ThermalWise was pleased to learn that we’ve been included in the Hfx 50 list, as published in Halifax Magazine. Hfx 50 is a list of 50 people, organizations and businesses involved in making Halifax a better place.

As the article in Halifax Magazine explains, Rob MacArthur of A Quiet Revolution developed the idea of this list as a way to showcase “examples of driven, entrepreneurial and engaged people who want to make a difference in [the] city’s make-up.” Thank you Rob for pushing this project forward. We’re glad to be recognized and we know there are a lot more people and organizations who are working at making Halifax a better place.

eSim 2012 (www.esim.ca) is currently underway in Halifax. eSim is the biennial conference of the Canadian Chapter of the International Building Performance Simulation Association (http://www.ibpsa.ca/). ThermalWise attended this morning’s Net Zero Energy House Design workshop put on by Dr. Liam O’Brian of Carleton University’s Architectural Conservation and Sustainability Engineering Program. The workshop provided an excellent overview of the strategies, tools and techniques involved in moving designs towards net zero.

While many of the tools demonstrated at the workshop are already used by ThermalWise in day-to-day operations, we were pleasantly surprised to learn about Climate Consultant, a program that visualizes climate data. The resulting visualizations can, in turn, inform the design process. Below is fairly straightforward example what Climate Consultant can output (average monthly dry-bulb temperatures for Halifax charted through the day). We will try to upload some more interesting visualizations here in the future.

Things have been very busy at ThermalWise recently. We promise… more information will be coming soon on new projects and what has been keeping us so busy lately. In the meantime, we thought it would be interesting to reach back into the archive to highlight some of the excellent videos that were produced by ThermalWise summer work placements Laura Hayes and Fin MacDonald.

Here’s a video featuring the Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute in Kempt, NS. It’s a really interesting renovation project that highlights the flexibility of the LEED for Homes Rating System. The Research Institute is both a field office and residence. The project is targeting LEED Platinum certification and has recently finished construction.

Below is some information about an interesting project by Open Practice, a ThermalWise client based in Charlottetown, PEI.

Here’s an article in The Guardian about the project and below is a video from Open Practices’ YouTube channel:

For more information on the project follow Open Practice: @OpenPractice and www.58upperhillsborough.wordpress.com

This week we went to the Berwick Fire Department in Berwick, NS. Right after turning off into the town of Berwick, a great red building appeared and welcomed us to town. Here we met up with Steve McMahon, Deputy Chief of the Berwick Fire Department. Steve gave us a tour of the building and as we went along, he pointed out the green features as well as the safety and security aspects of the building. The building is separated into 3 zones: the administrative offices, the apparatus hall and the community hall. First we toured through the apparatus hall, it is here where the fire trucks are parked and where the firefighting gear is located in organized lockers. Steve took us into the mechanical and electrical room where he showed and told us a little about the solar panels and the electric back up system. The backup system can turn on in about 6 seconds, this is important because they need the building to quickly bounce back in the case of a power outage, so they have power to be able to prepare and respond to calls. They also have a WEL Server which logs data and make it available online. Steve McMahon is also an electrician, so he put it together himself.

Next he took us to the administrative area. Along the way, we popped into a bathroom where he showed us the motion sensored faucets and lights. This way, no electricity and no water are wasted. In the administrative area, we were shown the offices, boardroom and the radio room for receiving incoming calls. In these rooms, there are motion sensors that detect the room’s occupancy, and turn on the appropriate system (air conditioning in the summer or heating in the winter). This is an ideal system to use for a volunteer Fire House because all of the firefighters are at work during the daytime, so the building is only really occupied when they get a call or if there is an event in the community hall. When no one is in a room, the room will stay at its natural temperature. This way, the building doesn’t need to be constantly heated or cooled, which requires lots of energy.

Then Steve took us to the community hall and fully functioning commercial kitchen. It is rented out for events such as weddings, workshops and town meetings. Their heat recovery ventilator (HRV) system is located in a storage room in the community hall area.

Lastly, we went outside and Steve showed us the wall of solar panels. There are 34 large flat plate collectors that supply the heat for hot water needs and 3 small photovoltaic panels to power the electrical needs of the solar system. We were also shown the retention pond in the back of the building. It stores storm water runoff for the fire trucks to use, as the Town of Berwick does not have a municipal water system.

We also travelled to Middleton, NS this week to do a profile on the Pilikan Initiative at the Nova Scotia Community College. There we found two other NSYCC crew members, Cora MacDonald & Matt MacDougall, hard at work documenting the construction process. They were an excellent source of information about the project, and provided us with lots of pictures we can use to create an audio tour. They had pictures taken during every step of the process since construction began. We also had a chance to film a short video interview with Dennis Kingston who is the Academic Chair at the campus. The Pilikan house will be used as a demonstration home to the community as well as a research lab for students and staff. The house has the appearance of a standard home but the walls, windows, roof, and floor are all engineered to prevent heat loss. This allows the house to be more energy efficient while still using standard heating equipment.

