Gender Differences Create Expensive Overcooling in Offices
A Nature.com scientific report provides additional confirmation of something most of us that work in offices or who design office buildings already know – women are always cold and men always hot in the office. The authors analyzed over 38,000 responses from a Center for the Built Environment survey performed by the University of California, […]
FEATURED TESTIMONIAL – “I Passed, All Thanks to Your Course”
“I took the Mechanical TFS exam and found out I passed! This was all thanks to your course and following the Dr. Tom method. I did not graduate with a Mechanical Engineering degree so some of the topics (especially heat transfer and HVAC) were new to me, but your lessons were a great way to […]
Calculating for Inflation
The recent news about inflation gives us a great opportunity to talk about applying some of our engineering economics concepts and equations. From November 2020 to November 2021, the consumer price index – which is a metric that measures the cost of a variety of goods and services – rose 6.8% over that one-year time period. What would […]
Brownfields into Brightfields
RMI, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that works to transform global energy systems across the real economy, recently published an article titled “Turning Trash into Treasure.” The article highlighted the significant potential of generating electrical power from solar energy panels located on out of service landfills. Currently, such a landfill site in Houston, Texas is due to […]
FEATURED TESTIMONIAL – “Dr. Tom’s Explanations Were Invaluable”
“I purchased Dr. Tom’s Mechanical Thermal and Fluid Systems review course due to the positive feedback it had received from various engineering message boards. I was especially encouraged by the free videos accessible from Dr. Tom’s YouTube channel. As I worked through the course, I found that Dr. Tom was able to clearly and succinctly […]
New York a Step Closer to Using Drones to Inspect Buildings
New York City has thousands of buildings and many of them are old and have issues with the facades falling apart with age. Two years ago a woman was killed by a falling piece of debris from a building. Detailed inspections often require expensive scaffolding that ties up sidewalk space and is unsightly. The solution, […]
Living Walls can Reduce Heat Loss from Buildings by 30%
Researchers at the University of Plymouth in England are studying how utilizing living walls can reduce heating and cooling costs in older buildings. A pre-1970’s building (called the Sustainability Hub) on campus was retrofitted with flexible fabric sheet systems with pockets allowing for soil and planting. After 5 weeks of measurements, the heat loss in […]
Russian City Is Cooling Ground to Preserve Buildings
Norilsk, a city of 170,000 in northern Russia, is mechanically cooling the ground in places to prevent the permafrost from melting. When the permafrost melts, the ground becomes soft and large buildings (like apartment blocks) will sink or tilt. So, about 8 million Euros are being spent to thermally stabilize the ground. This issue is […]
FEATURED TESTIMONIAL – “Wonderful Training for the PE”
“I took my computer based exam after going through the newly developed DTC training for Mechanical CBT, and it was a huge help. And the BEST news? I passed!! The testing strategy provided by Dr. Tom and team allowed me to stay relaxed and I found myself with plenty of time after each section to go back and […]
Utilizing Parking Garages to Heat Homes
A company in Switzerland has developed panels that can be installed in underground parking garages that can provide geothermal heat to adjacent homes. Enerdrape has created 1.3 m x 0.7 m (4 ft x 3 ft) thin metal panels that can be installed onto concrete walls in underground parking garages. The panels exchange heat with […]
