If you have ever glanced at the ADA Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities (ADAAG), you will know that even the minimum ADA building requirements involve pages and pages of detailed guidelines. To save you the hassle of trolling through these volumes of information, Burnham’s ADA consultants can assist you in deciphering what you need to know, and advise you in how to implement ADA building requirements most efficiently. In addition, we will keep you notified of any amendments to these requirements.

Certainly no one would dispute the importance of making buildings accessible for disabled individuals. However, failing an inspection and having to redo thousands or even millions of dollars worth of work can be terribly frustrating. Using ADA consultants who are extremely knowledgeable about the requirements will ensure that your project avoids this eventuality.

The guidelines are very extensive and somewhat complex. For instance certain guidelines mandate that employee areas must be constructed in a manner that allows disabled people to enter and exit these areas, as do public or commercial spaces. However, there is a possible exemption for the employee area accessibility guideline. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, and some areas require accessibility while others do not. For instance, water slides and elevator shafts do not have to be accessible, but sport courts do.  Certain buildings can qualify for an exemption to the ADA requirements if they can reasonably make an argument that modifying their structure will poorly impact their structural or architectural integrity.

The codes also cover matters such as the percentage of parking spots that must be designated as “disabled”. This percentage fluctuates depending on the total number of spots in the lot. For instance, parking lots with 401 to 500 spots are required to include 1.8% to 2.2% of their spots as disabled, whereas lots of over 500 spaces require 2%, and lots at outpatient healthcare facilities require up to 10% disabled spots.

Of course, this blog post does not address all of the ADA building requirements that you will encounter as you struggle to make your project compliant. However, you can be assured that our ADA consultants understand the codes and their nuances, and can advise you accordingly.

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Some of the most exciting new green building technologies are depolluting or self-cleaning materials. The first of these materials to be found was an accidental discovery made by an Italian company. They were trying to study a form of white cement that had the ability to self clean. Ultimately, however, they realized that when their cement was put under natural light, it could actually absorb and break down pollution from cars and other sources.

Since that time, scientists and engineers have been working to create other depolluting or self-cleaning materials. In addition to self-cleaning cement, engineers have found other depolluting materials. For instance, scientists have made a depolluting waterproof membrane that can be fitted onto roofs that do not allow human access.  When exposed to sunlight, these membranes can remove harmful nitrogen oxides from the surrounding air. Their removal is extremely beneficial as nitrogen oxides impact everything, from children’s bronchial infections to global warming. According to one manufacturer, over the course of a year, a 10,000 m² (107,639 ft ²) space of their depolluting roof can remove the nitrogen oxides created by driving a gasoline-fueled vehicle approximately 388,356 miles.

Although these developments are exciting, they may complicate existing city codes. For instance, as these green building technologies become more pervasive, municipalities may begin to set laws and write codes that will require new structures to use some of these technologies. Alternatively, they may require new structures to be built with a degree of flexibility that allows these technologies to be added later. Burnham has close relationships with the key officials in most municipalities. Thus, we are always aware of changes and impending changes to existing codes, and we can easily advise our clients on how these changes will impact them.

As engineers continue to develop more green technologies, you can be assured that the sustainability consulting team at Burnham will be able to advise you on which ones are best-suited for your project. Some analysts estimate that these materials may be successful enough to remove 20-70% of harmful air pollutants. Many of these technologies are already available commercially, and others, like an anti-graffiti geopolymer coating, are still being studied. However, as their development continues, they will become more affordable, more accessible and possibly even required. In any event, you can trust us to keep you updated on all the latest developments.

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By: John Progar

Everyone downloads files, applications (“Apps”), and updates as a normal course of life on the Internet.  However, did you know Microsoft’s latest statistic on downloading stated 1 out of 14 downloads are malicious?

