Environmental Issues in Northern Ontario
GREEN - Greater Renewable Energy and Ecodesigns Now
Green Building Good for Local Business
Pat Taylor Envirohome during March open house
Sketch of Northern Ontario Medical School
Medical School to be tops in energy efficiency, construction to start immediately.
Green buildings, construction projects that maximize smart design and minimize their environmental impact, are coming to Sudbury! These projects, because they are stimulating interest in businesses supplying materials to them are also raising the community�s expertise in green building.
In the case of the private sector, specifically Pat Taylor Made Homes, one Envirohome is finished already on Arnold Street. Local suppliers like the Randy McMahon Insulation, House of Broadloom, System Supply Northern, Clean Air Solutions, Evans Home Hardware, Docks and Decks and LaCuisine Kitchens were challenged by Pat Taylor to supply his house with green building materials and services. They did it! And, according to Pat Taylor, more houses, up to six, are on the books for this building season!
Now the public funded education sector is going green. Both the proposed Living With Lakes Centre on Ramsey Lake and the Northern Ontario Medical School at the Laurentian University site will also be projects that cut operating costs and their impact on the local ecology. They too could be good for local suppliers.
�We started with a simple project idea just to replace the old building of the Freshwater Ecology Unit on Ramsey Lake but it took wings about a year ago,� said John Gunn senior research scientist at the Co-operative FreshWater Ecology Unit at Laurentian.
Gunn said they began to conceive a structure of approximately 12,000 square feet in size to serve their research needs. But it would also be a model of how to build beside a lake so important to the city as Ramsey Lake. For instance, that meant ensuring that drainage water leaving the 7.85 acre site, both during construction and upon completion, was better than the water in the lake itself said Gunn.
Improving drainage water leaving the site would be through use of settling ponds, planting vegetation and installing water filters to slow down and purify run-off.
�And our ideas seemed to catch the attention of some major funders like the Ontario Ministries of Natural Resources and Environment,� he said.
�We also said we wanted to design a building with lower or predictable operating costs so we would be looking at high energy efficiency and reduced water consumption.�
Consulting conceptual architect for the project, Dennis Castellan, said the researchers did not want escalating energy bills eating into their research budgets. �They wanted to peg their annual operating cost at $40,000 per year so as to live within their means,� said Castellan.
�That means cutting operating costs like energy, water and maintenance by 80%, said Gunn.
Design consultant for the project, Mario Kani of Sustainable Edge Consultants said technologies suggested to do this included advanced energy efficient windows, smart efficient lighting and ventilation, using energy from the earth, and even green roofs with living plants on top to cool the building. Making the building envelope or walls efficient to R35 was also a consideration.
Throughout the planning process a wide variety of stakeholders has participated. On Wednesday a group comprised of biologists, City of Greater Sudbury engineers and planners, Laurentian University physical plant managers along with Scott Watson from MNR met again at Laurentian University to brainstorm how to make the dream a reality.
A key thought was to make the building unobtrusive to passers by on Ramsey Lake by lowering its profile and merging it into the natural contours of the site.
Siting the structure for passive solar gain and even being careful with construction waste was also stressed at this meeting. Hydrogen fuel cells and wind turbines also were discussed for green power options.
Paul Graham, plants engineer for the city of Greater Sudbury, felt the project could be a useful demonstration for other commercial buildings. Laurentian officials like Norm Lajeunesse and Bill Leonard said they could test out energy and water saving equipment in this building that could be utilized in existing or future Laurentian University buildings.
Another consideration was technical data collection and education outreach. Equipment performing successfully at the center such as solar panels could be modeled or showcased for the public at Science North, just down the road. Demonstrating how to preserve shoreline habitat for aquatic life and fish was also stressed for educating the public.
�This whole project has significance to anyone with waterfront property,� said Castellan.
The public is invited to participate through an open house to be organized next month.
Another new green construction project associated with Laurentian University is the Northern Ontario Medical School.
�Tenders for the Northern Ontario Medical School have recently been received, we�re analyzing them now and we expect the University to award the construction tender this week,� said Louis Belanger of Nichols, Yallowega and Belanger, of Sudbury, chief architects for the project.
�We expect construction to begin immediately with occupancy slated for August 2005,� said Belanger.
What the public may not realize is that this building�s design has been rated one of the top most energy efficient buildings in Canada by independent engineering consultants, Intermodal of Toronto.
�The owners, the University, wanted a building with lower operating costs so we architects went to work to accommodate those wishes,� said Belanger.
It is anticipated that the design will enable the school to use approximately 50 % less energy than buildings designed to the Model National Energy Code for Buildings, say the architects. Annual energy savings are estimated at $50,000 or $500,000 over ten years. These savings are pegged at today�s energy costs. The current April 1, 2004 price increase in electricity is good only to May 2005. Savings could be greater said Sheila Marshall, business director of the firm.
Most significant is that various extra expenses for state of the art heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment, lighting and electrical equipment systems and water heating components will have a quick payback period.
�On their lowest estimate Intermodal calculated the cost recovery for the energy saving features at 2 to 4 years,� said Marshall.
Just as in R2000 energy wise homes, there will be a heat recovery ventilation system to capture exiting warm air, taking that energy and transferring it to the cold air being brought in for ventilation.
�We�re doing something like 6 air changes per hour,� he said.
Instead of having one big water boiler system for the complex, the architects have opted for a series of linked smaller units so that they can be turned on only as required.
Natural lighting is a feature. �We maximized the size of our windows to harvest the free natural light and through the design of the light switches themselves we are able to cut energy use.� For instance larger rooms are only partially lit where people need the light and there are motion sensors ready to turn off lights and reduce air flows when people exit an area.
�You are minimizing the use of energy intensive building systems like lights or ventilation when an area is unoccupied,� said Belanger.
Energy savings were also realized by just designing its shape to be more dense instead of spread out said Belanger.
�All of the building�s exposures, the penetrations of the building envelope are minimized to reduce air leakages, all doors require vestibules that separate heated areas from the outside,� he said.
Even low technology is utilized. Hot water storage tanks are covered with insulation and all individual shower heads must limit consumption to 9.5 L/minute and all lavatory faucets to 8.3 L/minute. All insulation is overlapped.
All waste construction material is separated on-site to make reuse or recycling simple.
Although Nichols, Yallowega and Belanger say they have utilized some of these techniques before, especially in some school retrofits, they credit the university for challenging them to build better buildings.
�It means we are developing a knowledge base that is exportable to other parts of the north or beyond,� said Belanger.
And those local businesses already on board with the green building wave, can�t wait to do business with these large scale projects.
