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Free Guide to Energy Efficiency in Healthcare Facilities Available



Continuing the Advanced Energy Design Guide (AEDG) series, the AEDG for Small Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities (link) provides recommendations for achieving 30 percent energy savings over the minimum code requirements of ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-1999.




Continuing the Advanced Energy Design Guide (AEDG) series, the AEDG for Small Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities provides recommendations for achieving 30 percent energy savings over the minimum code requirements of ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-1999.

Written by a group of building industry organizations, the AEDG for Small Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities focuses on small healthcare facilities up to 90,000 square feet in size, including acute care facilities, outpatient surgery centers, critical access hospitals and inpatient community hospitals. These buildings have intensive heating and cooling systems, which the guide covers extensively; additionally, other energy saving measures such as daylighting are included.

Some tips that the Guide offers include:

    * Providing an unoccupied air flow and temperature setback for spaces that are not used 24 hours a day, such as surgery suites;
    * Installing high efficiency condensing boilers with an outdoor air temperature reset schedule for all climate zones to address the high amounts of reheat energy used by such facilities to control humidity;
    * Maximizing the use of daylighting and daylighting-responsive controls through both sidelighting and toplighting strategies in all space types that do not have air change requirements;
    * Installing an insulated thermal envelope, with additional recommendations to address air barriers and continuous insulation strategies.

Also, case studies provide examples of advanced hospital and healthcare facility designs that demonstrate the flexibility offered in achieving advanced energy savings such as the 30 percent goal of the Guide.

The Advanced Energy Design Guide series has been developed in collaboration with ASHRAE, the American Institute of Architects, the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, the U.S. Green Building Council and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Other books in the series deal with small office and retail buildings, K-12 school buildings, highway lodging and small warehouse and self-storage buildings.



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  posted on 11/19/2009   Article Use Policy




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