In a recent article from Network World, I learned about the new statistic and thought, “I bet that is an understatement.”  Working in a small company I have seen computers hit with scamware, malware, spyware, and whatever you want to call it on more than one occasion.  I find it amazing at how fast nasty code can circulate the Net.  All the while it reminds me of a simple understanding of computers, servers, and networks burned in from college days, “No computer system or network is 100% safe, secure, and reliable.”

Please follow the link to the Network World article and take from it new knowledge to improve your Web skills.

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In addition to LEED certification, there are many things that developers and contractors can do to promote energy efficiency and other sustainable features in their constructions. Our consulting professionals are LEED-accredited, but are also well informed on other green methods. Sustainable consulting includes advice on the costs of various green building technologies, their expected impact on the environment and how to include them in your project.

There are countless general conservation techniques that can be used when designing a building and its surrounding grounds. These techniques strive to save existing vegetation and decrease a building’s potential energy consumption. In addition to environmental benefits, these techniques can also offer budgetary pluses, as they reduce certain manufacturing and construction costs, increase the resale value of the property, and ultimately offer lower energy bills.

When looking at the seemingly high costs of adding energy-efficient elements to your projects, you may be tempted to skimp on these additions. However, when you see our detailed reports on the initial investment costs of implementing energy-efficient features compared to the long term savings on utility bills, you may change your mind! When we offer sustainable consulting advice, we like to focus on the environmental benefits of green building techniques that reduce the amount of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere, the cost-saving benefits of such techniques, and the costs that you will incur to implement them.

Because buildings produce close to half of our carbon output, many people restrict their thoughts of energy efficiency to carbon emissions. However, building with an eye toward water conservation is also extremely important. Every gallon of water that is saved can work to protect areas like rivers and wetlands. Using less water also means that less energy is required to clean the used water. Water conservation can be accomplished by simple techniques, such as installing efficient toilets, or more involved methods, like installing drainage systems that keep storm run-off moderately contained. We look forward to discussing green building techniques and your next project with you!

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By: John Progar

Since 2009, when Rackspace had a major data center outage, things have been good in the Cloud.  Many companies have been moving towards Cloud services to do more with less and everything was super.  Then April 21, 2011 came along and changed everything.

Again we are reminded that technology, no matter where it is or what it is called, is fragile and can fail.  With that said, anyone considering the Cloud should be aware of the risks, know the mistakes made in the past, and consider what is best for their needs.

From the InfoQ article, I stress the following, “There is no such thing as 100% reliability. In fact, there’s nothing 100% about any of IT—no code is 100% bug free, no system is 100% crash-proof, and no security is 100% impenetrable. Just because Amazon came up snake eyes on this throw of the dice doesn’t mean that public Clouds are any less reliable than they were before the crisis. Whether investing in the stock market or building a high availability IT infrastructure, the best way to lower risk is to diversify. You got eggs? The more baskets the better.” The point here is if you have a mission critical application or service the word to know and love is “Redundancy”.

What about learning from our mistakes?

“This unfortunate event affecting the largest cloud provider and its customers will certainly make people think twice before choosing to deploy to the cloud, and will send a strong message throughout the industry on how fragile our well engineered systems can be, showing one more time, if it was necessary, that the fight for reliability and resiliency in not over, and will never be.” I could not say it any better than that folks.  Owning technology is like owning a car.  You will always need an automotive mechanic to make repairs and perform preventative maintenance so we will always need I.T. personal to combat the issues of servers and networks.

Luckily, Burnham does not host any applications or web sites on Amazon’s EC2 service.  However, we have considered it and went as far as trying it out.  But we’re still chugging along with our current deployment and avoided a four day outage.  Yet, tomorrow is another day and an unpredictable bug could strike us without notice!  It does happen, and I can take relief in knowing that we have staff and capacity to respond quickly.

For anyone who survived the EC2 outage, please post your experience and how you handled the problem.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/042911-amazon-cloud-outage-was-triggered.html

http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/04/Amazon-EC2-Outage-Explained

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