32 HEALTH AND SANITATION
Redefining resilience
By
Mike Flenniken
Expert calls for shift in approach.
David Viola, IAPMO CEO In the spirit of sharing the unique experiences that shape the plumbing industries in our respective nations, the following article presents one expert’ s view that resilience in buildings extends beyond reliability. Written by IAPMO Senior Communications Specialist Mike Flenniken, it is the next in a regular series of similar articles that will run in this magazine.
Dave Viola IAPMO CEO
When discussing resilience in buildings, the conversation often centres on reliability – systems that work 99 % of the time. For Gary Klein, a plumbing and energy systems expert, that’ s not enough.
“ We are confusing the reliability of systems with the resilience of them. Our plumbing, electrical and gas grids are all expected to maintain a fairly high percent reliability. Resilience is what happens when that fails,” he said.
To shift the way people think about resilience, Klein often starts with a scenario:“ If all of your utilities that come to your house fail – and I mean all of them – how many hours can you stay in your house?” For most homes, he said, the answer is not very long.
“ You now have to build an outhouse. And that will happen within a day,” he said.
Designing for climate extremes Many of today’ s building codes and sizing rules are based on historical climate data and predictable demand, but climate patterns are no longer predictable.“ Storms are getting stormier. Droughts are getting droughtier. High temperatures are getting higher. Low temperatures are getting lower,” he said.
He emphasised that while average temperatures or rainfall haven’ t changed dramatically, the variance has increased.“ Normal isn’ t normal anymore. The variations around the mean have gotten bigger for almost everything we care about for reliability,” he said.
That variability makes location-specific design even more important.“ If you build below 24.5m above sea level, you probably ought to think about stilts. If your community periodically floods, you should think about stilts. Why? It’ s going to get worse, not better,” he said.
Smarter materials and guidelines Whether the hazard is fire, flood or drought, resilience starts with material selection and site design.“ We should be picking roofs and construction of roofs to minimise the risk of fire damage – pretty much everywhere,” Klein said.
He also warned that outdated aesthetic rules can increase risk:“ Subdivisions have HOAs that require you to put plants that’ ll burn right next to your house – not smart.”
Thoughtful layout and design also play a major role in eliminating hidden inefficiencies that compromise affordability and resilience. Klein has spent years studying how buildings unintentionally waste water and energy— and how smarter design can fix that. A key example: long hot water distribution lines.“ We have long runs from the water heater to plumbing fixtures. And if you want hot water, it takes roughly two times the amount of water that’ s in a pipe before water hot enough to shower in comes out the other end,” he said.
He once measured 15 litres and four minutes before hot water reached a shower with a 3.8 litres-per-minute head.“ There were 7.6 litres of cold water sitting in the hot water branch pipe when I turned on the tap. That’ s a structural waste we built into the building,” he said.
The key, he said, is to design and construct buildings that minimise unintended or unnecessary waste. Because they tend to be the most expensive rooms in the building, Klein said it is much less expensive to construct buildings in which wet rooms are close to the water heaters that serve them, and to have a hot water system footprint that is as small as possible.
He recalled a conversation he had with a Habitat for Humanity builder in California who, over the span of several years, was able to drastically reduce the footprint from the widely practiced average of 80 % to less than 1 %.“ Two bathrooms, a laundry room and a kitchen; 1 % of the floor area or less is related to the hot water system. I think he cracked the problem. That’ s what we want to promote,” Klein said.
Passive resilience Klein was an inaugural member of IAPMO’ s Green Technical Committee as it worked toward the development of the Green Plumbing and Mechanical Code Supplement – now the Water Efficiency and Sanitation Standard( WE • Stand) – and was named IAPMO’ s Joseph Kneidinger Sustainability Professional of the Year in 2014. A profilic writer and public
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