Using National Electrical Code Article 422 to Keep Appliances (and Families) Safe
Three Key Changes in the 2020 National Electrical Code That Help Make Kitchens Safer for Families
The New York University Paulson Center 181 Mercer dormitory is a state-of-the-art residence hall located in the heart of Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. The building was designed by COOKFOX architects and completed in 2020.
The Paulson 181 Mercer dormitory is a 23-story building that houses more than 700 students in a mix of singles, doubles, triples, and quads. The building features a number of amenities designed to enhance the student living experience, including a fitness center, music practice rooms, a game room, and a rooftop terrace with stunning views of the city.
One of the most unique features of the Paulson 181 Mercer dormitory is its focus on sustainability and green design. The building is expected to achieve LEED Gold certification, which recognizes buildings that are designed and constructed to minimize their environmental impact. Some of the sustainable features of the building include a green roof, rainwater harvesting system, and energy-efficient lighting and HVAC systems.
The $1.2 billion John A. Paulson Center — which opened in January 2023 — provides all of the occupancy classes for the “university without a quad”.
*In 2005, Paulson began investing heavily in credit default swaps, which are essentially insurance contracts that pay out if a particular debt instrument defaults. He used these swaps to bet against the subprime mortgage market, which he believed was overvalued and ripe for collapse. When the housing market crashed in 2008, Paulson’s bets paid off in a big way, earning him billions of dollars in profits.
Paulson has also been involved in other successful trades, including investments in gold and banking stocks. However, his bet against the subprime mortgage market remains his most famous and lucrative trade.
Today we break down public consultation notices for literature that sets the standard of care for the safety and sustainability of student housing in K-12 prep schools, colleges and universities. We deal with off-campus housing in a separate session because it involves local safety and sustainability regulations; most of which are derived from residential housing codes and standards.
The topic cuts across many disciplines and standards setting organization bibliographies. We usually set our bearing with the following titles:
2021 International Building Code: Section 310 Residential Group R-2 + related titles such as the IFC, IMC, IPC, IECC
2021 Fire Code: Chapter 6 Classification of Occupancy + related titles such as NFPA 70B, NFPA 72 and NFPA 110
2023 National Electrical Code: Articles 210-230 + related Articles 110 and 410
ASHRAE 90.1 Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings: Annex G
Like any other classification of real property the average cost for room and board for a public university student dormitory depends on several factors such as the location of the university, the type of dormitory, and the meal plan options. According to the College Board, the average cost of room and board for the 2021-2022 academic year at a public four-year in-state institution was $11,620. However, this figure can range from around $7,000 to $16,000 or more depending on the specific institution and its location. It’s important to note that this average cost only includes the basic meal plan and standard dormitory room. Students may also have additional costs for a larger or more luxurious dorm room, a premium meal plan, or other expenses such as laundry or parking fees.
According to ring Rider Levett Bucknall, a global property and construction consultancy firm, the average construction cost for a student housing facility in the United States in 2021 was around $202 per square foot. However, this figure can range from around $150 to $300 per square foot or more depending on the specific project. Life cycle cost for new facilities with tricked out net-zero gadgets is hard to come by at the moment.
Because money flows freely through this domain we examine scalable densities and the nature of money flow patterns; partially tracked by the Electronic Municipal Market Access always on the standing agenda of our Finance colloquium.
More
National Institute of Standards & Technology: The Character of Residential Cooktop Fires
Deserted College Dorms Sow Trouble for $14 Billion in Muni Bonds
Here are a few pros and cons of private sector construction of university-owned student housing:
Pros:
Cons:
It’s important to note that these pros and cons may vary depending on the specific circumstances and context of each individual university and private sector partnership.
Although the 2024 Revision is substantially complete there are a number of technical and administrative issues to be resolved before the final version is released for public use. Free access to the most recent edition is linked below.
TENTATIVE – 2027 UPC/UMC CODE DEVELOPMENT TIMELINE
Report on Comments for the 2024 Uniform Plumbing Code
This paper introduced the concept of reliability theory and established a mathematical framework for analyzing system reliability in terms of lumped parameters. It defined important concepts such as coherent systems, minimal cut sets, and minimal path sets, which are still widely used in reliability engineering.
