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
tracey@northernlife.ca
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.
