Plumbing is any system that conveys fluids for a wide range of applications. Plumbing uses pipes, valves, plumbing fixtures, tanks, and other apparatuses to convey fluids. Heating and cooling (HVAC), waste removal, and potable water delivery are among the most common uses for plumbing, but it is not limited to these applications. The word derives from the Latin for lead, plumbum, as the first effective pipes used in the Roman era were lead pipes.
Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. HVAC system design is a subdiscipline of mechanical engineering, based on the principles of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer. "Refrigeration" is sometimes added to the field's abbreviation as HVAC&R or HVACR, or "ventilation" is dropped, as in HACR.
Ventilation is the intentional introduction of outdoor air into a space. Ventilation is mainly used to control indoor air quality by diluting and displacing indoor pollutants; it can also be used to control indoor temperature, humidity, and air motion to benefit thermal comfort, satisfaction with other aspects of the indoor environment, or other objectives.
A building code is a set of rules that specify the standards for construction objects such as buildings and non-building structures. Buildings must conform to the code to obtain planning permission, usually from a local council. The main purpose of building codes is to protect public health, safety and general welfare as they relate to the construction and occupancy of buildings and structures — for example, the building codes in many countries require engineers to consider the effects of soil liquefaction in the design of new buildings. The building code becomes law of a particular jurisdiction when formally enacted by the appropriate governmental or private authority.
The National Building Code of Canada is the model building code of Canada. It is issued by the National Research Council of Canada. As a model code, it has no legal status until it is adopted by a jurisdiction that regulates construction.
Green building refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from planning to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and demolition. This requires close cooperation of the contractor, the architects, the engineers, and the client at all project stages. The Green Building practice expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort. Green building also refers to saving resources to the maximum extent, including energy saving, land saving, water saving, material saving, etc., during the whole life cycle of the building, protecting the environment and reducing pollution, providing people with healthy, comfortable and efficient use of space, and being in harmony with nature. Buildings that live in harmony; green building technology focuses on low consumption, high efficiency, economy, environmental protection, integration and optimization.’
A wheelchair ramp is an inclined plane installed in addition to or instead of stairs. Ramps permit wheelchair users, as well as people pushing strollers, carts, or other wheeled objects, to more easily access a building, or navigate between areas of different height. Ramps for accessibility may predate the wheelchair and are found in ancient Greece.
Building Science is the science and technology-driven collection of knowledge to provide better indoor environmental quality (IEQ), energy-efficient built environments, and occupant comfort and satisfaction. Building physics, architectural science, and applied physics are terms used for the knowledge domain that overlaps with building science. In building science, the methods used in natural and hard sciences are widely applied, which may include controlled and quasi-experiments, randomized control, physical measurements, remote sensing, and simulations. On the other hand, methods from social and soft sciences, such as case study, interviews & focus group, observational method, surveys, and experience sampling, are also widely used in building science to understand occupant satisfaction, comfort, and experiences by acquiring qualitative data. One of the recent trends in building science is a combination of the two different methods. For instance, it is widely known that occupants' thermal sensation and comfort may vary depending on their sex, age, emotion, experiences, etc. even in the same indoor environment. Despite the advancement in data extraction and collection technology in building science, objective measurements alone can hardly represent occupants' state of mind such as comfort and preference. Therefore, researchers are trying to measure both physical contexts and understand human responses to figure out complex interrelationships.
Building regulations in the United Kingdom are statutory instruments or statutory regulations that seek to ensure that the policies set out in the relevant legislation are carried out. Building regulations approval is required for most building work in the UK.
Passive cooling is a building design approach that focuses on heat gain control and heat dissipation in a building in order to improve the indoor thermal comfort with low or no energy consumption. This approach works either by preventing heat from entering the interior or by removing heat from the building.
Building insulation is material used in a building to reduce the flow of thermal energy. While the majority of insulation in buildings is for thermal purposes, the term also applies to acoustic insulation, fire insulation, and impact insulation. Often an insulation material will be chosen for its ability to perform several of these functions at once.
Passive ventilation is the process of supplying air to and removing air from an indoor space without using mechanical systems. It refers to the flow of external air to an indoor space as a result of pressure differences arising from natural forces.
Building officials of developed countries are generally the jurisdictional administrator of building and construction codes, engineering calculation supervision, permits, facilities management, and accepted construction procedures.
Council House 2 (also known as CH2), is an office building located at 240 Little Collins Street in the Melbourne central business district, Australia. It is used by the City of Melbourne council, and in April 2005, became the first purpose-built office building in Australia to achieve a maximum Six Green Star rating, certified by the Green Building Council of Australia. CH2 officially opened in August 2006.
Architectural engineering or architecture engineering, also known as building engineering, is a discipline that deals with the engineering and construction of buildings, such as environmental, structural, mechanical, electrical, computational, embeddable, and other research domains. It is related to Architecture, Mechatronics Engineering, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, and Civil Engineering, but distinguished from Interior Design and Architectural Design as an art and science of designing infrastructure through these various engineering disciplines, from which properly align with many related surrounding engineering advancements.
Air changes per hour, abbreviated ACPH or ACH, or air change rate is the number of times that the total air volume in a room or space is completely removed and replaced in an hour. If the air in the space is either uniform or perfectly mixed, air changes per hour is a measure of how many times the air within a defined space is replaced each hour. Perfectly mixed air refers to a theoretical condition where supply air is instantly and uniformly mixed with the air already present in a space, so that conditions such as age of air and concentration of pollutants are spatially uniform.
Green buildings in Australia are assessed and rated by a variety of government and independent ratings systems.
Sustainable refurbishment describes working on existing buildings to improve their environmental performance using sustainable methods and materials. A refurbishment or retrofit is defined as: "any work to a building over and above maintenance to change its capacity, function or performance' in other words, any intervention to adjust, reuse, or upgrade a building to suit new conditions or requirements". Refurbishment can be done to a part of a building, an entire building, or a campus. Sustainable refurbishment takes this a step further to modify the existing building to perform better in terms of its environmental impact and its occupants' environment.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Victoria was part of the worldwide pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The first confirmed case in the state of Victoria, also the first in Australia, was identified as being on 19 January 2020, when a man from Wuhan arrived by air from Guangdong, China. His test results on 25 January confirmed he had COVID-19.
The Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB) is a body that writes Australia's standardized building requirements, including the National Construction Code (NCC), WaterMark, and CodeMark. The ABCB is part of a joint endeavour by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments, and the country's plumbing and building industries.
