 Welcome back to Howard Wigs Cold Green and this today is the Easter 2017 edition. And Easter, it's actually Easter on Monday, which me from Europe coming, it's a federal holiday, but here in the United States that got value engineered, so we're here in studio today and working hard. And value engineering is probably a good way to segue into the show, and I want to welcome here our guest, Mike Hedge. Thank you, Martin. Who is a CMCA at Hawaii Building Maintenance. So welcome and being with us here. Glad to be here. And so Howard is, I'm not Howard, I'm Martin, I'm Howard's deputy, and Howard is on his ongoing biclimatic building crusade and on the east coast and fighting that buildings are basically going to be in compliance with our natural environment and everything's going to be off the grid eventually. And until then we have a while to go and Howard being my great mentor and hero, he has a great way to relate to the shows by own personal little experiences to make the audience also come up with memories they have. So if we can have the first picture here, this is me many years ago talking Easter, this was my blackest Friday ever because it's just completing this building here and then I have the local authorities in Germany basically do a crash test of my just basically completed guardrails and you had a great term for that, how do you call that here? The Ferd maintenance? Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that thing they were throwing against my guardrails test. Before the show you had a great term about that. So they brought, because I was trying to interpret codes in details, they brought a big swing with a rubber tire. And they started smashing into your brand newly installed guardrail. They did. I find that hard to believe. And that was a new building. And they were allowed to because? Because of code being so strict in Germany and I was playing around I guess with that. We could use some of that here. I guess. And so the next picture talking here, the most prominent example, tragically prominent example of that one is from here. That is what we're actually going to talk about. The first half of the show we're going to dedicate to that and that show title, which Howard always has the most catchiest, crazy terms. This has helped me, I'm spalling. Catch me, I'm spalling. And that's what when Howard contacted me and he mentioned the program, Code Green's mission is not just the energy efficiency side of a building, but the tenant's comfort. Whether it's indoor air quality or safety. So when this happened, I was of course honored and humbled to come on board, but it is just that. It's a case where things might have been prevented had they been maintained properly. And that was number two, just explain. Most people know this here from the media, number two, where is that? This case, if you can, this picture here, where is that? That was the Alamoana Center, you know, unfortunate incident. So prayers out to the young man and the person injured. But pretty soon the reason being is that legislation is in, proposed legislation is in the Honolulu government right now to make commercial buildings have a requirement that all their railings get inspected every year. So we're bringing this to light here, not just spalling, could be spalling, rusting a combination of things. And we'll talk a little bit more about deferred maintenance. But we just wanted to point this out, Howard wanted to point this out for safety. And let's just say that. I mean, what we're talking about is spalling, rusted railings, these are the type of things that definitely would, you know, you would think that because of the safety nature of it would, you would have inspections and some oversight. And if you do, if you have a property and you have this type of stuff, then you need to not just take action, but you need to call professionals if you're dealing with spalling. You can't have your in-house engineering guys, you know, try and fix that. You really need to turn to the pros. And the next picture sort of explains a little bit where, how it looks like. So this term, you know, spalling comes from when there isn't enough concrete over the rebars, which haven't been stainless because it's too costly. Today we have fiber reinforced concrete, which just doesn't happen anymore. But this is the stuff built in the, you know, 60s and the 70s increasingly and heavily. So when you start to see the rebars, that's something where, you know, this should catch your attention. Hopefully you can catch it before then. And in a lot of cases with spalling, what happens first is maybe a crack in the cement and typically a crack in the cement means nothing. But when you see rust color coming out of that crack, you know, something's underneath it. If you can catch spalling at that point and just like a cavity, you chip away all the bad tooth and you get in there and you bond it up, that should be the end of your story. If you try and do it haphazardly or how do you say, you know, not professionally, chances are it's going to come back. And the next picture illustrates that further. And you make these great analogies to actually other parts in life. We talked before the show, you know, let's say a car. You have a car, you buy a new car. There's warranty, but only if you drive this car through the car wash frequently, only if you do the service intervals, right? Because otherwise the car manufacturer says you're on your own, right? Right. Good luck with that. Yeah, don't come see me if you haven't changed your world. In other areas, it's always like we know this, right? And we talked about even cloth, you know, when a button falls off, you got to sew it back on, right? Right. Yeah, life cycle costs. You're not just going to throw that shirt away. And so something like the last