 Think tech away civil engagement lives here. We're back with code green at 3 p.m.. On a given Monday with Howard wigg now Howard is the Post guest and I'm the guest host am I right Howard that either that or we reverse the rules and we have a we have an Alliteration going on today. We're calling this show Daldrums out daylight in that means daylight is delicious Absolutely, couldn't have said it better myself. It's a statement and an apotheosis to sunshine Let's talk about sunshine. Let's talk about sunshine. Why don't we bring up the first slide by way of introduction? Daylighting basics now the real basics go back about 6.4 million years ago in What's now southwestern? Ethiopia where arty the first Homo habilius specimen was found of the East Rift Valley. Yeah, yeah, right. We speak of a little else on these shows Yeah, yeah, so it's all about that moment. I can see it Yeah, yeah, absolutely all of which relates to our topic Because the savanna at that point was pretty gosh darn lush and green Yeah, and here's this teeny little three-foot high Bipedal let's look at Howard as he does this. Let's see how it is making a gesture. I think the world would not Behind us we have that lush valley. He was talking about yeah, yeah This teeny little three-foot high creature and he is literally surrounded by woolly mammoths No woolly mammoths are up north more, but saber-tooth tigers in a man manner of Predators who would like nothing better than to snatch him up and have him for breakfast or lunch or dinner You mean when you say him you mean Homo habilius Homo habilius. Yes. What kind of name is habilius? Is that French? No, that would be from the Latin which would be derived from the Greek. Thank you. Yeah so He had to live now Oh, he didn't have many wits about him because his his forehead was still slanted back So he didn't have much brain capacity that didn't come till later. So he had to live by his eyes and Since the savanna was green he Had to make a very very clear distinction between one shade of green and another and another To see if that saber-tooth tiger was lurking somewhere and back there. This is an interesting discussion How are you seven between biochemistry and? Anatomy and anthropology it's all rolled into one here on Code green with Howard. Well good and note that there's the green in there. There it is. So note that yeah, it all definitely ties together and Somehow this little creature survived and not by his wit so much as by his eyes and Then finally about a quarter million years ago. We emerged to Homo sapiens the wise being and He evolved got his brain larger and larger and larger till now He can have wonderful technologies for bringing daylighting into Building so I guess what you're saying is you need to be you have a certain level of intelligence to appreciate daylight Absolutely, otherwise you would just take it for granted. Yeah, we can't do that. No, we can't do where scientific We go on evidence-based learning Absolutely, so what so so what's the big hub of about daylight lighting? Okay now if we bring up the next slide We're gonna see this so the in this case daylighting refers to Cause a having sidelight light on these sides Which just doesn't come in through a window and cause a glare or cause heat What you want to do with good lady lighting design is bring the daylight well Into the building usually a minimum of 20 feet into the building and have it be uniform That means you don't want a splash of light here and darkness there You want the light all over the place and an ordinary window cannot do that It will cause glare and heat so how in the world do you do that? Let's go to the next slide so This is refers to efficacy and all the red lines on the left are the artificial Lighting sources the higher you go the more efficacious is the means of lighting a space and the short Yellow line is a normal window and the longer yellow line the most efficacious is the Yellow line on the right and now we're gonna see how in the world this efficaciousness is achieved I cannot wait. I'm so curious. Yeah, and I cannot read the bottom of this that slide, but that's okay Oh, we if you want to you know, of course, I Later time my far heads not big enough yet. Okay working on that So when you're in addition to energy efficiency when you're bringing light into a room you need to meld it with the architecture and you have to take in all of these human considerations because the idea is to promote a deliver a light that Creates a sense of well-being happiness and productivity What is that light though? I mean you speak of it in your conclusion returns You achieve that what are the characteristics of light that makes you feel we have to do is go to the next slide It's an excellent question. I'm probably wait Okay, so we what have we learned now about the characteristics of light that makes you feel good. Oh Okay. Oh, you go back to homo habilius 6.4 million years ago. Yeah The artificial light the it'll say the light in the studio is really really good, but it does not match The daylight that your ancestors and mine grew up with for 6.4 million years We are creatures of our our DNA and our DNA would grew up in a place where there was plenty of daylight So is this what you say? Yeah, we like daylight. It makes us like