PM Engineer articles from March 2004

PM Engineer archives from March 2004

About ventilation and good health.(PME Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... Dan Holohan's June 2003 article, "The Air We Breathe," is one of the finest articles I have read in all the publications that I subscribe to. This article is not technical in nature; it is a red flag flying and a notice of great import to the...

PME Spec Guide comes in Handy.(PME Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... You have a fantastic issue in this 2004 Spec Guide in the Dec. 2003 PM Engineer. I have already started using it. The Web addresses of the companies are especially helpful. I can go directly to the latest catalogs of these companies on their...

CSA and NSF announce agreement to expedite plumbing product certification.(PME News)
March 1, 2004... CSA International, a leading certification and testing organization for electrical, mechanical, plumbing, gas and a variety of other products, and NSF International, a leading provider of product certification and safety audits for the food and...

RPA announces two regional "RadFest" Radiant festivals.(PME News)(Radiant Panel Association )(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... The Radiant Panel Association has announced two RadFest radiant heating festivals taking place this spring. The Great Lakes RadFest will take place April 16-17 in Madison, WI, and the Rocky Mountain RadFest will be held in Loveland, CO, May...

NSF International.(News Briefs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... NSF International has announced a two-day conference on the application of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) in drinking water utility operations that will take place on May 4-5 in Ann Arbor, MI. For more information, contact Stan...

The Area & Volume Calculator.(News Briefs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... The Area & Volume Calculator, a software tool for calculating the area of surfaces and the volume of rooms for proper estimating of room and building heating loads, is now available for downloading at www.hydronicspros.com. It runs on Windows...

The Muscular Dystrophy Association.(News Briefs)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... The Muscular Dystrophy Association has presented its Personal Achievement Award to Nicholas A. Johnson of Waltham, MA. Johnson, who has Friedreich's ataxia, is an associate and senior engineer with Bard, Rao + Athanas Consulting Engineers in...

NIBCO.(Appointments)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... NIBCO has named James Drexinger as senior vice president, general manager of NIBCO, and Steven Malm senior vice president, general manager of the firm's TOLCO unit. Drexinger had been serving as vice president of sales and marketing, while Malm...

Reed Manufacturing Co.(Appointments)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Ralph Wright has retired as CEO of Reed Manufacturing Co. after 38 years with the fifth-generation family business founded in 1902 by Reuben Wright. Mark Wright and Scott Wright were promoted to co-CEOs by Reed's outside Board of Directors....

Focus on SARS: here is the paper on floor drain trap seals that Julius presented at the SARS Symposium in February.(Codes)
March 1, 2004... After my first column reporting on the SARS Symposium, I received numerous requests for additional information regarding SARS and plumbing. I was honored to be one of the presenters at the symposium. My paper, delivered on Feb. 11, 2004, was an...

A high-rise tragedy in the loop: here are the facts on the recent high-rise fire that took place at Chicago's Cook County Administration Building.(Fire Protection)
March 1, 2004... Shortly after business hours on Dec. 17, 2004, six people perished in a Chicago loop high-rise fire that also injured 15. The fatal fire was described by responding firefighters as "white-hot" and intense, but was effectively extinguished...

Mechanical Vs. electronic dry pipe valve accelerators: for applications that require a dry pipe sprinkler system, an effective response time can by ensured by using an accelerator.
March 1, 2004... Some of the areas we would rarely think of utilizing fire protection systems are the ones that need it the most. Parking garages, commercial freezers, loading docks, warehouses--these environments and many others not only require fire...

Sense your sensors' strengths and limitations: knowledge of different smoke detector types helps guide decisions about which devices are most appropriate for particular facilities or uses.
March 1, 2004... It's obvious to most people that the smoke detectors that work in our homes are not suitable to operate in large factories or other industrial environments. What's not so obvious, however, is deciding which devices would be most appropriate...

The faces of fire protection: PME looks at the fire protection industry through photographs of the people who do all the work.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Mike Lesiak readies a sprinkler for fire testing on a ProPress copper fitting at the Underwriters Laboratories agency testing facility. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Volunteer fireman...

You've got questions; We've got answers.(Hot Questions about Residential Fire Sprinkler Systems)(Flex Fire Protection Design)(Interview)
March 1, 2004... Q. What everyday household products are the most dangerous in terms of potential fire? A. The most dangerous products are those that are known to be hazardous, but consumers have not heard about their dangers. While hundreds of products...

Fashion meets function in Luxury high-rise kitchens: look at the trends in upscale high-rise kitchen design to see what direction the single-family home market is taking.(Cover Story)
March 1, 2004... Trends in luxury high-rise kitchens today all have to do with the optimum blending of form and function. Affluent consumers are well-traveled as well as exposed to a plethora of media coverage on home design and improvement topics transforming...

Under pressure: here's a look at designing, sizing and selecting a packaged domestic water booster system for high-rise buildings.
March 1, 2004... Packaged domestic water booster systems have evolved to the point where if you can dream it, it can be built. Each project is unique, and each owner/operator has his/her own set of needs and capabilities. That withstanding, a domestic water...

Greening the triple bottom line: with high performing buildings.
March 1, 2004... Buildings have an economic, social and environmental impact on our world. The U.S. Department of Energy reports that there are nearly five million commercial buildings in the United States and 76 million residential buildings. These buildings...