picture, number four, with the rusted railing, spalling is a different story. But you know, seemingly rust, the concrete looks intact. So what that is, that's just lack of proper maintenance. You know, so I'll use the extreme, a cruise ship. I was lucky to be on a cruise ship. And you see all the guys painting every day. They're painting everywhere. We're in the tropics. This type of rust is going to appear. So let that go and let that go. That's something that is going to be a source of contention forever. We talked about, because I'm from Germany, as everything is tougher in Germany, right? Another analogy I'm using is cars, as we do, yeah. And in Germany, the safety inspections are so tough. It's actually, there are some cars here that have more rust than body left, right? And in Germany is if you have the tiniest little spot, they're going to take the screwdriver and punch through it. And they're going to ask you to get it welded. So there's no rusty cars on the road, right? This is extreme, basically, mandating, right? Yes. From a society's point of view. We're not here yet, but you said, you know, there's things on the way, because of this tragic happening in Alamoana, that it might be. So we might want to be prepared for that. And same with a car, if you have that little thing that shows, you should take action immediately, because it only grows, right? It does. You know, that's a great way of getting rid of deferred maintenance, especially in Germany, when you guys are allowed to go 100 miles plus. You don't want the next car next to you to be some rumbling rocket of rust who just has been able to avoid any inspection and the wheels fall off running next to you. Then the Autobahn is no fun but hell, right? So it road to hell. So they recognize deferred maintenance. That's absolutely true. And let's get the next picture and talk about another material, which is wood, right? And wood is even here in the tropics, some call it termite food, right? Ever since it got brought, because it's not native to here. And you also have some great bullet points here to make the audience hyper aware. Completely applicable. I mean, in commercial buildings, most are going to be concrete and steel and glass. But there's going to be multifamily, family homes, things like that, where there is wood. And so, you know, you can't take anything for granted, really an inspection, even whether it's mandated by the government or not. This is, these are the type of practices that you have to enact in your building to take a proactive stance against safety. We'll get into the proactive stance again, efficiency shortly, but really the target focus, the beginning of this is to let you know, you know that it's a problem because we just saw an unfortunate accident. It doesn't have to get to that. You know, legislation's under the way it may come and make a requirement. Don't wait for that even, you know, start it now. You're watching this program, you own a building, you're a chief engineer or something, facilities manager, you know what? On your next opening, spend an hour, two hours, if it's eight hours, spend it, go look at everything. Be proactive. And another analogy maybe even closer for some in the audience, and this is ourselves as human beings, right? Because nature, by the way, it's like, whatever nature produces is so clever because it doesn't need any of that, right? It comes out of nothing, only needs photosynthesis, a plant, right, and then it's basically bi-degrading. But everything we human beings make is not as smart, let's just face it, and it basically degrades. And even we as being organic, but if we reach a certain age, I'm speaking about myself, your regular checkups are recommended, right? And the doctor is gonna go through these things, right? They're gonna check if there's some incidents here and there, and if there are, let's just say diabetes indication, you can take some actions, you can change your diet and things, right? That's a great example, because before we get into the next slide, you're almost talking about internal sensors, okay? You don't wanna wait until your tooth starts to ache or you have a pain in your side till you go. You go, you get your regular checkups, you can kind of, you know, there's a certain amount of predictability in what's gonna happen to you. So same thing with high tech equipment, you're gonna have sensors that kind of give you some predictability, but there are others that don't. There's no sensors. And that's a great segue into the next picture, actually, where you can make this illustrated even more provocatively, right? Yeah, so preventive maintenance, just like Germany doesn't allow cars to get to that point. The FAA doesn't allow, does not take an airline's word that they're doing everything in that maintenance hanger. Every maintenance hanger is different, right? And, you know, not slamming anyone because I don't know the names of bads are good, but when you're talking about people's lives at 30,000 feet, what I've recently learned was that, of course, airplanes have the same, have sensors that automobiles have, but what they also have, and every airline flying over 30,000 feet has to have it, there's 3,500 sensors that communicate between the plane and the ground. So, and the points, there's never a place where the points, the plane is out of contact with the earth on all these things. So the moment something happens to their engine, the first little sign of trouble, a plan is made to get them down in the safest spot, that's the extreme side of not having deferred maintenance. And that's a great example, and first of all, there is sort of sociotel control, you know, there's laws, there's regulations about that, which we don't have in buildings yet, but then there's also at the end, the consumer, right? So if you