re trying to do it ourselves it's just a function of nobody knows it's there uh passive house eight years ago I didn't know what it was and now you probably ask one of five people they haven't done the fias what is it fias can you please spell that and that is the technology that we're all going towards and again this is you know it's a sustainable it's affordable it is the it's the right or the country to the future I mean this is what we should do and how we get it out just by doing it by doing it and you know glorifying it saying okay yes we do have a hear 16 that's an existence on the links of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania and it has not an electric bill and it will not nobody knows about it matter of fact these people that specific couple don't even want to tell their neighbors they're embarrassed there are lots of associations uh trade associations a a i a us gbc lots of ways that we can deliver the education um but what is the education that is the key and the missing link in all of this is building science and building physics and that that's we have to bring all of that into focus architects are not taught other than a few technical colleges they're not taught building physics or building science and we're at a level now when we start talking about system performance and outcomes we have got to get there and so that's where the education needs to be is on building science and building systems and building physics yeah and I like to second that so uh because it was absent in the marketplace and we had absolutely nothing to work with when we first started we started our own training program so we have a training program for certified passports consultants who are doing the designing like this would be the architects who show up and they get taught building science and the modeling tools we have one training program for builders um and actually in fact the builders are really excited I think a lot of builders they do things like every day the same but um at first they were like well you guys are crazy with your air tightness and then it was a real nice challenge and people really get into it and they really have fun doing it and you were saying it like you're you're excited about your job right it is an absolute challenge to build a day and day out exactly and like you were saying when do you test it how how we test our homes we do it as we go along uh pre drywall we do a a blower door we do a duct blaster which means probably very little to everybody but us up here go that's awesome I got a a ch 50 of 1.1 and she's terribly excited because she knows that we're right there um it's important to know what the house is doing as we're moving along because like you said you wait till the end all of a sudden something fails you don't know why it failed you're in a forensic mode then exactly and like you know our steps panel is very similar to yours the thermal bridging we don't have two by fours we don't have headers it's 10 times stronger without it so minimize the thermal bridging you don't have it there's less sound transfer there's no less heat and you know loss and it starts before it gets to the builder we need to re teach people how to design uh there was emphasis on the integrated design bring everybody together up front and uh don't get into forensic mode because that is expensive and you do it right from the beginning it's really not difficult absolutely and and thank you for saying that because uh one example even uh with uh with paint you might think well that could be substituted um but if you have a particular for example day lighting scheme that requires a certain reflect reflectivity um and that gets sort of substituted down the line because that specialty contractor wasn't involved um that can change the numbers that can change the whole uh uh performance so it it has to be uh has to come together in an integrated way so thank you all so much thank you for your good question I wish there was a simple answer but it really is about um uh professional training um and I think there are some institutional challenges we're going to talk about in our next panel um things like uh uh you know the the electric grid and um perhaps uh we'll talk about financing um the way we value uh you know builders should be seeing the the value that they're putting in homeowners should be uh seeing the value insurance um and uh getting a loan they should you know be get credit for not spending a lot of money on energy I mean that's that's helping um we just have systems in place that really haven't caught up with this yet so I think there's a lot of room for some policy um uh thinking and and it doesn't uh it it can be I think across the whole spectrum of education and financing a lot of things so thank you for that um thank you all so much for um your wonderful presentations and thank you for coming um to the buildings panel and I am going to now hand it over to Scott sclar for our next panel uh behind the scenes grid and transmission issues it's all connected my little thing I thank you ESI for um hosting this this briefing session the last panel today is one of the most important uh so we have all these different needs we have different kinds of electric loads at the residential infrastructure commercial industrial and institutional sector we have and those are impacted by economic activity uh environment clean air act standards uh the state of our economy regional solutions local economics all of that impacts it and now as you see through our uh caucus room exhibit we have all these generation technologies that are huge some of them are on the grid traditional ones you know of you know natural gas and uh uh and of course then the geothermal and the biomass power and landfill gas and and uh concentrated solar power and foldable tanks and wind of all sizes and um the whole marine energy tidal wave regular hydro free flow hydro so we have all these different generation sources all coming into the market and then we also have these unique energy efficiency uh technologies coming in led lighting being probably the most dramatic um reducing lighting loads by 80 percent um but energy efficiency software we know loads