Energy-saving opportunities are everywhere, often missed

If buildings are living organisms, as energy-efficiency gurus like to say, then the Portland Opera’s three-floor headquarters and rehearsal space in Southwest Portland is bipolar, vacillating between frenetic activity and somnolence.

In either state, its respiratory system wheezes along, inhaling outside air; heating, cooling and filtering it; pushing it through the ductwork; then exhaling the exhaust.

On a recent Friday morning, the company is at rest. Its cavernous rehearsal spaces are comfortably heated but empty except for conductor Robert Ainsley, who sits at a piano running through the score for an upcoming production.

In the costume shop, a single stitcher is making alterations, her radio turned up to carry over the hiss of a ventilation system in the floor. The box office and third-floor office space quietly hum as the sales and development staff bring in the dollars that make the opera sing. But on the entire second floor, leased to city of Portland engineers managing the Big Pipe sewer project, only two workers are pounding their keyboards under a fluorescent blaze.

"We try to get them to turn out their lights when they’re not here," said Chuck Ely, the opera’s facility manager, "but they’re not real good about that."

And that, in a nutshell, is the ongoing problem — and opportunity — of energy efficiency.

By Ted Sickinger, The Oregonian

Full Story: http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2011/01/businesses_building_owners_lea.html