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Category: Features
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HydroChem appoints new CEO
HydroChem has named Mike Lenton as its new CEO. Lenton’s predecessor, Nick Duncan, will be moving into a full-time strategy, talent-development and project role. Duncan has been credited with transitioning HydroChem to a national operation over the past 15 years. “Having recently completed 18 successful years as the General Manager of Hydro Flow, Mike is […]
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Free webinar on integrative design
Energy efficiency is traditionally assumed as a host of separate technologies to be added in order of increasing cost – the more energy saved, the greater the marginal cost of that saving. Yet as physicist Amory Lovins would counter, designing buildings, vehicles, and factories instead as whole systems could save several times more energy at […]
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Cold chain highlighted on World Refrigeration Day
World Refrigeration Day (WRD) is celebrated annually on June 26, the birth date of Lord Kelvin, after whom the absolute temperature scale is named. This year, the day will be dedicated to cold chain technology, and its vital role in food security and in preserving public health and wellbeing. Designated as the world’s biggest celebration […]
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Opinion: Can HVAC systems spread COVID-19?
By Craig Roussac, M.AIRAH. All buildings are created for people, and building owners must ensure they are safe. But unfortunately, as with most things in life, there is no guidebook setting out the “ideal” way to achieve that outcome. This is especially true in a pandemic. Over recent days, research has been published in the journal Nature that […]
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Opportunity for work-day building maintenance
With many buildings across Australia currently empty, AIRAH board member and Country Leader, Integrated Technologies – Digital Solution, at Johnson Controls Australia, Ura Sarfejoo, has highlighted the opportunity for facilities to consider upgrades to improve building efficiencies, without disruption to tenants. Sarfejoo believes that with the current low occupancy rates in buildings, the maintenance of […]
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Plants and IAQ: an ongoing debate
Late last year, doubts were cast over whether plants actually improve indoor air quality (IAQ) after new research was published in Nature’s Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. Ronald Wood PhD, BSc, from Innovative Plant Technology, has taken issue with the study in an article published in Ecolibrium. He says that a “literature review with […]
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Passive House hits prime time
As Australians struggle through another sweltering summer, more families are trying to lower their power bills through better energy efficiency in their homes. A recent report on ABC’s 7.30 delved into exactly how much Australians could be saving if they had Passive House homes. Passive House (also known as Passivhaus) is a low-energy and high-comfort […]
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Are you polluting your office air?
A team of engineers at Purdue University has been conducting an experiment to identify indoor air contaminants and ways to control them. The study involves thousands of sensors being installed in an office space called the Living Labs, at Purdue’s Ray W. Herrick Laboratories. It uses an array of sensors to precisely monitor four open-plan […]
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Meet our future leaders
AIRAH recently announced the finalists for its annual industry awards, and one category that always attracts great interest is the Future Leader. Sponsored by A.G. Coombs, the Future Leader award recognises emerging leaders in any facet of the HVAC&R industry, and may include engineers, designers and drafters, project managers and supervisors, tradespeople, commissioning and maintenance […]
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Concerns over cold-housing deaths
Better Renting has released a report that estimates low-quality housing causes approximately 140 cold-related deaths per year in the ACT. The report is titled Unsafe as Houses: Cold-housing deaths in the ACT, and compares temperature data with statistics on monthly deaths from 2009–17. The report uses data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and […]
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The big cost of the big chill
Data analytics can reduce costs for building operators by providing more accurate measures of chiller and HVAC system performance. That was the message of Dr Troy Wilson, Affil.AIRAH, Chief Data Scientist at CIM Enviro and a Research Fellow at Macquarie University, when he presented at AIRAH’s Big Data and Analytics Forum earlier this month. Outdated standards? Currently, […]
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Five low-hanging fruit of HVAC&R
The time has come to herald the sustainability solutions offered by HVAC&R, rather than focus on its challenges. That’s the message from Andrea Voigt, Director General of the European Partnership for Energy and the Environment (EPEE). As Europe swelters through one of its hottest summers on record, cooling in the form of air conditioning is […]
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Queen’s Wharf goes big on BIM
There’s a buzz in the Brisbane CBD, and it’s not just all the digging and earth-moving. It’s also the palpable sense that the $3.6 billion Queen’s Wharf project will take the city to the next level internationally. The concept drawings are certainly impressive, as are the bare numbers. The development covers more than 26 hectares, […]
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Getting natural with Michael Kauffeld
In a recent trip to Australia for AIRAH’s Refrigeration 2019 conference, Prof. Dr. Michael Kauffeld of Germany’s Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences shared his expertise on natural refrigerants. In his keynote presentation, Kauffeld detailed the HFC phase-down and what’s coming next for refrigeration, particularly with regards to natural refrigerants such as CO2, ammonia and hydrocarbons. Following his […]
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Opinion: Reducing emissions through innovation
By Iain Campbell, Senior Fellow at Rocky Mountain Institute and Tony Gleeson, M.AIRAH, CEO of AIRAH. With the hottest summer on record just behind us, climate change is top of mind for many of us here in Australia. Since 1910, our country has warmed over 1°C on average, leading to more extreme heat events, including […]
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AIRAH on Air visits UQ’s Forgan Smith Building
AIRAH has released the third episode of its podcast AIRAH on Air. In it, host Mark Spencer takes listeners to The University of Queensland’s TC Beirne School of Law for a visit to the Forgan Smith Building. The latest podcast episode is an adaptation of the December 2018 Ecolibrium cover story, detailing the Brisbane tertiary […]
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Turney among best in the west
The HVAC&R industry has appeared in the 2019 40under40 awards with the nomination of Nicholas Turney, Affil.AIRAH, Managing Director of Eco Climate Solutions in the People’s Choice category. Established in 2002 by Business News, the 40under40 awards celebrate Western Australia’s 40 leading business entrepreneurs under the age of 40. According to the organisers, “the program […]
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Inside Sydney’s new Passivhaus apartments
A new breed of sustainable housing has landed in Sydney’s inner-city with the opening of The Fern. The 11-unit development from Steele Associates is Australia’s first certified Passive House high-rise project. It endeavours to “set a new standard in sustainable urban living where luxury, lifestyle and comfort co-exist.” “This is a significant milestone for construction […]
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AIRAH Awards finalists – Future Leader
It’s less than a week until the AIRAH Awards gala dinner on November 15, where the industry will celebrate its best projects, products and people. In the last of a series of preview stories, HVAC&R News looks at the finalists in the Future Leader category. This award, sponsored by A.G. Coombs, recognises emerging leaders in any facet of […]
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AIRAH Awards finalists – Excellence in Refrigeration
In the lead-up to the AIRAH Awards gala dinner on November 15, HVAC&R News is profiling finalists in some of the different categories. The AIRAH Awards recognise excellence and achievement within HVAC&R, with initial nominations coming from those working within the industry. Click here to see all the finalists for the 2018 awards. For the first time, the AIRAH […]