we can control we can deal with time of day we can deal with seasonal we can shift things around electric energy storage is really coming in most of my projects have them so now not only can you take the intermittent renewables but you can arbitrage between the low rates like in texas that are two cents a kilowatt hour at night because of wind and offset 12 cents electricity during the day that's pretty cool pays back by the way right this second so we have all of that and you know it's not shocking everybody pays attention to the generation side mostly a little bit to the efficiency and not a lot of what goes in between and these gentlemen up here have different viewpoints of an experience of what goes in between and i want to remind you electricity is one play but thermal energy of course is another play we use heat we use heat for heating we use heat for cooling we use heat for industrial processes we use heat actually to make electricity so there's a whole range of things to arbitrage and of course just like the cellular industry or just like the communications industry we have wired technology and now we have distributed technology we call that cellular and it has to seamlessly interact and by the way this is what i teach in my gw classes so i love this topic and can talk for two hours but i can't so we have some really great presenters here and a pretty major in their field and the i'm going to do it in the order in which it's printed um and so i want to start by just saying you know i am stunned i just uh did a project in where i they wanted to have the lowest most energy efficient campus corporate campus and when i looked in every part of their buildings on their energy lows virtually everything that they had worked off of dc current now it comes out as ac current but everything the computers the monitors these were they had banking equipment atm machines absolutely everything the motors some pumps everything we're really all ac to dc devices of course which we turn ac and then ramp down to dc so i'm actually really pleased we have a dc fusion here and we're going to speak from our table and you have to press that button and we have tim martinson who's the co-founder so tim thank you away am i speaking properly i guess why are you doing damn good wow um tim martinson dc fusion co-founder my partner dave geary in the back of the room first of about what we do where we've come from we're predominantly from the data center industry we started or dave started the initiative to utilize direct current higher voltage dc for data centers back around 2004 and i met him in 2005 at every conference here in washington dc and we started this incredible voyage and the idea that direct current would do a better job to power an it load that is inherently dc thought it would be very simple we talked about efficiency we talked about reliability we talked about the lower cap x cost up front maintenance costs integration to renewables it seems like a slam dunk everybody should do it not quite so easy so we are proud to say that the first data center utilizing dc in a commercial sense in the united states is up and running in princeton new jersey in a company called steel orca so as far as deployable technology today we have finally got there in the united states however we're only approximately one lights behind shine and i won't and uh almost a half that out of japan and so while we started with some very good ideas and technology and help move that forward it's being deployed globally better or faster so but my point that i wanted to make a it's available here but that we need to look at things differently we tend to think in terms of efficiency in a very microscopic way and we look at the led light and say that's that's efficient and that's very true if we look at it from the load back to the grid and start thinking in terms of how we get power to power things it changes your dynamics we talk about our technology as chip to grid what if we need dc why are we providing ac from utilities we tend to think of everything from referencing what the utility can provide us you know they will give us more if we ask them for more we will consume more our incentives are on devices becoming efficient but when are we going to start to look at true energy efficiency and a simple example and a fact that i'd like people be aware of the epa has a regulations in place that the us eia says will cause a roughly 200 coal fire plants shut down around 2020 so i'm i like the environment i'm not against any of these things but that's going to be a change and an idea what that means the entire data center industry by some methods is about 400 or excuse me 40 coal plants so the and during the polar vortex uh american electric power the ohio utility was running at full tilt during the winter 90 of the plants that are going to be shut down so there's change coming so there should be a sense of urgency that something's happening so i want to examine the power chain quickly from the utility to the chip and we have a slide that presents this i'll try to make it very simple um you put power coal in energy some sort of energy source and 40 percent of it leaves building 60 percent of it goes up into the atmosphere of course that's the carbon we all want to avoid to get it from there to these destinations seven percent is lost in transmission to get it into the building and distribute it properly safely cleanly stored over batteries in the case of a data center by the time it actually gets to the load the chip and does actual work only five percent of the energy is actually used i think we ought to take a look at how we can provide technology at the chip and skip some of those stages which to me says distributed generation becomes the strategy that we need to spend a great deal more time on distributed generation can be combined heat and power solutions natural gas with micro turbines or fuel cells or solar wind but something local to the load which means we need to go behind the meter and learn how to control and act like a utility with our own buildings and the data center being a bulk load should be fairly easy to do in a data center but it's very difficult to do across the