IEEE Recommended Practice for the Design of Reliable Industrial and Commercial Power Systems
“Railroad Sunset” | Edward HopperWe are tooling up to update the failure rate tables of IEEE 493 Design of Reliable Industrial and Commercial Power Systems; collaborating with project leaders but contributing to an essential part of the data design engineers use for scaling their power system designs. The project is in its early stages. We are formulating approaches about how to gather data for assemble a statistically significant data set.
Today we introduce the project which will require harvesting power reliability statistics from any and all educational settlements willing to share their data. As the links before demonstrate, we have worked in this domain for many years.
Join us with the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
“On the Mathematical Theory of Risk and Some Problems in Distribution-Free Statistics” by Frank Proschan (1963): This paper introduced the concept of increasing failure rate (IFR) and decreasing failure rate (DFR) distributions, which are crucial in reliability modeling and analysis.
“Reliability Models for Multiple Failures in Redundant Systems” by John F. Meyer (1965): This paper addressed the problem of reliability analysis for redundant systems, which are systems with multiple components designed to provide backup in case of failure.
“Reliability of Systems in Series and in Parallel” by A. T. Bharucha-Reid (1960): This work analyzed the reliability of systems composed of components arranged in series and parallel configurations, which are fundamental building blocks of more complex systems.
“A Stochastic Model for the Reliability of Modular Software Systems” by John E. Gaffney, Jr. and Thomas A. Dueck (1980): This paper introduced one of the earliest models for software reliability, extending the concepts of reliability theory to the field of software engineering.
“Redundancy Techniques for Computing Systems” by John von Neumann (1956): This report by the pioneering computer scientist John von Neumann explored the use of redundancy techniques, such as triple modular redundancy, to improve the reliability of com
puting systems.
How does the electrical grid respond to a crisis?
If the power goes out after a thunderstorm, utility crews are on the job within hours to restore service and get the lights back on. Most electric utilities in the U.S. have a reputation for reliability and recovery from situations like this. It has been noticed as planners began thinking about increased natural disasters brought on by population migration patterns, manmade interference due to malicious cyber-attacks, and the instability brought about by adding large quantities of renewable energy.
At North Carolina State University, The Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDOM) Systems Engineering Research Center was created through funding from the National Science Foundation in 2008 to modernize the electrical grid to accommodate sustainable energy, such as wind and solar power. The Freedom Center has been involved in developing online tools for assessing vulnerabilities to address cyber-physical security called distributed grid intelligence. The hope is that smart microgrids with sensors embedded throughout the system might be more resilient to failure and easier to bring back online and large multi-state electric grids. But the emerging smart grid, together with distributed renewable energy such as rooftop solar, presents a new set of challenges to resilience. The Smart Grid involves more distributed energy down to the home level. That kind of penetration adds a level of vulnerability to a cyber threat. Engineers will certainly have to pay attention to that as the grid gets smarter.
Sporty weather season in the United States inspires a revisit of best practice for designing, building and maintaining the systems that provide limited electricity when the primary source fails. We have been active in the development of this and related titles for decades and have presented several proposals to the technical committee. Public response on the Second Draft of the 2025 revision will be received until March 27, 2024.
FREE ACCESS to the 2022 Edition of NFPA 110 Standard for Emergency and Standby Power Systems
The scope of NFPA 110 and NFPA 111 are close coupled and summarized below:
NFPA 110 Standard for Emergency and Standby Power Systems. This standard contains requirements covering the performance of emergency and standby power systems providing an alternate source of electrical power to loads in buildings and facilities in the event that the primary power source fails.
NFPA 111 Stored Electrical Energy for Emergency and Standby Power Systems. This standard shall cover performance requirements for stored electrical energy systems providing an alternate source of electrical power in buildings and facilities in the event that the normal electrical power source fails.
FIRST DRAFT AGENDA | August 2022
Public comment on the First Draft of the 2025 Edition will be received until May 31, 2023.
