Practical insights on energy, building automation, and compliance for buildings and industry, by the Cobler team.
The Essay SeriesA building is a structure in a slow, constant argument with entropy. On the physics of why everything you operate is quietly falling apart - and what it means to fight it.
The Essay SeriesA chiller problem reaches the boardroom translated through four languages and stripped of meaning. What the C-suite actually needs from building data: money, trend and risk.
The Essay SeriesIn 1968 Melvin Conway showed that systems copy the org charts that build them. Your plant room is proof: mute chillers, three networks, and an OT/IT gap drawn in cable.
The Essay SeriesThe office thermostat is unwinnable, and the international comfort standard says so in writing. A field guide to why no room is ever the right temperature.
The Essay SeriesParkinson's committee approved the £10 million reactor in 2.5 minutes and debated the £350 bicycle shed for 45. Your tenant-comfort meeting does the same with the lobby setpoint and the chiller retrofit.
The Essay SeriesPut a building's energy use on a screen and consumption drops, before you touch any equipment. The strange, well-documented power of simply paying attention.
The Essay SeriesFrank Duffy insisted there is no such thing as a building, only layers aging at different speeds. The fastest-dying layer is the one that remembers, and that is why buildings fail to learn.
The Essay SeriesReplace every chiller, controller and sensor over 25 years and is it the same building? A 2,000-year-old identity paradox, parked in your plant room.
The Essay SeriesDo the facilities job perfectly and you disappear; the day anyone learns your name is the day the chiller fails in a board meeting. What that means for the tools they need.