Random Thoughts on Math and Reality

Updated article and published in Google Doc format.

LEED Exam

     It has been a while since I have written because I have been studying for the U.S. Green Building Council LEED AP exam. I have been studying for this exam all last weekend and all this weekend. Last Monday, Friday, and Saturday I spent Most of the day studying for this exam (and the weekend before). I spent nearly 40 hours reading the 600+ page LEED 2009 Green Building Design And Construction Reference Guide, memorizing as much of the information as I could. I would read a credit/prerequisite (say SSc5.1), then read through the summary page of all related credits/prerequisites (SSc5.2, SSc6.1, SSc5.2, SSc7, WWc1), then go the next credit/prerequisite (SSc5.2) and repeat the process. This way I read through the book several times over when I finished.
     Last Friday I started the practice exams and boy they are hard! I got 66% on the first and second exam. I read through all the parts of the book I missed and think I will be getting a much higher score on this third exam. The stuff the test you on is crazy. Like one of the questions was: "What is the population density for LZ2 Exterior Lighting levels?" Answer: "200-3,000 people/mi^2." This information is not even in the book! It is in a reference document. Luckily, most of the test questions are not this hard.

Systems and Order

Updated talk and placed it in Google Docs format.

Brendan and the Metric System

I had a 6 month construction rotation during which time I worked at the Beale Air Force Base and the Sacramento Resident Office (SRO). When I worked at SRO there was one Mechanical Engineer I worked with as much as possible; Brendan. Brendan and I had an ongoing lighthearted debate about the Metric vs. English unit system over the course of several months. For those who don't know my stance, then see a previous post of mine about the English unit system. During our conversations Brendan did help me understand the English unit system much better. I had always been confused with units like lb/BTU. In this case lb is not referring to the force of an object divided by its energy content. Instead, it is referring to an amount of a substance (measured in weight) per its energy content. This is because, as Brendan says, the fundamental unit for an amount of substance is not mass but weight. I would very much disagree with this, but I can understand where this idea comes from; one cannot measure mass, mass must be derived from taking its weight and dividing by gravity. Although we could understand each other we still enjoyed teasing one another; Brendan and I would tease each other almost every week. One of my favorite instances is when we were looking at a pump and calculating the load the pump puts on the equipment pad. Brendan said, "That's right , the load, not the mass but the force." He then broke out into a big smile and we both shared a laugh.

Mechanical Insulation Design Guide - Design Objectives | Whole Building Design Guide

Just finished a Webinar on this subject:
Mechanical Insulation Design Guide - Design Objectives | Whole Building Design Guide

The most useful part of this guide I found was the condensate control calculator: http://www.wbdg.org/design/midg_design_ccchp.php

and the financial investment calculator: http://www.wbdg.org/design/midg_design_mifc.php.

The financial investment calculator can be used to calculate the rate of return on any investment!

Trying to find water heater information

I am trying to find the recovery rate for this hot water heater (see image). I found two websites detailing products close to the one I am looking for but not quite the same.

Knowing the capacity the only other piece of information needed is the recovery rate for this hot water heater. I did find some information online from two reputable websites. One is Jupiter Heating and the other Pex Supply. Neither websites have an exact match for the water heater I am looking for. I hate figuring out existing systems. You can never find accurate cut sheets.