Why I Love HVAC Guys (and one Gal)

Oh I've been in some pretty wretched basements and seen some strange heating systems, but I have never met an HVAC guy or gal I didn't like, nay adore. There is some serious practical knowledge there, with ideas for change that should not go un-noticed! The happy ones and the reluctant ones, the big and the small, the talkative and the not, all shared great information and great plans for saving energy in the museum.

These folks are getting a bit more recognition these days: whole building energy professional. It's not cosmetic. Now engineers to installers, techies to traditionalists have a name that fits their value. And so does their club: ASHRAE - the organization formerly known as the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-conditioning Engineers- is now just ASHRAE but with an aspirational tag line:  Shaping Tomorrow's Built Environment Today. 

That  matters.  Why? Because it reflects the difference they can make if we let them.

Every time I take a team on a tour of their own building, anyone who sees the boiler room or basement for the first time is made different by the experience. Oh I don't understand even a 10th of this specialized profession, and most who see that basement for the first time may never get in there again, but we all know and respect what goes on there, and from then on we include those Guys and one Gal in our work.

In my mantra for going green at your museum, the last line is "first thing you do, get an energy audit". That's how important it is. That's how important the HVAC Guys and one Gal really are. So if you haven't had that energy audit yet, if you haven't been down in your basement for a year, call your whole building energy professional and crawl around, stroll around, climb around your system. It matters.

Article Review: Sustainability in Conservation Practice

in the Journal of the Institute of Conservation   

by Megan de Silva and Jane Henderson

For those of you in conservation practice, undoubtedly you’ve seen this valuable article in The Journal of the Institute of Conservation; for the rest of us, the authors Megan de Silva and Jane Henderson, both in the Conservation Section of the Department of Archaeology and Conservation at Cardiff University in the UK, have prepared a valuable review of recommended sustainability practices active in the UK, recommendations specifically in the conservation sphere, and an example of benchmarking practices to encourage adoption of sustainability practices.

The first third of the article provides a valuable overview of sustainability work to date in the UK - one that will encourage US museums to get a hustle on; the balance of the article includes practical ideas for getting that hustle on.

The eight tables illustrating benchmark levels are excellent resources.