board for our houses for 63 million homes equates to some of these numbers that i'm talking about i would think that it would be easier to do at data centers in particular and the u.s. government is the largest data center organization on the planet followed by at and t and oddly enough the it folks that make and choose equipment don't have responsibility for the electric bill well at and t as of this year does so there that's a big change so when you buy it equipment now that guy is responsible for the bill so as far as policy policy change i'm not advocating going out and creating law i'm simply saying from an awareness we need to incentivize the technology adoption that's already in our back pocket to use and i wanted to just spend one moment on residential well how do i end up in residential aside from the fact that i was an architect student back in ohio state um well villages there's 1.8 billion people that go to bed every night without electricity and how are we going to help them if we follow the model that we have here in the united states how much fuel would that really need we need to do something systemically different we have civilizations sovereign nations in this country that have that same problem we should be able to create a off the grid model to provide energy for villages and to create a solar home to create cell towers in those areas or bring technology to these sovereign nations the technology is already in our midst we're already selling it something politically has to change to focus the direction of the entities that control these decisions it's very excited about what's happening that it's happening now finally a carbon plan to reduce our our greenhouse gas emissions by 65 and one of the core products or approaches is district energy i don't know if you knew that and we are and we are working with the building community the development community to make buildings district energy compatible so this is very very exciting and the this is one approach that somehow gets lost in a lot of plans so i am really thrilled to have rob thorton here representing the association the industry sort of educate you a little bit and bring into this discussion that approach thanks god so in five minutes i'm going to make you all district energy experts whoa ready whoa so to tim's point a typical central station power plan is about 34 percent efficient so that means one third of the fuel that goes in comes out as electricity but two thirds of the fuel is dumped as waste heat it's really in the rivers oceans uh and to the sky in fact if you were to aggregate all the central power plants in the u.s it would be the equivalent of 25 quads which is almost as much as we use in transportation and it would be more than the total energy consumed in 216 countries let me rephrase that the waste heat from us power plants is greater than energy consumed in every country on the planet except for three russia china and the u.s so what does that tell you that's a big challenge and also a huge opportunity just the waste heat we have a technology it's worked since thomas edison invented it in new york city it's called district energy we take the heat and put it in a pipe and we use it to heat and cool cities in fact this building the one you're in is on district energy the capital power plant is down the hill they make steam and chilled water it's piped through an underground network the building doesn't have boilers and chillers or cooling towers it gets its thermal energy from a location uh you know down the street district energy is ubiquitous if you went to college in the united states i'm willing to bet that you lived in a dorm that was on district heating the campuses consolidate their central plant and when you aggregate the thermal loads of dozens of buildings you create economies of scale to deploy things like waste to energy combined heat and power biomass uh renewable energy so it's this thermal network that connects dozens or in some cases hundreds or thousands of buildings uh to a thermal network kopenhagen arguably the most efficient city on the planet 98 percent of the buildings don't have boilers they're connected to a district heating network that uh also recovers heat from power plants waste to energy and in fact in denmark they also are known for uh high per capita wind energy application at times the wind turbines are spinning but there's no load no electric load the price of power actually goes negative the district energy companies get paid to take the power and they put it in electric boilers and they turn it into heat and they use it to heat their communities they actually get paid to use renewable energy but the story in denmark isn't wind or solar it's that they have this thermal energy backbone this infrastructure that really connects all their buildings and creates scale um big sea change for our industry lately was superstorm sandy october 2012 8.1 million people without power from the coast to michigan the systems that stayed online were district energy chp systems at princeton university co-op city in the bronx nyu and manhattan not because they had emergency backup generators but because they had highly resilient reliable district energy assets supplying electricity power and cooling to their campus district energy micro per we've been doing micro grids for about a hundred years and and the reason is that if you're a research institution a hospital like the medical center in in houston or princeton you process tens of millions of dollars worth of research every year you can't rely on the commercial electricity grid for the level of reliability that that mission critical operation demands and so they took it in their own hands and they built combined heat and power district energy on campus and that's really where uh you know our our our success has been but sandy was a wake-up call for mayors now mayors are saying to us the idea we want what princeton has i'm competing for the next google i'm competing for the next pharma they're asking me not what's the price of my power they want to know where is it located what does it cost how green is it and how resilient is that power distributed generation is moving forward and