daylight, you know good And we are at our most productive with daylight. So what we describe here is The best means of bringing that light in a uniform manner Uniform no heat no glare just nice soft gentle daylight into a space That's what we're doing. Okay. I'm just looking at the pictures you've shown so far It looks like I want to get the daylight from a window. I want to have it relatively high in the room Mm-hmm. I want to have the ceiling in the room a light color So it reflects the the light that comes in through that window onto the whole room brings it deep into the space into the room Yeah, yeah, and the bottom slide is an example of glare. That's what we don't want So we go to the next slide all of these things need to be taken into consideration when you're looking at daylighting a space and we've discussed you have discussed most of them already and And something that's mentioned here is controls what you want our light sensors in that space such that when adequate daylight is brought in the Electric lights automatically go on. Well, that's a big thing. So that's what it's all about save save energy, right? And yeah brings up a story. So glad you asked. I was in Austin, Texas some years ago And we were taken to a brand-new elementary school Which was to be the daylighting example of the nation and sure enough. They were Florida ceiling Windows with great big overhang. So you didn't get any of that hot Texas Sun down into the space and It could it could be controlled for whatever environment you wanted and this was a beautiful sunny June day So you have this beautiful these beautiful daylit classrooms And we went from classroom to classroom when we ood and odd how Delicious this daylighting was and then when the tour was over I went to the architect who was taking us around and I said, did you notice that? every room we were in had its lights on and He hung his head and said I was hoping you wouldn't notice So my mantra from then on is when you put daylighting especially into a classroom That there's automatic controls and if you want to override the controls there There are in the principal's office. You have to call the principal's office and just why would you want to override the controls? if you're getting light in from either daylight or Both the daylighting and the artificial lights. That's a waste. That's a waste the idea of daylighting Is to make kids in this case more productive. Yeah, but also to turn those garsh darn lights off. Okay, let's do a sort of Conceptual schematic of how that would work. So there's a sensor in the electrical lighting system And it's up in the ceiling. Yep, and it can sense when you have daylight above a certain what lumens? Yeah, a lumens measurement. Yeah, it would probably be in this case about 30 lumens 30 lumens and if there's 30 lumens coming in now, you got me confused foot candles foot candles foot candles Yeah, lumens come out of the lamp foot candles are measured in the space. Yeah foot candles Yeah, so you measure that and I guess you measured in a number of places Not just in one place and you want to see that the light is being distributed around that room And then it's working the way it should and that people can adequately function officially function in that space because of the Daylight light and and comfort comfort to believe function. There's no no glare here No, there's no glare and there's no under lighting So it it can read many different characteristics of the daylight absolutely when it hits the perfect profile of daylight It turns it turns the lot the electrical lights electric lights off and the best example in our everyday lives Are you look at a street light and you see this little curious? Cylinder cylinder on top of it. That's the light sensor. That's the sun when the sun comes up in the morning Boom, the street light goes out. This is What we're talking about in a classroom is a much more sensitive, but I have to admit Howard. That was a trick question Mm-hmm. Oh god. That was a trick question and your reference to the street light with a little cylinder on the top That's what's also seems to indicate that there's a tipping point a certain moment You know a certain set of circumstances that turn that electric light off But why doesn't why isn't it a rheostatic kind of change in other words a little daylight? and It goes off a little bit and by the time you get to a special place it goes off all the way, but it's Graduated why isn't it graduated at that? Did you mean to tell me that? No, that is called dimming and for a few Sensors have improved in technology so So logarithmically in the last 20 years that you can certainly have it is a dimming system and then say a heavy cloud came over and the Classroom got comfortable. Boom. You just bring up a little bit of light And these are all LEDs now and LEDs could care less how often they're dimmed and undimmed switched on and off Yeah, and then the dimming Dimming mechanism the dimming device doesn't care either because yeah, that's all electronics. It's just a physical switch It's built into the same sensor. Yeah sensors are just Incredibly, so if I want to actually maximize my energy savings here I would have a dimming switch rather than an on-off switch absolutely absolutely. Yeah You know, let's take a short