read like, there's a $25, I read that, flights within reach from Boston to DC or something like that. And there were some cases in Europe where these cheap airlines, you know, critical investigators found out that the airlines are only able to provide that by saving on maintenance, which they found some loopholes, right? So is that a good investment to gamble with your life? No, I would say that's unsustainable and it would be extremely unfortunate to learn the hard way in a case like that. You're dealing with an air conditioner in a house or an automobile is way different when, you know, taking someone in the air and having their lives in your hands. So you can get killed by coming down with an airplane, right? In an uncontrolled way because of deferred maintenance and you can always get killed like this tragic person at Alamoana with a failing guardrail. So not much different, right, in that case. And so we're gonna have, we're gonna say, well, if this isn't still not enough for some people to say, oh, you're just talking about, you know, airplanes and stuff like that, that's sort of like still pretty far away from me. I don't fly, let's just say, you know, I don't do that. But the next picture is like, maybe you have a kid. So talk about a little bit about that picture while you brought that in. One of the reasons I chose that picture is if I had a relative at my house and I had a stair railing and below that railing was eight feet before the floor. And I saw a young child going up to press that. I would have wished I already pressed each one, even if it was a brand new home, you know, something like that, I mean, railing inspection at its core starts with this and then goes into the general public. So whether, I mean, this is maybe a departure from the commercial building side that Howard and we want to reach, but it touches, you know, it touches everyone. And this is the type of, and this is what it comes down to. I mean, really it's personal safety. Nothing's more valuable than a life, you know. So there's too many reasons not to keep up on maintenance. So once again, there is, and at some point we wanted to say, you know, we're both not the engineers who's core business this is to deal with these things. Correct. But I'm a designer, I design these things and you're a maintenance expert in that. So we're involved together with the engineers, right? And advise them, consult them. And so we're like a team, right? Right. My job is on the AC side, AC and energy side. Certainly it's not spalling and railing safety, but it's the same thing. It's a building, it's part of your building, right? And it's something that has to be maintained. So I think, you know, the more unfortunate accidents there are, the more likely there is to be something imposed. And why wait for that? You know, seeing what can happen. Why don't you just take that in your own hands and do it? And that being said, we take a little promotional break for our colleagues to promote some of their shows to then actually get into the most juicy stuff, which you just already announced, which is your core expertise and experience. So see you back in a minute with Mike and the danger of deferred maintenance. Okay, so I'm Crystal. If you haven't tuned into the QWOP talk before, you better do it because you're missing out on all the information. We talk about sex, we talk about religion, we talk about everything and nothing. So we've got two gentlemen here gonna validate that, right? Greg Kinkley and Roy Chu. What's your take on the importance of talking about these issues? It's very important. It's two, I think, expressing ideas and exchanging ideas that we come to a better understanding of the world and each other. And without that, we live in ignorance and fear. Fear is based on ignorance. Amen. Greg. Amen. What more could I say than that? Something in Yiddish. I think... Roy, come, listen to QWOP talk. Tuesday mornings. Hello, I'm Dave Stevens, the host of the Cyber Underground on Think Tech, Hawaii. This is my co-host Andrew Lanning, the security guy. Every week at 5 p.m., we'll be discussing cyber security, the things to look out for and the things to do to keep yourself safe. Check us out on Think Tech away, five o'clock Fridays. Thank you. We're back here on Howard Wick. Show me the Deputy Martin here today with Mike Hedge, who is with Hawaiian Building Management. Maintenance. Maintenance, thank you very much. Sorry, it's okay. Can you manage maintenance? Yes. And energy. Almost good. And so we, before the little break, we talked about the human factor. We talked about potential threats to well-being. So we get to the next picture. And once again, I kick off with how I can relate to this. This traces back to my youth in Germany as already an Americano. I wanted to have a pair of cowboy boots. And my parents said, well, get yourself a job to get them. And I did. I worked in a cleaning company and we cleaned ducts of AC in insurance building and they were big enough for me to basically go in there. And what I saw is what's on the left on this picture and has grossed me out and left a lasting impact and probably made me a fan of natural ventilation ever since. And yeah, so please explain a little bit in your terms and from your field, your thoughts around this picture. Well, thanks to get into the code greed side of energy and use this program about deferred maintenance to kind of go into this. This is just another visual impacting photo that is typical in so many duct systems that I've looked in that you, even in Germany, you find like that, okay, we're humans. This is what happens. Your air filter does not catch all the dust, okay? And this picture is not a black, slimy ductwork where you think there's a big mold issue. Probably it's just dust. But the impacts on indoor air quality, okay, with