mayors want it and the mayors are saying to the regulators look this isn't a technology problem it's not a financing problem it's a policy problem and we've got to revise these arcane rules that protect thomas edison's grid from the new innovation that we need to deliver resiliency to our economies and district energy is really sort of proven that yesterday nyserda i'll conclude in a second nyserda just released the results of the new york prize they've awarded a hundred thousand dollars to 83 communities in new york 100 000 dollars to study micro grids district energy and chp then the next tranche of that will be uh half a million dollars to deploy and the ultimate prize will be nearly five million dollars to underwrite these new systems mayors want it campuses have it uh final point we're working with usdn c 40 cities the game for climate adaptation is really at the city level and we're working closely with the united nations environment program they launched last year at the un climate summit a district energy and cities initiative it's on our website district energy dot org i urge you to read it their case studies of 45 cities and how they use district energy to cut emissions strengthen the grid and really deliver for climate adaptation um that's all i have thank you rob and uh it's interesting your point on district heating versus diesel engines i was hired by the governor of mississippi after katrina and of course they had millions of gallons of diesel fuel in the rat in the ground but of course the grid was ripped up they couldn't pump it out of the ground and of course i've been hired by hospitals after sandy we had four hospitals during operations had to move people out of operating rooms because the diesels weren't working so um uh diesel is a great technology when you had no other choices but we do have choices our next speaker is i mean the guru of a lot of this jim hecker has been in FERC has written papers has been really a uh an idea guy on how to modernize the way we do it so he's now um uh wires council and uh jim take it away thank you share some wisdom please thanks god um this has been a really wonderful day um we've heard a lot about local uh discrete solutions uh using less energy new fuels new technologies really a new vision of um of the electric future and so you might ask why is this guy want to talk about electric transmission that's kind of old-timey isn't it well my goal today is to tell you why this is going to be extremely important in the future notwithstanding the fact that we are going to have an increase in distributed generation and new technologies uh like uh at tim and rob have talked about um my wife this morning said listen dear uh if uh i were terminally ill and i had 60 minutes left to live on this earth i would want to spend those precious last few minutes listening to you talk about electric transmission and i i said really why is that she said because it would seem like an eternity so so you know where you're you're really in for it i i don't know how much i can bore you in five minutes but i'll give it a try um uh the grid was uh most of the grid uh that we enjoyed today is built 40 50 60 years ago uh a lot of its outmoded a lot of its aging um it's certainly a lot of it's still electromechanical instead of digital uh and um we are looking at a future that arguably it's going to be filled with a lot of distributed resources uh with with storage with batteries with uh a demand response uh both on the supply side and the demand side it's going to be a different environment how does transmission fit into all that uh i submit to you that transmission investments going to continue to be very important um after about a 25 year dip in investment uh we are now putting somewhere between 10 and 15 billion dollars a year into the grid and the department of energy says we need to keep doing that for another 20 years uh and a lot of that is an anticipation of a new environment at the bulk power level uh a lot of what you've heard today is a is a the distribution level uh this is going to help make um our electric future uh more um resilient uh transmission is an enabler of new technology of new power markets that are going to help keep prices down uh it is a it is a uh a way in which we enjoy a lot of optionality uh because frankly we don't know what the grid's going to look like or what the electric system or generation technologies fusion is going to look like in uh in 20 or 30 years or how it's going to be deployed how do we adapt to that without losing reliability um well a robust transmission system is one important instrument in doing that um uh today investment as I said was growing there are a lot of drivers uh the the principal one is the rise of renewable energy but we've also got to replace old facilities uh we are uh uh now planning for a more integrated inter-regional grid than has ever existed before um the uh EPA's uh clean power plan uh and share economics uh are uh going to have a profound effect on fossil energy and uh we need that's another thing we need to uh adapt to plus we need to keep the grid reliable absolutely 100% reliable particularly for for uh chip makers and industries like that so uh uh even though growth has been relatively flat it's still going to grow you know 20 to 30% over two or three decades so we need we need uh uh and I'm speaking on behalf of a group that I'm counsel to wires and I'm I could I will talk to you in the hall about it yeah it's very appropriate didn't I um the uh uh uh that we believe that that uh uh policies need to be improved reformed in order to eliminate barriers to uh growing the transmission system and to to making it more nimble uh and modernizing it overall um we find uh and uh we have studied this uh or had uh uh uh economist study this we find that uh the current planning system that uh uh happening under uh the auspices of my old agency uh is uh fairly inadequate uh people are pouring money into the grid but the question really is are we building the right transmission are we planning for the right things we do a production cost analysis when we plan for a transmission line but we don't look at the array of benefits that uh that are