Fifty years after the five-season run of the TV show “Get Smart,” even folks who never saw a single episode of the original spy-spoof series will very likely recognize the silly image of detective Maxwell Smart making a call...
S upporting the Portland, Ore., metropolitan area with bus, light rail and commuter rail transit service since 1969, the TriMet transit system has been a mainstay in the community for more than half a century. Transporting up...
Twentieth-century libraries were stereotypically silent, predictable caverns with bookcases, study desks and a librarian shushing patrons. That’s not the model for libraries today or tomorrow, whether they are community...
A lighting retrofit job completed 139 years ago contains two important reminders for today’s electrical contractors. First, we are going to lay out five new ways to win lighting retrofit work in 2021. 1. Team up with the...
In March 2020, Brian O’Donnell, business manager at IBEW 131 in Kalamazoo, Mich., received a call from a contact at Pfizer Inc. concerning extensive plant modifications. Pfizer is headquartered in New York and has several...
An LED street-lighting transformation is on the rise. Cities considering smart street-lighting advancements more than doubled to 59, according to the Northeast Group LLC, a Washington, D.C., smart infrastructure market...
Hotels, casinos and resorts are driven toward a variety of technological solutions to reduce energy use and water consumption, spurred by potential savings from energy-efficient ideas as well as consumer demands for greener...
Every major change in the history of lighting has centered on substituting a new source of illumination for an older one. In the first half of the 1800s, gas lamps replaced whale-oil lamps. Later in the century, electric...
Last week, the City of New York announced an aggressive new initiative designed to utilize “deep energy retrofits” in nine of the city’s buildings, with another 28 to follow. The first nine projects that the city selected are...
“Make Do and mend” is the title of a British booklet published during World War II; it encouraged people to repair their clothing so the military could use the country’s fabric for uniforms. Making such an effort may sound...
Demolition and renovation work present unique hazards that, unfortunately, often are overlooked and result in job-related injuries and fatalities. These dangers can be controlled and eliminated with the appropriate planning...
In new construction, creating a smart building can be straightforward if planned correctly and collaboratively. But the path to make an older building smart isn’t always straight. Electrical contractors can succeed by reading...
Employing reconditioned electrical equipment instead of buying new has many advantages, though the rules around which kinds of products can be reconditioned are set to get stiffer. “The concept of refurbishing...
When contractors receive calls to bid on renovation work during busy times, they can choose to do one of two things: bid the project extremely high or decline the request. Many contractors seem to believe new construction...
With the United States’ economy moving at a good pace, we should expect a lot of real estate companies to give their existing buildings a technology makeover, if they want to remain competitive and maintain high occupancy...
According to the latest white paper from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, titled "Unlocking Ultra-Low Energy Performance in Existing Buildings," the United States is seeing a promising upward trend in...
LED lighting solutions have been experiencing rapid innovation, and they're at a breaking point. Now, facilities across the United States are considering lighting retrofits more seriously than ever. This surge of interest...
According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), more than 360 million troffers (named for a cross between trough and coffer) provide general lighting in commercial building interiors. With their standard dimensions of 2-by...
