Trends and Opportunities in High Performance Buildings
With the 21st century advancements in personal electronics, computers and automobiles, we are continuing to innovate and advance into uncharted territory that did not seem possible even 15 years ago. Similarly, buildings today are also trending towards smarter, greener and more intelligent designs than ever to complement the transition towards smart grids, Net Zero buildings, LEED designs, energy reduction, building automation and computerized maintenance management systems.

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Problems underfoot
While some apartment buildings may have carpeting in lobbies and other common areas, the flooring installed in these types of locations is mostly hard surface, such as vinyl composition tile (VCT), terrazzo or some type of stone such as marble or granite. Hard surface flooring is selected for a very practical reason: spills of all kinds can be fairly easily and quickly cleaned up with little or no damage to the floor.

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Why use microfibre mop heads
Microfibre, first developed in the 1970s, has become popular in the professional cleaning industry for both cleaning surfaces and mopping floors. The popularity is founded in the fact that while microfibre products—at least quality ones—may be more expensive than traditional cleaning cloths and mop heads, they tend to be more absorbent, use significantly less chemical and water, the mops are more ergonomically friendly and lead to higher productivity rates, and clean surfaces more effectively.

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Retrofit – Same word, different meaning
We insurance people don’t really have much involvement with active hands on management of real estate assets. Ours is an erudite role of sitting back, taking a look, muttering a few choice invectives and then guessing at what would be a sensible insurance premium. Sometimes we turn away, disenchanted by neglect and disrepair; at other times we salivate because a well-maintained and managed building represents good business for our insurance company suppliers. Most of the time, we are working with product that is somewhere in between.

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Restrained amenities a window on what ails rental housing
In the United States many landlords compete for tenants with different amenities packages: some are addressed at students and young people, others at families, others at seniors and still others at special niche markets. The amenities extend to physical building features and to services that are available at the building or complex. New buildings in particular are built with amenities installed or in mind.

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Breathing easier in apartment buildings
Only recently has the general public started to recognize that the air inside our homes can also make us sick, and that it can actually be significantly worse than what we breathe outside. The US Environmental Protection Agency has even included indoor air quality among its top five risks to public health.

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New options in roofing
Flat roofs are the roof of choice for many commercial buildings as they are the most cost-efficient shape because of the space that can be utilized below and above the roof. The challenge is that many of the flat roof systems out on the market today have a negative impact on our environment.

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Take the technology train to better pest management
Last year was packed with new technology: Ipads, e-readers, Xbox 360 Kinect. As tenants dip further into the digital age, they’ll expect their building to advance along with them. Luckily, even some of those practices that haven’t traditionally been perceived as tech-savvy have made their way into the digital world, helping to make building operations run smoothly. One example – pest control.

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