necessary at benefits uh uh that um without which we could be running some enormous costs and uh and risks uh and I can talk more about that but um uh we have a grid that unlike the natural gas pipeline system is regulated at several levels of government and even though this is interstate commerce and it's all an integrated network that's governed by the laws of physics those little electrons go wherever wherever we don't know where those came from but um um the the fvrc uh the fvrc uh regulates uh uh rates the states regulate siting um uh the uh the number of agencies are involved um in uh in improving any things is is a usually a at least a five-year affair and typically eight or ten years uh and that is uh that makes them expensive uh and it makes uh it makes the system a lot less nimble than it otherwise uh would be um I guess I would wrap up simply by saying that we think that given the environmental benefits the reliability benefits the economic benefits and the insurance benefits of transmission that this is a critical link to uh the clean energy future good jim I'm going to do the first question and then I want you to ponder yours and I want one minute answers on these and I teach risk in my gw classes and starting with you jim so we have this transmission system the head of homeland security uh not the head the head of security within homeland security said the grid's been hacked like crazy and will continue to be we have lots of examples of minor examples of limited terrorism on the grid California New Mexico we have lots of examples of intense weather patterns hitting and knocking out the grid sandy and Katrina we have forest fires and earthquakes knocking the grid down and we have complaints by the renewables that the grid is set up the way it is because it went with the mouth of the coal mine you know and uh but uh you know our energy is coming if elsewhere not from the coal mine potentially so from a risk point of view um what's the play here how do you make this harden new transmission of the future in one minute or less in one minute or less well you spend some money and it's uh it's really uh important that we start looking at the grid differently than just delivering power from central generation to the local loads it's much going to have to be much more dynamic obviously it's going to have to be hardened uh against cyber intrusion but uh NERC says that the grid has never been more reliable has never but that could be just because it's not been reliable so you now you just step up right exactly we there's a thought here don't want to get radical on you no we definitely need to improve our game there's no question about it and uh and that's going to require some some investment the the question that's raised by my remarks I think is is that necessary are we going to in the face of the risks that you're talking about uh uh rely almost extensively on distributed generation on microgrids on on local solutions that do not depend on the grid at all I submit that over the next 20 or 30 years the big grid is going to be just as important well that's true in communications we have this very robust sailor network and a wired network too but tim let's go to you now because you have the option to both work at lower voltages and also more regionally or closer to customers so talk about risk for a moment a minute now a moment thank you nice to have a two minute oops if you have a two minute question with a one minute answer that's right okay because you're not moderators that's why okay um so with distributed generation you have the opportunity to control your own destiny in that regard I think those that are in the business that they are a mission critical site have to take a hard look at that we're seeing risk managers actually starting to look at change to the grid and risk associated with that and I agree that the grid's going to be here forever but in a different form and so distributed generation hospitals have been doing it for years data centers need to do more of it um solar is a daytime answer so energy storage becomes a critical part of that but when I look at risk I look at the number of components and the affordability to create a risk or more risk adverse environment and direct current utilizes less components it has interfaces directly with um storage systems better a lot of work we're doing at the Emerge Alliance which is a non-profit focused on DC for occupied space data centers select vehicle charging and you've got Elon Musk out there with new energy storage solutions that can be in your home so a risk adverse home could be dealt with in direct current type of solution so I think direct directly everybody's going to have to look at risk as to a way to manage that better themselves right and lower voltages do have less component burnouts by definition absolutely so Rob your your technology in some ways is already resilient right so give us a yeah I think I mean I think the grid is great and in most of our members rely on the grid I mean they work in complement with the grid they make like Princeton University for instance they they buy about 60 percent of their power they make about 40 percent they just don't buy the expensive 60 you know the expensive power um but the master planning done by our institutions who are mission critical whether they have surgery or data centers or cancer research petri dishes that are literally invaluable they've largely determined that they want generation nearby you know they want that access proximity and industrial grade so you know our members have basically looked at this and not every institution has combined heat and power sometimes the rules are too complicated with the incumbent utility and it's just a bridge too far but by and large most of our universities medical centers they make most they make all of their heat and cooling and electricity is a byproduct they still purchase you know the they still purchase a big portion of their electricity but they look at business interruption costs risk mitigation and by and large they've come up with you know we want a gas turbine we want generation we want thermal storage and we want to we want to own it and operate it and we want