Guardian Service Industries, Inc.

Step to prevent frozen pipes. Cold temperatures can reach areas of your facility that you cannot see or seldom visit, such as: Crawl spaces; Closets; Enclosed spaces (e.g., attics, lofts, roof spaces); Warehouses; and Isolated storage areas. Cold weather preparedness is important to help reduce potential business interruptions and related losses resulting from cold temperatures. Domestic Water Piping In severe cold, water pipes have the potential to freeze and break. If safe to do so, make sure pipes that are located in isolated and/or poorly heated spaces are shut off and drained or protected with a supplemental heating source. Protect Your Fire Protection Sprinklers Fire protection sprinkler systems are dependent on the ability of water to flow freely when needed. Ensure that wet piping systems, which may be subject to cold temperatures, are sufficiently heated to prevent freezing. Severe cold weather can also delay the response time of the local fire de

Credit: Environmental Protection New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed 10 pieces of legislation into law on Oct. 31, including three green buildings bills – Intros. 1163-A, 1160, and 1165, that involve energy and water benchmarking, lighting retrofitting, and sub-metering requirements for mid-size buildings. Together, these bills are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 250,000 metric tons and spur retrofits in 16,000 buildings, according to city officials, who said the measures offer additional support for the city to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent from 2005 levels by 2050, its OneNYC goal. "This administration has dedicated itself to building a foundation and a future for the next generation of New Yorkers," said de Blasio. "In order to do that, we must work together as a city to fight one of our biggest threats, climate change. With these three bills, we are taking another step towards reaching our OneNYC goals and protec

Green building  (also known as  green construction  or  sustainable building ) refers to both a structure and the using of processes that are  environmentally responsible  and  resource-efficient  throughout a building's life-cycle: from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and demolition. [1]  In other words, green building design involves finding the balance between homebuilding and the sustainable environment. This requires close cooperation of the design team, the architects, the engineers, and the client at all project stages. [2]  The Green Building practice expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort. [3] Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design  (LEED) is a set of rating systems for the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of green buildings which was Developed by the  U.S. Green Building Council . Other certificates system that confirms the sustainabilit

By: Maria Lally /  From: The Telegraph  Like most of the changes I make in life, it started small. My daughters, Sophia, six, and Rosie, three, both have  eczema . So a few years ago, tired of endless steroid creams, I noticed some natural, fragrance-free washing capsules in the supermarket and decided to try them out. They made a small but welcome difference to the girls’ skin and since then I’ve never looked back. I then swapped my bright-orange, chemical-smelling kitchen spray for a rose-petal pink one from natural-cleaning brand  Method . Before I knew it, I was cleaning my microwave with lemon halves, after seeing something about it on Pinterest. And it seems I’m not alone in my green cleaning obsession…  Green cleaning has gone from hippy-ish to mainstream and glossy G wyneth Paltrow  recently dedicated a post on  Goop , her lifestyle blog - entitled ‘The Dirty on Getting Clean’ - to going green around the home. ‘In a world that sadly is growing ever more toxic by

By   Tammy Waitt  &  Guest Editorial by Mike McGovern, Automatic Systems Active Shooter Incident Planning and Risk Abatement  are among the most discussed topics lately in the news and in our security professional circles – largely due to the all-too-frequent deadly incidents in our lives and work as security professionals. A properly designed and implemented entrance control system – usually involving some form of pedestrian entrance control such as optical turnstiles, mechanical turnstiles, or portals – can have a  major role in the deterrence of such an occurrence . It seems that at least once every month another shooting incident is being reported somewhere, in the USA, Canada, anywhere in the world. No commercial, public, private, or government entity is immune from the threat, and we know that security leaders, government leaders, and others are continuously looking for ways to better prepare for the unthinkable event. As security professionals, we know that muc

By  RONDA KAYSEN Scented candles. Fragrance sticks. Incense. Potpourri. Many of us spend a lot of time (and money) trying to make our homes smell pretty. Hotels have been dousing their lobbies with fragrances for years, hoping we’ll keep booking rooms at the Westin because it smells like White Tea. Now, rental buildings and condominiums in  New York City  have caught onto the idea, infusing lobbies, hallways and fitness centers with fragrances. Sometimes they are blown in through the ductwork, other times stand-alone machines do the job. Either way, the building smells a whole lot fresher than a city sidewalk. Take  21 West End , a rental on the Upper West Side. Ever since it opened in September, tenants have been attributing its summery aroma to the floral arrangements. Building staff members are quick to set the record straight: The lobby smells like a beach because of Ocean Mist, a fragrance pumped in through the ductwork. “You really pick your head up and take notice,”

The largest US state-owned utility is a believer in "what gets measured gets improved" and can show the results, says NYPA CEO Gil Quiniones by Gil C Quiniones It gets harder by the day to prioritise the waves of data coming at us to determine what’s relevant, what’s noise and — most importantly — what to do with what the data we consider relevant. At the New York Power Authority, the largest state-owned utility in the US, we had the opportunity to harness the potential of Big Data and the deep trove of analytics it provided to take on the challenge of how it could cut energy use in New York state. Suffice to say, this was no small undertaking — data gets unwieldy in a hurry. But we’ve managed to tame the digital beast. The results are now apparent at our New York Energy Manager Network Operations Center (NYEM) in Albany, the capital of New York state. NYEM will use its trove of information to dramatically reduce energy consumption in more than 3,000 state bu