Google Trend - LEED vs CPM

Through the past decades in construction the Critical Path Method or CPM has become critical knowledge to construction. It is the key to successful task scheduling, schedule management and recovery, and courtroom litigation. Now the new hot topic has arrived, which is known as LEED - Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design.

From Google Trends, you can compare the popularity of two terms through search traffic. Below I have compared CPM and LEED. CPM is shown in the red and LEED is shown in blue on the graph. The trends show you that LEED is becoming more popular and may possibly become an industry standard in construction. In the past five years CPM has steadily declined, while LEED word searches have doubled.

Another neat thing with Google Trends is you can see how different countries search these terms. In the United Arab Emirates, where Dubai is located, LEED is more popular. I am assuming that this is because construction projects are larger and more sophisticated. Where as India, has a very high word search in CPM. India shown high economic growth within the past two decade. I would not be surprised that there would be a bigger focus on simpler construction projects, such as improving agriculture and ending poverty.

So to those who are still contemplating if LEED is just a fad or is the way to go, I hope this tiny bit of information directs you in the right direction.

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South Facing Window

So the next couple months I will be cramming for the LEED AP exam NC2.2. To keep this blog up to date, I want to talk about a question that made me scratch my head, but is note worth for being something I have never heard of before. This week I wish to talk about an south-facing windows and how it affects the residential occupants in the house.

The concept behind the architectural feature of having south-facing window is to have larger windows on the south-side of the building. How does this affect the Electrical Engineer? Well if you are applying for LEED points it might. During the summer the sun the higher up, the sun rises from the East and sets in the West. However during the winter, the sun rises and sets closer the the southern horizon. Because of this south-facing window, you receive more natural light and heat from the sun's rays, which cuts down on heating and lighting bills during the winter.

This feature can influence LEED EA Credit 1, Optimized Energy Performance, and EQ Credit 8.1, Daylight & Views: Daylight 75% of Spaces.

Also see: http://www.wbdg.org/references/mou_daylight.php

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