Construction Informer

Where Did You Say The Backhoe Is?: Citing the regular occurrence of heavy equipment theft plaguing construction companies Travelers Inland announced its partnership with Celevoke to allow insureds to receive a discount on LunarEYE Wireless Asset Tracking and Control systems.

If you visit the LunarEYE site you are greeted with a kind of freaky looking eyeball, typos and at least one sentence that doesn’t have an ending. Those are all things only an editor would probably notice so besides all of that you get a lot of information about these systems. You attach a miniature, self-powered asset tracking and remote-control device to the equipment and from then on you can receive reports and even control the assets using the Internet, two-way pager or phone. Here are some of the functions.

• Find out the equipment’s location, speed and direction;
• Notification whenever a unit is moved outside of a predefined area;
• Track engine run time for maintenance scheduling;
• Prevent equipment from starting between certain predefined hours; and
• Receive automatic reports at predefined intervals of where the equipment is.

So there you have it. The next time someone tells you they can’t find the backhoe you can just smile and confidently say, “I know where it is.”

Hot Water Heat Pumps: Heating hot water, according to the US Department of Energy, accounts for 17 percent of all residential energy consumption in the country. So DOE has announced Energy Star criteria for water heaters that it says will reduce carbon emissions by 4.2 million tons over five years. For the first time the following types of water heaters are now eligible for the Energy Star labels:

• High performance gas storage;
• whole home gas tankless;
• advanced drop-in or integrated heat pump;
• solar; and
• gas condensing.

The standards for the heat pump water heaters appear to offer consumers the greatest advantage in terms of lowered energy use. They require a minimum EF of 2.0, or must be at least 121.2 percent more efficient than the federal standard. The standards go into effect over two phases with the first phase effective January 1, 2009 at which time the minimum first hour rating requirement is 50 gallons per hour. DOE says that these standards should net almost a 55 percent savings in energy use resulting in $277 annual savings when compared to a typical electrical resistance water heater.

On the eve of DOE’s announcement, General Electric announced it already has water heaters that meet the criteria. The company says its hybrid and tankless heaters are up to the task. The hybrid absorbs heat from the surrounding air and transfers it to the water while the tankless only heats the water as it is called for. There is more on the company’s products here.