this type of dust in the systems, there's, you have relatives and so do I that are more sensitive to others. They sneeze at every little things or eyes water and they get headaches and stuff. That's a prime example of what can happen. So you don't have a plan, if you don't have a plan to maintain that, this is what's gonna happen in the end. So what happens if you don't do it every year or every couple of years like you're recommended to, it gets to a point where it's built up and it's a chronic issue and already maybe tenants are affected and they've already looked to move into other buildings and get new leases and get out of your building. So don't put something like that off. And you use the great term from, in sort of the intersection of our disciplines, which is sick building syndrome, right? So this is a, doctors have sort of found scientific proof of evidence, right? Of that that exists, right? And the number one cause of sick building syndrome? Deferred maintenance, you know? It's not the AC systems that were put in brand new because when they were brand new, they were working fine. Yeah, and whereas I was way back able to get in because the ducts were so big in commercial residential, they're small. So you can maybe train your raccoon or something like that to be a brush and walk through. I'd like to see that. But you haven't found these employees yet, right? You're looking for them? No, no, no. There's machinery nowadays, you know, and depending on the type of duct that you have will depend on the machines they can use. Some duct work has lining that you have to be real sensitive with. Yeah, that one was a metal duct work so you can kind of go in there with scrubbers. Yeah, and another analogy that we had before is cars, you know? Changing your air filter regularly, you know, is affecting your fuel efficiency, how, you know, smooth your car runs and all these things. And so we know this. But it's a good example because also it's like, oh, do I really have to change your air filter again? Did not just do that? Maybe not. But it's only a couple of bucks. They're gonna pay off soon, right? And that's the reason that I kind of transitioned into deferred maintenance and not just into energy efficiency because really when you look at a commercial building or something, what's worse, not engaging in energy efficiency or having deferred maintenance? To me, they're both right there, right? But the thing is, unlike, let's say a leak on a pipe or unlike a crack in your asphalt parking lot, when you let air conditioning systems go beyond the amount of years that they were supposed to be in place, you not only have older compressors, older units using more electricity, they're older, they suffer more breakdowns, right? More breakdowns means more tenant discomfort. Old equipment is poor for appraisal value. You have old equipment on your roof or in your basement, they become bargaining chips on the day of sale. There's absolutely no benefit to deferred maintenance. It's all bad. And of the many grades because gross pictures you provided me, I think there were over 50s, I had the choice to pick the best off and the next picture I choose here. Some of my students and colleagues get excited about green walls, these walls. This is not the same one. Yeah, this is sort of an uncontrolled green wall because this once again, this is mold, right? This is gross stuff. And what's horrible is this, I mean, I can only imagine that this is a place in the middle of nowhere where there's no humans because for this, for people to walk by this on a daily basis or a weekly or monthly basis, how can they let this happen, right? So you're thinking, oh, it's outside, it's just algae growth. But just like you said, that's impeding the flow into the machine and then that's a cooling tower in the background. So cooling towers, there's things in the water like Legionella and other bad stuff that if you don't treat it and you don't maintain it, you're gonna have problems. This is a red flag. If you're a facilities manager or asset manager or a property manager and you're walking your property and you see something like that, why is it like that? And don't accept the answer. Well, that's how it's always been. And whereas the last two pictures, like we're hardly ever in our ducts, we're hardly ever on the roofs, but the next picture shows us what we all see. We have the single units, unfortunately, things attached to our facades, which is bad enough from an architectural point of view. But then when they start to show signs like that, that's just the warning side, okay, it shows from the outside that it's time to let go, replace. That's right. So that airliner, that jet airliner that we saw earlier or that aircraft carrier that's in our background, those people like Hawaiian Airlines or the government, when they make decisions to buy an asset that big, it's not lowest bid, it's the cost, right? It's life cycle costs. What is my total cost of ownership over the life of that ship or that airliner? So with this last unit that you see, number eight, up in, I'm sorry, number 10, up in the corner, when you leave systems in place longer than they are supposed to be, you're gonna spend way more money. Your life cycle costs are gonna increase dramatically. If you can plan for a system that's supposed to last 10 years and you leave it in for 10, that's the best case scenario, because what happens? You let it go to 15, well, guess what? In your 11, you lose a condenser fan motor. Your 12, you lose a compressor. Your 13, you lose a control board. And each time the units broke down, the tenants screaming and it's just all because you didn't plan. No, absolutely. And whereas, you know, the audience might still say, the last three pictures we try to get the audience by basically the