PLUGGING THE HEAT

Buildings in America are kept warm by the massive flow of heat from a source inside the building through the walls into the open air. This is like drinking milk, not out of a glass, but from a steady stream through an open faucet into the sink. The culprit for this waste is government price fixing: With oil $3.50 a barrel and electric power 2 cents a kWh, there was no reason to construct buildings otherwise. But now that this pleasing policy of "protecting the consumer" has given consumers the shivers, architects and engineers are taking a fresh look at the design of buildings conserving more energy.

There are many ways to do this, but two measures probably have more effect than any other: the shape of the building and its insulation.

When a man goes out in the frost, he first feels the cold in his ears, nose and finger tips--the parts of the body that have the largest surface for the least volume. A given volume has the smallest surface, and therefore the smallest heat losses, when it has the shape of a sphere. The next best realistic shape for a building is a cube, and that is close to the shape of the Federal Office Building to be constructed in Manchester, N.H., by the General Services Administration as a test project for the design of energyconserving office buildings. The design incorporates most of the known conservation devices, and it is expected to result in up to 25% savings in heating, cooling and lighting expenses.

The other major factor is insulation. Reinforced concrete is an excellent construction material from the mechanical point of view; but it is nowhere near best for thermal insulation. The GSA's Manchester building will have walls at least 12 inches thick, which increases thermal insulation by greatly increasing construction costs not a very attractive method.

The best readily available thermal insulator is the cheapest of all materials: air. What keeps people warm when they are wearing sweaters is not the wool, but the little pockets of air trapped in it to insulate their body warmth. Can one construct a building of reinforced concrete in some kind of a sweater?

Yes, says U Forms International, Inc., of Livonia, Michigan. What's more, you can cut building costs by 10% (compared to a steel frame building), construction time by 40%, and you save 30 to 40/Mo on heating and cooling costs.

U Forms use blocks of polyutherene foam which traps air like a sweater. They have one horizontal trough and several vertical channels through which the reinforcing rods are inserted and tied to the rod in the horizontal trough on top. The blocks are stacked until they reach the height of one storey. Then the concrete is poured through the vertical channels to form a concrete grid round the rods inside the plastic foam. The exterior facing is already attached to the blocks, and so the building goes up storey by storey reinforced concrete in a sweater.

This is not science fiction of the future. The Livonia Pavillion East, a 119,000 square foot structure, is already standing. Final plans for the 10 storey Detroit Medical Center are now being drawn up. And these buildings do not just save more energy.

They also bring a far higher rent return on invested capital, a point which the GSA did not have to consider in its project which is less successful in energy savings.

Surprised?