ASHRAE GreenGuide

David L. Grumman, editor. American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc., 2004, paperback, 170 pages, $99 ($79 for ASHRAE members). Contact ASHRAE Customer Service at 1-800-527-4723 or 404-636-8400, or visit the ASHRAE.org Bookstore.

Engineers can be a literal bunch. A chapter in the

ASHRAE GreenGuide titled “Background and Fundamentals” gets really fundamental, as in: “A formula is composed simply of constants and variables.” Yet this seemingly oversimplified approach makes a lot of sense in a document that aims to get engineers thinking from first principles rather than from equipment catalogs. Written and edited entirely by volunteers, the

GreenGuide has its share of rough edges. But it also has lots of useful information, and it’s put together in a way that should prove useful to practicing mechanical engineers.

The

GreenGuide begins by setting the stage. Section 1, “Basics,” describes what green building is all about, and lays out the fundamentals. Section 2, “The Design Process,” begins with some of the most progressive thinking in the book as it describes how engineers must be more proactive about helping to design buildings with reduced heating and cooling loads, rather than simply coming in later to specify equipment. Most of Section 2 is devoted to describing energy-efficient approaches and technologies for heating, cooling, and ventilation. This part of the

GreenGuide features 29 “ASHRAE GreenTips,” a collection of short, fact-sheet-style overviews on specific design strategies, such as Night Precooling, Ground-Source Heat Pumps, and Rainwater Harvesting. Section 3, “Post-Design—Construction to Demolition,” returns the focus to the process, with details on commissioning and sustaining high performance in building operations.

The information in the

GreenGuide is not highly detailed or technical—engineers who already have experience with nonstandard approaches and technologies may not find much that is new here. The publication also suffers a bit from a shortage of graphics—diagrams or photos would have made the material more accessible. But the concise overviews on this wide range of material should be invaluable to those who have been more involved with fine-tuning conventional approaches than experimenting with new ones. In a sense, the

GreenGuide is a “brain dump” of information from engineers on the cutting edge to those who are now playing catch-up—as it serves well in that role. In spite of this book’s usefulness, even its creators have ideas about how it can be improved—the second edition is already being planned.

– NM