To encourage energy efficient design in a range of building types, ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) and its partners are offering the
Advanced Energy Design Guide series for free via download.
Electronic versions of the newest books in the series,
Advanced Energy Design Guides for Small Warehouses and Self-Storage Buildings and
Advanced Energy Design Guides for K-12 School Buildings, as well as the guides on small office and small retail buildings, are now available for free download at
ashrae.org/freeaedg. Future guides, including ones on highway lodging, existing buildings and healthcare facilities will be offered for download as well.
ASHRAE’s guides provide a sensible, hands-on approach to design through the use of products that are practical and commercially available as “off-the-shelf” technology. The books offer designers, builders and contractors the tools they need to achieve energy savings of 30 percent compared to buildings that meet the minimum energy efficiency requirements of Standard 90.1-1999,
Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings.
“Buildings consume approximately 40 percent of the primary energy in the United States,” said ASHRAE President Kent Peterson. “As part of our energy efficient market deployment strategy, we want to get this valuable building guidance into the marketplace and into the hands of owners, contractors and design teams. The technology is available today to construct substantially more efficient buildings. Free distribution of the
Advanced Energy Design Guide series will help educate the marketplace on how to build energy efficient buildings that use significantly less energy than those built to the minimum code requirements.”
Partners in this project include the American Institute of Architects, the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, and the U.S. Green Building Council. Additional support was provided by the Department of Energy.
Hard copies of all the guides are available for purchase. For more information, visit
ashrae.org/freeaedg.
