but I could get a lot done. That’s not the way I would have expected to describe an overnight stay in the hospital, where I wound up for observation after...

Over the years, I have wondered if the U.S. Green Building Council should be doing more to ensure that LEED -certified new buildings are operated in a way that ensures they live up to their green designs. Well, as time has passed, “more” is exactly what USGBC has been doing. With LEED v4 , USGBC is taking new steps to emphasize the actual performance of construction projects that earn LEED certification...