break and maybe I can think of another trick question for you right after the break Just getting warmed up. That's that's Howard wing He is the true host of code of code green and I am just an interloper Enjoy my afternoon here on a Monday trying to trick me up. Will you raise? Yes, I am be right back. You'll see Hey, Aloha stand energy man here on think tech Hawaii where community matters. This is a place to come To think about all things energy We talk about energy for the grid energy for vehicles energy and transportation energy and maritime energy and aviation We have all kinds of things on our show, but we always focus on hydrogen here in Hawaii because it's my favorite thing That's what I like to do But we talk about things that make a difference here in Hawaii things that should be a big changer for Hawaii And we hope that you'll join us every Friday at noon understand the energy man and take a look with us at new Technologies and new thoughts on how we can get clean and green in Hawaii. Aloha. Hi I'm Ethan Allen your host on think tech's likeable science show Every Friday at 2 p.m. We delve in the magical magical fascinating world of science how science applies to your life Why you should care about science? What impact science has on you and on those around you? Why you need to know some science? It's a fun interesting Painless way to learn some good science that you can use see you there I'm Jay Fidel. I'm the guest host and that's Howard wig He's the host guest of green a code green, but I have to tell him a story first Okay, this is about ten years ago, and there was this entrepreneur from I want to say One of those red states Oklahoma, Arkansas somewhere in there And he came to Hawaii and he was demonstrating the most remarkable device and what it was was a tube It was flexible flexible, too. It was like inside that was You know Some kind of flexible plastic and it carried the light it Carried the light and he would put it up on the roof And it would be a sort of a funnel on the roof a set of mirrors or something and it would carry that light all around through the roof system and then bingo in your kitchen and It will let go of that light shining that light all over your kitchen now. This is pretty good This is better than a skylight because it didn't have to be you know exactly On the roof, you know where there is a hole in the roof comes down It could be anywhere in the house picking up the light from the outside, but he was trying to market that I thought that was a great a great thing, but you know, I never saw it after that Where is it? Did it go away? It's not like a great idea. There's new invention called solar tube S-O-L-A Google it and you will find that solar tube is a manufacturer and they do well over a billion dollars worth of Sales a year. I don't see them in Hawaii. Are they are they coming here soon? No, they're all over the place They're right. Yeah, put them in your house Well, I have an open beam ceiling, but a lot of people couldn't put them in their house So it's good good for small commercial also. Oh, yeah, sure Yeah, and if that's the case you also need those sensors, don't you? Yeah, so because otherwise you're you're just leaving wasting all the time Yeah, where can I get the solar to make the the sensors as well? Don't know, but they would certainly associate themselves with a sensor maker such that they dialed up just the right degree of sensitivity and the sensor would be at the Top of the tube or the bottom it would be on the ceiling because what you're concerned about was you have a light colored Ceiling, but you're concerned about is how much light is up there because you know that it's getting down And also you you don't want to have it on the floor. You'd trip over it. Yeah, right, right, or you don't have it a table It looks unsately. Yeah, so as long as I could be so and I mean, that's a brilliant solution You know think about and there's no moving parts not a single moving part except the sensor which doesn't move anyway Electronic so I mean to me that's the kind of energy savings that really whatever it costs It's have a huge benefit the investment is going to give great returns And it's in a way. It's more flexible more Created more capable of what kinds of alternative configurations then building windows Because the window may not face the right direction You may not have the choice in in your building and you you have a much wider Distribution with when the light daylighting comes from the ceiling Yeah, so I can have a set of these things on my roof and I could feed the light from one location With those mirrors and that that kind of you can feed about 400 square feet The typical residential roof is about eight feet tall and you can feed 400 square feet light my whole house Yeah, yeah, so that's that's what's called top top lighting But let's look at the next slide. See what the heck is going on here Okay, this is what bad design entails so we want to go to the next slide because we're gonna get to good design and This is the particular Brand of daylighting that we're talking about where Up on the clear story there that upper window you can't see the louvers But it's a series of louvers that oh, well, let's let's go to the next slide. We'll see just how it works Yeah, so