Wednesday, September 05, 2007

MiT on Doors and Efficiency

MiT has a new sustainability wiki with page analyzing doors. Apparently the average heat transfer per swing door passage is 78 Wh (267 BTU) which is the equivalent of:
  • 1.3 hours of light from a desk lamp
  • 4.3 hours of light from a compact fluorescent bulb
  • Driving a car 306 feet
  • Half a mile jog
And apparently using a revolving door is much more efficient:
On average 8x as much air is exhanged when a swing door is opened as opposed to a revolving door. That's 8x as much new air that needs to be heated or cooled and that's why using the revolving door is a great way to reduce energy requirements on campus. {snip} Our estimates show that if everyone used the revolving doors at E25 alone, MIT would save almost $7500 in natural gas amounting to nearly 15 tons of CO2. And that’s just from two of the 29 revolving doors on campus!
More at their wiki

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