know your environment first.

[ARAVINDH]

Dear friends,

 

I don’t know anything to say about LEED , but something to share with you all.

 

Green building - Green environment .

 

Some information for you all about water, fire and earth.

 

 

 

Water

 

Usage

 

130 liters / head / day in INDIA

160 liters / head / day in UK

220 liters / head / day in U.S.A.

 

One tonne of cement requires 3,600 liters of water for manufacturing

One tonne of coke or steel making needs 18,000 liter

One tonne of paper uses 27,000 liter

A liter of Beer needs 9 liters of water.

A Car manufacturing needs 76 tonnes of water which would occupy 5mx5mx3m

The grain for a loaf of bread needs 2.5 tonnes of water.

 

Only 3% of the earth’s water is fresh water that could be used for drinking. 2/3 of this is locked up in the polar ice caps and glaciers. Only 0.0001% of the earth’s water is in rivers. The total volume of water in the World Rivers at any time is about 130 cubic kilometers enough to supply a world population of 5 billion people with 26,000 liters of water each.

 

Ocean used as a dumping ground for things that are no longer needed.

 

 

 

Fuels.

 

Finite- coal, oil, natural gas, uranium

Renewable – Solar Energy, Wind Power, Water Power, Timber

30 % of the world’s sulpher is produced by natural gas and petroleum.

Wind power station produces ¼ of co2 produced by nuclear power station.

 

Light and electricity

• The home is often an empty dark place during the hours of daylight..
• Maximum day light and less electricity consumed
• Fluorescent lamps saves more energy than the tungsten one.
• Use of low energy bulbs saves electricity; it only uses 20% of the electricity used by a tungsten bulb for the same light output. And saves 50% of the cost of using tungsten bulb.
• Building a power station needs lot of resources and long time duration and big budget. Instead of adding a power station, providing free low energy bulbs is much cheaper and it is already in custom abroad.
• why not Photovoltaic power plant in India?

 

 

 

Earth & Materials

 

Low energy materials are least polluting.

 

Sand , gravel, wood, concrete, sand-lime brick work, light weight concrete.- low Energy

Plaster board, brick work, lime, cement, mineral fibre, glass, porcelain,- Medium Energy

Plastics, steel, lead, zinc, copper, aluminium, - High Energy

 

Chip boards produces Formaldehyde gas inside the building – Small amount of such material is not a problem , but it can add up to the problem.

 

Finally green principles for you

 

1. A building should be constructed so as to minimize the need for the fossil fuels to run it; ( Conserving Energy )
2. Buildings should be designed to work with climate and natural energy sources. ( Working with Climate)
3. A building should be designed so as to minimize the use of new resources and at the end of its useful life, to form the resources for other architecture. ( minimizing new resources )
4. A green architecture recognizes the importance of all the people involved with it. ( respect for users )
5. A building will touch this earth lightly ( respect for site )
6. All the green principles need to be embodied in holistic approach to the built environment. ( Holism )

 

 

From the book "Green Buildings".

 

 

south breeze.......................