there's the louvers and on the right it shows the yellow sunlight coming in hitting one of the louvers bouncing up and then bouncing up only in a certain way because it's caught by the upper louver and That directs the sunlight on to the ceiling just as Jay was indicating should be done in good lighting Daylighting design day must have been listening to you and let's go to the next slide and This is a simulation of exactly what happens So this is what you want to do is you want to take that spot point of sunlight and Distribute it all over the place again in a uniform manner uniform means You have just as much light in that far corner as you do right in the the middle of the room And that that's what this is designed to use the louvers to do it Yeah, and these are stationary louvers. You don't have to move them or anything. So oh, I see so yeah This is right. You have a question. No, I mean louvers usually are to protect you from the weather aren't they? These louvers don't protect you from the weather. No, these are light louvers light louvers Yeah, I mean you fix them light light transmission louvers But but Howard if the Sun is coming up and down if the ambient light in the outside of the building Is changing with who knows what would change it, but things would close clouds or such a thing as clouds Yeah, that's that they had those in the East Rift Valley. I know they did So if that was so wouldn't you want to be able to change the louvers? Wouldn't you want to put sensors on there and sense the light outside? Well, whatever you sense it and say hmm We're gonna move the position of those louvers now to get more light on the ceiling or whatever in order to Adapt it to the most efficient transmission of light isn't that true that would be ideal and now you have two words moving parts Moving parts dreadful moving parts into any system you are asking for trouble. Yeah so as Somebody in this room. I forget who it was mentioned the word dimming if you were in company that with a dimming system You can accommodate early morning late afternoon cloud cover, but whatever so that you maintain that level of the new illumination But you know I certainly agree about moving parts because that's just dreadful and you get mechanical issues and We're gonna these systems here supposedly gonna last for 20 years You're going to accuse me of a lot of dust and dirt, but can't I use I don't know if the technology has caught up to this idea but Can I use a kind of magnetic? Reorganization of the of the structure the glass structure in this louver So that it effectively controls the way the louver reflects the light without moving the louver It was like those windows that Automatically go dark or go light depending on how you nothing moves nothing moves It's just the way the window handles. Oh, so you would have some kind of Chemical composition within the louver itself. That's such that during Really glaring daylight it reflects just a little and then when it's either early morning late afternoon It lightens up and reflects. Yeah. Yeah without any moving. Okay. I think you ought to take a patent out on that Yeah, we can go it on it together. Yeah, okay, you know I go to your next slide I'm sure like being in the in the East Rift Valley today beautiful So that's well we talked about getting deep into the space. Let's go to the next slide and Oh, this is a just kind of a sales pitch on this particular Product and it is it's very easy to install. I think Installation per louver and see there's many many louvers in one piece That can be done in something like 20 to 30 minutes. So your labor costs go way down Next slide and that's in lieu of the glass itself. Yeah, that is the glass. That is the glass Yeah, oh, here's a better slide of it. It is going to get dirty. So you need to Clean it periodically Not self-cleaning. No that that could be done But that would add another layer of complexity and you want to keep things simple here. Yeah, and Next slide Okay, well, I wish that they had put homo sapiens in here and plus homo habilius The I think there's going oh energy codes and how could I miss that? The new energy code which I am in charge of the International Energy Efficiency Code 2015 version The commercial site is about 74 pages long four pages are devoted to daylighting. What do they say do it? Took him four pages to say that. No, there's all kinds of diagrams. He was the proper way to do it Okay, is this a requirement this is going to be a requirement you can get out of it But if you want a lot of window space, you must have daylighting It this is for commercial buildings not not for residential Maybe coming for that too. You know, I don't know why it's just that Greshan better I read there a few days ago that California Patastatia was just going into effect requiring new Residential structures to include solar on the roof. They're imitating. They're about 10 years behind the times Hawaii's required that for at least 10 years now new structures must have solar. Yep No, new residences must have resident. I mean is that this is that solar of affordable tags Oh solar water heating sort of wallet. What about photovoltaic? So that hasn't come yet It the market is so efficient that we really don't need a lot Yeah, the Hawaiian Electric had to slow them