to rely on it most of the most of the time not as emergency backup not as diesel generators that get started once every six months their primary operation is district energy combined heat and power absolutely and it works okay i'm going to take a few questions they got to be short you're back there is that director is that director who are you directing on the policy regulatory barriers local state and federal so that's a one minute answer to yeah one minute well uh at a uh at an iso level if you let's say you're princeton and you want and you uh you used to consume on a peak day 27 megawatts today on a peak day you consume from the grid two megawatts you now now there are 25 megawatts that are available for everywhere all the other customers on that wire on that distribution network princeton doesn't really get paid for the value they generate for the local grid they don't pay for the peak demand because they're not consuming it but they're not really getting a peck capacity payment or var support and so there are some rules that really need refinement and it hasn't always been easy for a institution that wants to co-generate to do so there is this notion that only utilities can sell power across a public right of way well it turns out in massachusetts that's not exactly true the municipality determines who can move power across a public right of way but we have this urban myth that this majino line that only utilities can do it when in fact that's not the case but utilities have historically not been receptive to destructive revenue from co-generators the c-word co-generation the white blood cells come out and they fight that infection that's historically been the approach that's changing i'm i'm amazed you're alive today rob well for that reason i'm pretty well inoculated right okay i gotta cut that off another question over there who also had a question yeah the risk of sounding naive from what i'm gathering is that it's coming down to policy that's one of the biggest challenges coming down to policy and even when we're talking about our crumbling infrastructure it always gets punted down the road and it's always short term thinking what do we have to do or what is it going to have to take in order for us to actually produce long-term policy that is going to actually reinvent our gym you pick that up please yeah that's a that's a big question in the in the case of transmission uh the the contrast between how natural gas pipelines are authorized for example by by the FERC the FERC certificates them sites them sets their rates that's not true for electric transmission FERC sets the rates and even there it's it's effects are sort of marginal and the state site there are a number of other agencies that have different kinds of authority land management agencies in the west for example i i think because electric markets operate regionally because the grid is a regional machine we should be regulating these things on at least a regional basis or an interconnection wide basis and conceivably at some point even a national basis we have a patchwork of electric regulations that require you know one state has a renewable portfolio standards the other doesn't one has citing uh under certain kinds of criteria and the other state that that same project crosses is not bound to honor those uh those criteria administer the law in the same way i could go on and on but the federal oh jim you can't go on and on you've got to end that up right now i'll take one more question you have it i'm probably showing my age but i was always taught that you split the system between transmission and distribution and the way you guys are using the word grid i is a very interesting transformation of how we used the word grid historically i think or am i wrong and i'm curious when you look at wires and you look at the other two systems how you define grid and how that works as we go forward in policy tim you can start with that one for you you define it new a we all four of us probably define it slightly differently i'll let tim start i guess in a dc micro grid we're talking about the distribution of power within a localized area so it's effectively off the quote grid okay so it's its own grid so there are micro grids nano grids and not to confuse the issue but it's the idea of going to a distributed power to uh maybe work in tandem with the grid the national grid or the local grid but in many dc applications we're doing it by its own a building in california is totally behind the grid from a policy issue i'll sneak into the last question so the challenges we have is the incentives don't take into consideration the good work we're doing for dc micro grids and buildings and communities and needs to enhance that and support that like it supports other technologies and rob you have a pipeline grid correct yeah well we have thermal distribution like in in coban hagan we have a high tension transmission network that you know jim has in denmark they have a high temperature hot water distribution network they supply hot water around 18 uh communities but you raise a good point we often confuse ourselves you know we use we use terms this whole lexicon gets convoluted and we think people get it and we're saying something and they they're hearing something else right so i think we all need to be a little more careful and artful about what descriptors we use my own view on the grid it's really the wires uh and it is distribution level or transmission level and and those are as you pointed two very different things as it is with communication where we had we have big wires we have distribution wires and we have wireless cellular wires and they're really grids too so i want to thank you all okay i'll let you sneak in if it's very short because i will cut you off correct that's quite opposite in its structure it was originally intended thank you that's it you're cut off thank you i appreciate you all coming thank you very much give a hand to the panel and you may ask them questions before they leave this room feel free i will not block the door but i will i think they will sit here for a few minutes if you're not violent thank you thank you panel your question's again


