What are the 4 broad climatic regions in North America?
- Cool = Canada, north part of middle US, mountainous regions of Wyoming and Colorado
- Temperate = most of the middle latitudes of the US, including NW and NE
- Hot-humid = SE parts of the US
- Hot-arid = stretches from Southern California across to portions of south Texas
What are design strategies for the cool climatic region?
- building form
- building openings
- shading
- interior and exterior materials
- Use compact forms with smallest surface area possible relative to the volume
- Use large windows facing south, small windows facing east/west, and minimal or no windows facing north
- Include summer shading for glazed areas
- Use interior materials that have high thermal mass
- Use dark or medium-dark colors for the building exterior
What are design strategies for the temperate climatic region?
- building form
- building openings
- shading
- wind
- exterior materials
- Plan rectangular buildings with the long direction oriented along east-west axis and facing slightly east
- Use south-facing openings to capture winter sunlight
- Provide shade in summer, and allow sun to fall on glazing/building in winter
- Plan for the cooling effects of the wind in the summer; block the wind in the winter
- Use medium colors for building exterior
What are design strategies for the hot-humid climatic region?
- building form
- building openings
- shading/cooling
- exterior materials
- Use narrow floor plans with cross ventilation
- Large open windows, porches and breezeways
- Provide shade for all openings
- Most difficult to design for without mechanical cooling
- Use light colors for building exterior
What are design strategies for the hot-arid climatic region?
- building form
- building openings
- shading/cooling
- exterior materials
- Use compact forms with smallest surface area possible relative to the volume
- Minimize opening surfaces
- Provide shade for openings
- Wide variations between day & night temperatures = use materials with high thermal mass to store heat from day / cool from night
- Use light colors for building exterior
What are the 8 climate zones adopted by IECC, IGCC, IRC, and ANSI/ASHRAE/IENSA 90.1?
A = moist (Dakotas and east) B = dry (eastern WA/OR/CA to Montana/Wyoming/Colorado) C = marine (coast of WA/OR/CA)
- Hot-Humid
- 1A, 2A, 3A (south of warm-humid line = Texas → east) = warm, humid - Mixed-Humid
- 3A and 4A above the “warm-humid” line - Hot-Dry
- ]2B and 3B (south Arizona to California) = warm, dry - Marine
- 4C = northern Californian coast, Oregon coast, Washington coast - Mixed-Dry
- 4B (dry) = parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico - Cold
- climate zones 5 and 6 = eastern WA/OR, midwest, NE - Very-Cold
- climate zone 7 = Northern middle states, NE tip - Subartic
- climate zone 8 = Canada
What are 4 types of alternate energy systems?
- passive solar heating
- natural cooling
- active solar
- photovoltaics
What are 3 types of natural cooling?
- passive solar cooling
- radiative cooling
- ground cooling
What is passive solar cooling?
A type of natural cooling that utilizes the concepts of shading, natural ventilation, radiative cooling, evaporative cooling, and group coupling.
What is radiative cooling?
A type of natural cooling that uses thermal mass to store heat during the day and release heat to the outside at night.
What is ground cooling?
A type of natural cooling that uses the stable coolness of the earth to cool a building, typically by using a ground-source heat pump.
How many sf is 1 acre?
43,560 sf
How big is 1 hectare?
10,000 sm
or 1/4 of a section = 160 acres
How big is a section?
640 acres
When contour lines represent a ridge, they point in which direction?
in the direction of the downslope
When contour lines represent a valley, they point in which direction
in the direction of the upslope
Contour lines more closely spaced near the top of a slope represents which shape?
concave slopes (like a u)
Contour lines more closely spared near the bottom of a slope represents which shape?
convex slopes (like an n)
What is the min slope of ground areas for drainage?
2%
What is the min and max slope of grass areas for recreation?
2% min, 3% max
What is the min and max slope of landscaped slopes?
2% min, 50% max
What is the min and max slope of paved parking areas?
1.5% min, 5% max
What is the min and max slope of roads?
0.5% min, 10% max
What is the min and max slope for sanitary sewers?
0.5%-1.5% min, no max