down push them back. Whoa. We got too much here Yeah, that's a whole different subject of discussion But you know what it shows I guess the point of all of that is that the codes including the code you wrote and this code in California is These codes are becoming more High requirement straight in terms of in terms of green energy absolutely going to be the trend in the future as well It's the trend of the present. Yeah Codes are market transformers They set the pace and the rest of the market follows. I can give instance after instance after instance of that So if I use these window devices, you know, they daylight much energy am I gonna save you give me a Number a percent if you will Assuming the best configuration that I can get Go back in time a little bit say 20 years which technologically is is an eon and if you did us Pie chart of energy use in a typical commercial building you would find that up to 40 percent of the all-over energy use was for lighting So way if you can chop a big chunk out of that with daylighting you are really achieving significant savings now in Hawaii when you have you know a Frequently hot climate tropical climate when you have these windows, aren't you letting in heat as well? How do you deal with that in this perfect building that you're scoping out? You shade them You shade the windows in Hawaii you shade the outside. Yeah Yeah shading the inside doesn't do is nearly as much good So if you're shading the windows, aren't you restricting the amount of light that is showing through Howard? Yes But there's still plenty of it There what inside in our typical little classroom that we were talking about Elementary school kids function fine under 60 or 30 foot candles You of a certain age I am excluded need more like 60 foot foot candles and In a care home where people's eyes are fading you need about up to 100 foot candles So the little kids can get by with 30 on a hot Sunny day you have 10,000 foot candles out there So you don't need to worry about a deficit of foot candles. So but again the shades are permanent They're not ideal parts all that that's the idea and that works that works perfectly preventing Too much light from coming in too much and too much heat. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah So what's what's the message here? Oh it seems to me like you know a of course I have to follow the code But maybe I should go further and I should put those solar tubes in or I should go further than the code requires me to It all sounds so totally. Yeah, let me Do a shout out for the big box doors, which you wouldn't normally find me doing They are great big cavernous structures with at least 20 feet of roof up there. Maybe 25 feet Look at them. They're all day lit Voluntarily What's going on here number one you don't need your artificial light you save a heck of a lot of electricity number two the first discovery of The relationship between sales and daylighting came in supermarkets You put daylighting over the proto section and those apples and oranges They look so much better sales took off like mad and people are more comfortable buying them It takes them back to the days of homo habilius Precisely. Yeah, you heard it here. Yeah, I have one more quick quick quick trick question for you You know we have we have windstorms here. We do. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we have extreme weather here Oh, we do and you tell me to put instead of building my wall up to the roof Tell me don't do that Jay Build windows instead and get the special light. It'll help you But isn't doesn't that make my structure weaker and less able to deal? You know with windstorms and extreme weather going forward. Let me tell you a little story many years ago I was in Guam doing energy code training and I was staying in a holiday Inn and because of my Circadian rhythm having flown over eight hours I would be the first one in the hotel to wake up and At my door front there would be the Guam times pick up the Guam times go to the kitchen or go to the cafeteria or restaurant And they served a combination of Japanese and American food I would get my miso soup and my namaste and some scrambled eggs and I would go right by a plate glass window that was at least 12 feet high and I would look out on a vacant lot That used to have buildings in it that had been swept away by a hundred and eighty three mile wind gusts They have typhoons over there and this glass structure had stood the test of time Ha ha there you go and it was beautifully daylight that I looking back That's one reason I enjoyed it so much sitting there Well, I've certainly enjoyed this discussion with you. I've learned so much. I've I've learned about Homo habilius I learned about circadian rhythms, and I guess you know the next time we meet I think we should probably talk about whether the Circadian rhythms of the homo habilius was the same as the circadian rhythms of the Homo sapien and whether it was the same in the East River Valley in Where was it now? Norway or The East River Valley in East Africa or whether it's different here and we are going to approach this because we think we We may be able to find variations on the theme and do even better Mm-hmm. Thank you Howard. Yeah, I'd be glad to. Yeah, let's come back soon to your show