human factor and saying it's about the health. But if people say, well, I don't really care, then maybe we jump to the next two pictures. And I always call architecture and best case to be planted in people friendly. So when you say, I don't care for people, then maybe some people care. Increasingly, we know society luckily is for the planet. And that's the mission that Howard is on internationally. So talk about this chart here. It is, and it's about education. It's about bringing things to light. Just like you said, you may have a shrewd business owner and I don't care. My tenants are paying electric bills. I'm not gonna engage in that. But that same owner has grandchildren and great grandchildren, okay? And is seeing where pollution's going, how smoggy things are. Are they really gonna just go down that path? So this one you have right here, it's basically, it shows higher efficiency equipment towards the end and the pounds of CO2 emitted during its life. So you have the worst energy efficiency rating of around 10 nowadays, still in place. And you can go to 23 or 28 or in the 30s. And over the life of those equipment, you've only added 50,000 instead of 200,000. That's huge. When one person takes that step and everyone takes it, I mean it's... No, great point. And maybe this is a little too academic. Let's take the next picture, which is I think a little bit more directly into people's face here, number 12. Again, just the same what you said, just illustrate it a little differently. So with the impact of AC. So you have plug load, we have cameras, we have lights here and everything else, right? That's great. But 50% or more in any building is related to air conditioning costs. So when you have something like air conditioning in place, the amount of money that you're spending in a building, if you have a large building and a large chiller, it's gonna kill you in the end. So I gave you one example a while ago. It was if you have two buildings built the same day with the same architect across the street from each other. And over the years, one building engages in energy efficiency and the other one doesn't. The building that engages in energy efficiency is gonna win in the end. They're gonna have improved systems, improved infrastructure, they're gonna be hedged against oil spikes, and they're gonna have a higher tenant, they're gonna have a lower vacancy rate. Why? Because electricity that they don't spend because they've engaged comes off the bottom line, whereas the energy hog building, the rent is the same for both of those buildings, but the cam cost, the common area maintenance cost or the energy efficiency building are higher and it puts them out of competition. So. So you made two great cases, you said care for the people, care for the planet. Yes. But what if none of these arguments really fly? And so we live in a highly capitalized society in Western civilizations, which includes Germany and the United States of America. So you already touched on it, just also make it a little bit more graphical. There's a third reason. So if you don't care for your people, you don't care for the planet, you might care for your wallet in a society you live. So we have a sibling chart to the one we had for the climate which is now here for the cost. And you would think this would resonate with most people, but sadly it doesn't, right? The mantra out there I experience every day is low bid wins, lowest first cost. You know what? When it comes to energy efficiency, lowest first cost never wins. So when you talk about not caring for anything else, if you are a businessman and you're deferring maintenance and you're putting off changing that air conditioner or that chiller plant, I would reconsider that right now and spring it into action because not only are you increasing your appraisal value, right, in tenant comfort and everything else, typically if you're a commercial building, the decrease in utility expenses go right to your bottom line. So a million dollar chiller project, oh well how long does it take me to pay that back? Could be five or seven years. Don't use a simple payback. That's a wrong metric. The initial investment, even if it only saves you 150 grand a year, that investment is already worth more than what you paid for. In other words, the appraisal, income appraisal value method of a building is the net operating income divided by the local capitalization rate. So if you have 150 grand in savings in a building and right now here in Hawaii, the local cap rate I think is around 7%, that's two million dollar increase in your asset. There's too many reasons not to do it. Thank you so much. We're getting to the end of the show and number 14, which is our permanent background, is the other example from that, but you already explained it. So we're phasing out with the last picture number 15, which is me thanking you, Mike, for having inspired me and encouraged me to continue to do with the emerging generation and colleagues of architecture. This is a building we're currently designing which tries to be a net zero off the grid, which has an innovative solution to the guardrails. And so we're gonna do a show. He inspired me to do a show on my own show, Human Humane Architecture, about that. That's great. Thank you for this sort of backup from a profession that we usually don't talk to and let's work together. Thanks for having been on the show. Much appreciated. Thank you. I'm glad to be up here because it really is about raising awareness, okay? It's about education, right? Thank you very much. So many things have been going on and let's bring everyone up to the same level. So thank you again and see you guys. I'll back for Howard. He's gonna be back in two weeks from his biochlametic crusade. So in two weeks on Monday, Code Green again. See you then.