Environment - Climate Change
January 30, 2023 Published by Manitoba Chapter - By Alan Forbes
The Green Condo Page
From the CCI Manitoba Winter 2023 Condominium News and Views Magazine
Whether it improves the sustainability of your condo operations, reduces waste, increases energy efficiency, reduces water consumption or just beautifies the environment surrounding your property, we’d like to hear from you - just send us an email with a subject line of “CCI Green Condo Page”. We hope to hear from you soon. Please send any comments or suggestions to cci.mb.news@gmail.com.
UNDERSTANDING ROOM COMFORT LEVELS
While I live in an R2000 rated townhouse condo, the winter months often have me wanting a more energy efficient home. However, after reading the article in the following link, I realized that energy efficiency isn’t the issue - the issue is comfort level. The article introduces a concept called ‘mean radiant temperature’ (MRT), which may sound like the article is too dry and technical, but with a reference to another article titled “Naked People Need Building Science”, the article is well worth the read. https://www.treehugger.com/mean-radiant-temperature-key-tounderstanding-comfort-5213152
TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS - COMMON ELEMENT UTILITY BILLS
Unit owner behaviour can result in increased operating costs for condo corporations (CCs), by wasting water and/or energy. If a unit has a leaky faucet or toilet, unless the unit owner is paying the bill directly, some see no incentive for getting the problem fixed. This is defective reasoning - although the CC may be paying the water bill for the property, the CC’s money only comes from the unit owners. Similarly, some unit owners may take excessively long hot showers, again with the false assumption that since the CC pays the energy and water bills, there is no cost to the unit owner. The end result is wasted water and energy, with higher cost for the CC.
EfficiencyManitoba has numerous ideas and programs for a CC to use to reduce their energy and water consumption (and help save the planet) https://efficiencymb.ca/. Related to water saving ideas, here is an article with 10 water saving ideas from Green Building Canada https://greenbuildingcanada.ca/2022/water-efficient-plumbing/. However, these and other sources of good ideas do not address the behaviour influence on cost and waste. If you have encountered this type of situation in your condo and have a solution to offer, let us know.
ALAN FORBES
Chair, CCI Communications Committee
cci.mb.news@gmail.com
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