Abundance Blog
News and ideas from Paladino's team of industry leaders.
Building Performance Requirements Are Coming - Are You Ready?
By Adam Herzer
Building performance requirements are policies that establish a definition for high-performance buildings and drive all buildings to achieve that definition, making clear the city or county’s priorities. A building performance requirement provides flexibility because owners can use whatever technologies and…
D.C. Building Operators: It's Time to Pay Attention to the D.C. DOEE BEPS Program
Let's talk about BEPS. The District of Columbia is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions 50% below 2006 levels by 2032 and 80% by 2050. Meeting these goals will require improving the energy efficiency of District homes and buildings, switching to clean,…
What role does Commissioning play in Net Zero Energy for new and existing buildings?
By Darren Bruce
This post highlights the important role that building commissioning must play in any Net Zero Energy strategy. A Net Zero Energy project is a building or group of buildings with significantly reduced energy loads, such that 100% or more of…
Elevated Energy Performance Standards in Washington DC’s Existing Buildings
By Darren Bruce
Between the Omnibus Act and the Net Zero effort, Washington DC is taking a leadership role in energy performance and regulation. A few of the changes in energy performance for existing buildings requirements that are causing building owners, operators, and…
First Impressions: Introducing Jake Mello, Paladino’s New Commissioning Engineer
We are excited to announce that Jake Mello has joined Paladino as commissioning engineer in the DC region. We’re proud to have him on our team, and we want to give our clients, colleagues, and peers the opportunity to get to know…
First Impressions: Introducing Brad Greeff, Senior Commissioning Engineer
At Paladino, we make your building designs more sustainable, healthy, and resilient - and then we maintain them through an expert commissioning team. Meet the newest member of this team, Senior Commissioning Engineer Brad Greeff. Brad joined Paladino in June,…
ENERGY STAR scoring is about to change
ENERGY STAR compares a building’s energy performance to that of similar buildings nationwide, and buildings have become more energy efficient in recent years. This is good news! It also means that if you benchmark properties in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager,…
Energy models in the era of the virtual workforce
I’ve worked on energy models for everything from local schools and libraries to towering hotels and multifamily high rise. The bigger the building or the more innovative the design, the more important it is to get an energy model. Energy…
Multifamily ventilation - help buildings breathe
By Darren Bruce
There’s a debate within the multifamily building community as to the best way to ventilate residential buildings. There are three competing design options that can be implemented in residential design: natural ventilation, mechanical ventilation, and a hybrid approach. What’s the…
Energy Conservation Measures : a story from the field
By Darren Bruce
While performing a retro-commissioning process for an 870,000 ft2 outpatient hospital in the southeastern United States, dozens of Energy Conservation Measures were identified and presented to the facility managers. The facility manager had a modest budget to address these ECMs,…