We have advocated in this standard since 1996 and still use the original University of Michigan Workspace; though those workspaces must be upgraded to the new Google Sites during 2021. We provide a link to the Standards Michigan Workspace and invite you to join any of our electrical colloquia which are hosted jointly with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee four times per month in European and American time zones. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
Issue: [96-04]
Category: Electrical, Risk
Contact: Mike Anthony, Robert Arno, Neal Dowling, Jim Harvey, Robert Schuerger, Mike Hiler
More
ITM of Emergency Power Systems
Planning for Higher Education Journal: Revisiting the Campus Power Dilemma: A Case Study
Tom is a long-time colleague and friend so Mike happily posts his content:
Maysville Community and Technical College
The IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee (IEEE E&H) tracks campus power outages (as a research project) because many large research universities own and operate power generation and delivery enterprises that run upwards of 100 megawatts — i.e. at a scale that exceeds many municipal and cooperative electrical power utilities that are regulated by state utility commissions. It has been estimated that power outages on a large research university campus — some with a daily population of 10,000 to 100,000 students, faculty and staff — have an effective cost of $100,000 to $1,ooo,ooo per minute.
The IEEE E&H Committee uses IEEE 1366 Guide for Electrical Power Distribution Reliability Indices — as a template for exploring performance metrics of large customer-owned power systems. Respected voices in the IEEE disagree on many concepts that appear in it but, for the moment, it is the most authoritative consensus document produced by the IEEE Standards Association at the moment.
According to IEEE Standards Association due processes, a revision to the 2012 version is now at the start of its developmental trajectory:
IEEE P1366 PAR Revision Approval
We will depend upon the IEEE E&H Committee to keep us informed about issues that will affect campus power purchasing contracts. (There is a fair amount of runway ahead of us.) Conversely, no IEEE technical committee ignores “war stories” and solid reliability performance data. We dedicate one hour every month to electrical power standards. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
Issue: [11-54]
Category: Electrical, Energy
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Robert G. Arno, Neal Dowling, Jim Harvey, Kane Howard, Robert S. Schuerger
“The most important role of technology is to create time.
Information technology epitomizes this role.
And wealth creation is ultimately about time,
freeing human time from labor.”
— George Gilder
“Hatred of the rich is the
beginning of all wisdom”
— H.L. Mencken
Today we break down the literature that informs the finances of the real assets of education settlements. We examine a few publicly available university annual budget documents and, lately, have been looking ahead at innovation in distributed ledger solutions, digital currencies and blue sky conceptions of a circular economy which has captured the imagination of trendsniffers in every nation.
Since our 2016 estimate of $300 billion — triangulated from several private and public databases; the number that measures construction spend coupled with operations and maintenance — a fair estimate of growth is likely closer to $500 billion now. Based upon the US Census Bureau monthly construction spend reports we have seen a slight uptick in construction spend. We still see construction activity running at an $85-$90 billion clip.
During 2024-2025 we will be breaking down this subject into manageable segments as interest in it clarifies. For now it is enlightening to approach finance standards with an examination of a few operating budgets:
University of Michigan Budget Book 2024
Harvard University Budget Overview: September 2023
University of Minnesota 2022 Final Capital Budget Requests with Governor’s Recommendations
The 2022-2023 Budget: Overview of the Governor’s Higher Education Budget Proposals (California)
Prince George County Public Schools Operating Budget 2022
University of Illinois Deferred Maintenance
Central Michigan University Capital & Deferred Maintenance Budgets
Every dollar passing through the business or academic side of the education industry has rules for how it is received and tracked.* At the moment we track, but do not dwell, on the grant management standards asserted by state and federal funding agencies. When we do, we place them on the agenda of the appropriate colloquium.
Money, money, money… 😳 pic.twitter.com/Ssyz5PQPVV
— Agnieszka Herrmann (@AgaHerrmann) February 4, 2022
Appropriate use of public funding underlies some — but not all — of the accounting burden of the education industry. We steer clear of the grant management requirements public funding agencies place upon the education industry; maintain focus on the titles developed and published by organizations that have a due process platform. For example:
Accredited Standards Committee X9
Financial Industry Standards: Program of Work
Data Center OIX-2 Certification
Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
There are several trackworthy non-ANSI accredited standard developing organizations:
Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
Real Estate Information Standards Board
Send bella@standardsmichigan.com an email for a detailed advance agenda. To join the colloquium today use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
More:
Community FY22 Appropriations Request Letterdocx
Letter-Tax-Provisions-American-Jobs-Families-Plans-061421
Half the people working in schools aren’t classroom teachers—so what?
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwB pic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
— USPTO (@uspto) July 13, 2023
Standards Michigan Group, LLC
2723 South State Street | Suite 150
Ann Arbor, MI 48104 USA
888-746-3670