turn your home or office into an environment-friendly building

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VIVACITY | Monday, January 11, 2010 | Email | Print |  Let’s go green Ekatmata Sharma looks at potential options to turn your home or office into an environment-friendly building By 2050, more than two-thirds of the world population would have moved to cities. And this is an alarming number with India being no exception. The country is already witnessing a process of rapid urbanisation which is likely to lead to tremendous energy demand in urban areas. Thus, keeping in mind our climactic conditions, a National Rating System, Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA), has been developed that is suitable for all types of buildings in different climactic zones of the country. In fact, the Government has proposed that all its new buildings must be GRIHA compliant. “Green Rating systems for buildings emerged in various countries to strike a balance between development and environment preservation. India has maintained this balance for centuries and can fall back on its architectural heritage and traditional wisdom to maintain it. Green Ratings can help sustain it by combining time-tested wisdom with scientifically rigorous validation procedures available today,” says Siva Kishan, CEO, GRIHA Secretariat. Most development decisions are taken at the building project level and the first version of GRIHA is decision-making tool for any developer to gauge and achieve sustainability in his project. At present, there are around 40 projects of various types registered with GRIHA across India. GRIHA helped make a bid difference in the triple-bottom-line of these projects. With building materials like eco-friendly glasses, environment-friendly wall paints, day lighting system and integrated environmental softwares, the cost of green building materials, renewable energy systems and design services can all be brought down for everyone’s benefit. For sustainable architecture, glass companies like Saint Gobain are contributing to energy saving solutions through their environment-friendly glasses in architectural segments. A lot of Indian companies are already proud owners of energy efficient glasses include ITC Green Centre (Delhi), Wipro (Kochi), NIIT (Noida) and many others. These glasses has several functional benefits — like optimum transperancy that helps in day lighting of the interiors, energy efficient — cuts down heat and keep interiors cooler and helps integrate the interiors with exteriors. “There are many other factors that make it environment-friendly, like recyclability ie the glass being recyclable satisfies the important parameter of being a ‘green’ building material. It helps in achieving energy efficiency as high performance glass helps in controlling the solar and thermal heat in the interiors and maintains the temperature at its minimum best. In turn toning down the air-conditioning expenses. It also controls noise: As the double glazed glass facades help achieve a high degree of acoustic comfort. The future belongs to self-cleaning glass which keeps itself clean,” discloses Manish Shrivastva of Saint Gobain. Another component is eco-friendly paints by Acro paints. These non-solvent paints are made of traditional organic pigment powders and pigment emulsions. “These are not harmful for the environment as they are made of silicon and ceramic components. What’s more, they are durable too,” says Arjun Gaind, director of Acro Paints. Not only this, even the lightning system is turning eco-friendly with the use of sunlight. A pipe conducts ambient sunlight to desired location in the building interiors with minimal loss. This helps provide bright natural day light to the interiors, works efficiently even on rainy days and comes with negligible heat transfer and zero UV radiation and lasts for around two decades. The frequent increase in electricity tariffs have also become a concern for every household but then there are ways through which we can make our homes more energy efficient by using fibreglass duct system. It’s one of the most important systems for a home although it is hidden beneath your feet and over your head. It is the duct system that may be wasting a lot of energy. The duct system, within your home, is a branching network of tubes in walls, floors, and ceilings. From the duct system, the air flows from your home’s furnace and central air conditioner to each room. In many of the older homes and in some of newer homes, the duct systems are poorly insulated or not insulated at all. Ducts that leak heated air into unheated spaces can add up hundreds of rupees every year to your heating and cooling electricity bills. There is a solution to this unnecessary money spendings on ducts by installing EnduraGold Fibreglass Duct System. It features a durable mat air stream surface that isolates the glass fibre substrate from the airstream and inhibits penetration of the insulation by dirt, dust and other pollutants. Fibreglas Duct System can be used to fabricate components for indoor commercial and residential heating, ventilating and air conditioning duct systems. These duct systems are bacterial and fungal growth resistance and absorb fan and air turbulence noise. This duct system is rigid, resin bonded fibrous glassboard with a tough, damage-resistant and flame retardant. Whether you’re working on a refurbishment of a small office or designing a hospital or an airport, we can help you ‘green’ your most effectively and economically. Through the virtual environment software Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES), one can determine effective, sustainable design solutions and consultations for green buildings from the earliest concept. It is like a virtual set up of any sustainable habitat where one can analyse, assess and quantify different concepts like carbon tracking, energy analysis, solar shading, natural mode ventilation, interior lighting, renewable energy assessment et al,” informs Don McLean, founder and managing director, IES.

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