In this episode of Make Time, we're going to be doing some visible mending, taking worn-out garments and giving them a repair with flair using basic craft materials. We're going to be doing public library and today we're going to be doing some visible mending. Now, what does that mean? Well, when you mend something, that means you're fixing it. And in our case, we're going to be fixing all of the wear and tear on our favorite clothes so that we can keep on wearing them. Where the visible part comes in is that we're not trying to disguise that our clothes have been mended. We're not trying to blend those repairs in and make them look new. Instead, we're using the wear and tear as an opportunity to make our clothes look more unique. On top of being a fun, creative way to get most of our clothes, it's also a great way to help the environment. The fashion industry is one of the biggest polluters in the world, and the longer we can wear the clothes we already have, the fewer clothes end up in landfills for things that we could easily fix. The skills I'm going to show you today are inspired by Japanese folk mending. Sashiko is a type of embroidery that uses tiny stitches to create complex patterns. Borough is using Sashiko to layer new fabric onto old over and over until it forms a unique quilt-like texture. I say inspired by because this video is going to be a lot more general than either of those methods, which both have a really fascinating history behind them. But if you find yourself really catching onto this, definitely go look them up. There's plenty of more stuff to learn. The idea is that with our stitches, we're going to weave new fabric over the damaged parts of our garment, not only to close up the hole, but to strengthen the surrounding fabric so that it doesn't tear again. With a small hole, you can do this with thread alone, but if your hole is big enough to stick fingers through, you may need to patch it up first. We're on this in a minute. The materials you'll need for this project are a hole to mend first off some thread Embroidery floss works best, but you could also use regular sewing thread or a thin yarn, if it's all you have on hand or even dental floss. But you're going to be wearing this so dental floss might not be the most comfortable option. It's great for repairs on the go though. A sewing needle that fits your thread and scissors or some other cutting implement.  But before we start sewing, let's gather a little bit more information about our garment so that we can plan how best to mend it. The first thing we need to figure out is if our fabric is knit or woven. Knit fabrics are things like t-shirts and sweatshirts. They have a lot of stretch to them and the edges don't fray when cut. If you look closely at knit fabric, you'll be able to see little rows of V's going up and down. Woven fabrics are things like denim and button-up shirts. They stretch diagonally, but you'll always reach a point where you can't stretch them anymore. Woven fabric frays like crazy, especially when the fabric is thin. And if you look closely at woven fabric, you'll be able to see a criss-cross of threads running perpendicular to each other. You can mend garments of either fabric type, but it's good to know what you're up against. If your fabric is woven, you're going to want to make sure you nip any fraying in the bud. And if your garment is knit, like mine, you'll want to take care that your stitches don't impede the fabric's natural stretch. And if you need to use a patch, make sure your patch fabric is the same type as your garment fabric. Once you know what type of fabric you're working with, the next step is to try your garment on. Where is the hole located? Is it at a point that needs to bend a lot, like an elbow? Somewhere that gets a lot of wear, like the bottom of a pocket? Or did you just snag it on something? These clues can tell us how best to mend our garment. A hole that got worn down over time will need a lot more reinforcement than a random hole that just appeared in the middle of your shirt. We also want to look at what seams are nearby, as these are good, strong places to anchor our stitches to. Now that we know more about our garment, it's good to sit down and think about what we want the final product to look like. If you have different colors of thread, plan out which ones you want to use. Do you want your stitches to conform to the shape of the seams? Or do you want to introduce new patterns, zigzags, starbursts, squiggles? Sketch out your ideas, doodle, brainstorm, treat this like an art project because it is. And now that we have our supplies and our plan, we can finally get started sewing. We're going to start by putting our garment into our embroidery hoop. Just separate the two hoops, put one on the backside of your garment and one on the front, fit them together, and screw them in place. If you don't have a hoop, that's okay. You'll just have to make sure that you're holding your fabric flat as you sew. For woven fabric, stretch it as tight as you can make it. For knit, we want it tight enough that it's not being bunched up, but not so tight that you're distorting the fabric. It should have a little bit of give. Next, we're going to cut our thread. You want it long enough that you're not having to re-thread every two seconds, but not long enough to get tangles and un-wieldy as you sew. Generally, from your fingertip to your elbow is a good guideline. If you're using a embroidery floss, you can separate the threads into two or three ply strings. The thinner the thread, the more delicate your stitches will look, but the longer your mending will take. Keep that in mind if you're using regular sewing thread, which is only one ply. We're going to thread the needle. Knots aren't very comfortable to wear, and with the stitch we're using, we want to start a little bit away, where the fabric hasn't been damp enough sturdy it is. Even though my hole is relatively, start somewhere that isn't as transparent.  The front works too, but I think the back is prettier. It's an artistic choice. You'll still follow all the same steps, but your first line of stitching will be around the hole, rather than over it, to secure the patch in place. Begin your stitch on the back side of the fabric. Stick your needle through, and pull your thread almost all the way through to the front side. Leave an inch or so on the back side, enough to hold onto. This is called your tail, and you can trim it off later.  Make sure you're holding onto your tail to avoid pulling the stitch out entirely, and pull it tight. On the back side again, go up through the original hole, or as near to it as you can get, and pull this stitch tight. We're going to do that one more time, going over the same stitches, down through the front side, and up through the back side, pulling tight each time. You should be able to pull now without having to hold onto your tail. This is called a back stitch. It's very sturdy and good for keeping your fabric in place, so use it in places where you need structure, like anchoring your thread without tying a knot. But it's kind of time consuming and definitely thread consuming, so for most of our mending, we're going to be using something called a running stitch. So we're on the front side of our fabric, going from the anchor back stitch towards the hole we want to mend. With the tip of the needle, we're going to go down through the fabric about an eighth of an inch. But, instead of pulling our needle all the way through to the back side, we're just going to push right back up through to the front side to make a tiny little stitch. You can do this two or three times until you run out of space on your needle, and then pull the whole thing through in one motion. See how that made a few stitches at once without us having to switch back and forth between the front and back of our project? That's the beauty of the running stitch. Continue with the running stitch until you reach the hole.  Emily just taught me that a back stitch is the strongest type of stitch, so we're going to back stitch over the hole. We'll get really strong. Now, I applaud your forward thinking, but that's not what we're going to do. Instead, we're just going to gently running stitch over our hole, trying to make sure there's a stitch on either side of it. You can pull a little bit tighter on this stitch to try and nudge the hole closed, but you really don't want to put too much tension on fabric that's on running stitching until you get to a sturdy place on the other side of the hole, like where you're sewing double with a thread that's looped through your needle, just nudge your needle a little closer to the tail you're grouping. And if your needle ever falls off, you can always re-thread it, since we aren't using any knots. When you get to your anchor point on the other side, stitch down to the back side of your garment, and we're just going to do another back stitch here. Then, still on the back, make a stitch about an eighth of an inch to the side, and push up to the front. Another back stitch, and you're good to do another row. Try to keep your stitches small. The smaller they are, the more integrated they'll be with the fabric, and the less likely they are to get pulled out. That said, making small, even stitches takes practice, so don't worry if you can't get it right away. Keep track of how much thread you have when you reach the end of a row. You'll want at least three inches to tie off with, and it's better to waste a little bit of thread than it is to run out in the middle of a row. When you're ready to tie off, do another back stitch, and be sure to make this one extra strong. Then, stitch down to the back side. Indicular to the back stitch we just made, and slide it under that stitch. This will act like a knot without having to tie a knot. Do this once or twice, and then you're done. Slip off your needle, trim your ends, and then cut some more thread and start again. With these basics down, you can just keep on going until your garment is mended to your liking. It's a great thing to do to keep your hands busy while you're watching TV or listening to music. No project is ever really finished, but that's kind of the beauty of it. You can just keep going, and over time your mending will build into something beautiful. You can keep your stitches going up and down, side to side, or you could experiment with different angles, different patterns, whatever you like. If you mess up, or if you aren't happy with your work, simply unpick your stitches or cut your thread and try again. Try different colors if you have them, or different waves of thread. Try adding beads, or interesting scraps of fabric. Try embroidering pictures of things, fish, flowers, whatever speaks to you. This is your garment, and there's no wrong way to do it, so long as you like what you're making. Let's check out what some of the other people at the library have made to really get inspired. I'm going to show my visual mending. Some of the holes in my denim jacket, and I'm going to continue to use the same technique to fill in some of these other areas. Can't wait to see what you guys do with it. Hi, I'm Richard, and this is a t-shirt that I fixed using the visual mending technique. So I had three little holes at the front of the shirt, and I decided to connect them all with this winding snake design. I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and I'm excited to fix more of my clothes with this method. Hey all, Christy from the studio here. So this denim jacket is super, super messed up. People who've known me for a long time will probably recognize this jean jacket, and I am weirdly proud of all the holes that have developed through years of wear, but I also can't wear it anymore, and I wish I could. So here's just a sample of my work in progress. I'm liking how this green thread is looking against the denim, and I'm just getting started. Clearly it's a big project and I have a long way to go, and I'm excited to give this jacket some love and fill it with color and personality. Thanks for learning how to mend with me today, everyone. I hope we all are feeling super inspired to take something old and worn and turn it into something new and awesome. If you had fun here today, consider checking out some of the other videos that the Long Beach Public Library is making, and we'll see you again soon on the next Make Time.