It was a busy week! We began our week with a site visit to the Nova Scotia Agricultural College’s TREEhouse. The NSAC obtained a small house near campus and decided to renovate it using green building practices. The project is still in progress with phase one being complete. Phase two will deal with waste management and rainwater and graywater collection systems will be added. Phase three will involve the addition of renewable energy technologies.

We met up with Dr. Kenny Corscadden, the Industry Research Chair of Farm Energy Conservation at NSAC. We recorded a video interview with him and asked questions about the building’s design intent and operation. After the interview, Dr. Corscadden took us on a tour of the NSAC’s engineering and graduate studies workshop where we learned about some of the neat projects students where working on. It was here that Dr. Corscadden showed us the grass pellet stove. Students are researching different grass materials (i.e. hay versus grass) and different sizes of pellets (i.e. pellet size versus log size). The logs did not require as much processing as the pellets because each pellet needs to be compressed individually. Students were also studying the mechanics of the grass pellet burner, all the while measuring the environmental impact of releasing carbon dioxide and particulates into the atmosphere from the exhaust. The TREEhouse plans to implement a grass pellet stove and other renewable energy systems, such as wind and solar photovoltaic, as energy sources in the future.

After the tour of the workshop, Dr. Corscadden took us on a tour of the TREEhouse. Walking up to the building, you would not think it is any different than an ordinary house. However, the building materials were chosen with the environment in mind. The wood siding is locally sourced and part of the roof is covered in EnviroShake singles made by recycling plastics and rubber. Five large windows were installed in the south side of the building to maximize passive solar gain. The inside of the house looks quite ordinary too, but those knowledgeable about the project will know that this is not the case. The house is divided into 3 different zones; each zone uses different insulations, efficient light fixtures and wall thicknesses. HOBO sensors monitor the different zones to see which materials perform the best. All homeowners should implement these “unseen” green features because they are simple choices that conserve energy and minimize the building’s environmental impact.

On the way back to the college, we stopped again in the workshop and Dr. Corscadden showed us the insulation used in the East zone of the TREEhouse. It was made out of 70% recycled pop bottles and is not irritating when it comes in contact with skin. It was an interesting product.

Back in the office this week, we developed a map of the locally manufactured products for the website. This is useful because products on our website come from all over the world provided they have green features. The map will allow users to select which types of products they are interested in, and see which ones are manufactured right here in the Atlantic Provinces. We took extra care to ensure that we used the manufacturing locations and not the sales office locations. Purchasing local products helps the environment by reducing transportation related emissions, and is also great for the local economy. We also set up a table at an event put on by FUSION Halifax and BALLE Nova Scotia on August 11^th. The event was to promote the benefits of purchasing locally designed and produced goods.

We finished up the project profile report and video editing of the TREEhouse. The video is a hybrid of a video interview and the audio tour format we perfected last week. It is a nice balance of interview style about the design intent and video with visuals of the green features. The video will be up once Dr. Kenny Corscadden approves the final version. Follow us on twitter (@AGB_Team) and we will let you know when the video and report are up on the website!
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Laura & Fin

We created a video for the Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market that turned out really well! We were worried it may not look as good as the Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute video because we were not able to get a video interview with the project manager, but we proved ourselves wrong! We wrote out a script introducing the building and an overview of each the green features, we then recorded in the office to avoid having any background noise. We spent a while editing the audio clips and video clips. Then we overlaid pictures and video pan shots with the audio we recorded. The video is up on our website in the Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market project profile section. Since the video turned out so well, we applied the same process and format to the Centre for the Built Environment and the Mona Campbell Building. The videos for them are up in their respective project profile section.

We did some researching into methods to incorporate a google map into the product listing site and Jordan is working on getting that set up for us. We have started creating a list of product origins for the web page this week.  This list will provide the addresses where products listed on the webpage are manufactured. This is different than the purchasing locations we have listed on the web page now. We will use this data to populate a map of product origins. This map can be used by builders to find regional materials. We are about half done going through the products and expect to finish next week.

We have been preparing for the site we have planned for Monday to Nova Scotia Agricultural College’s TREEhouse in Truro, NS. TREE stands for Technology for the Responsible use of Energy and the Environment. We’ll update you on the cool green technologies it has next week so check back then!
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Fin & Laura

This week we worked on all the nitty gritty parts of the website. We finished updating the service database, so all of the contact information is current. We also finished reformatting all of the old case studies to the new format for project profiles. Some profiles are missing certain pieces of information, so we will publish them online as soon as we speak with the project managers to get said information.

We would like to add new categories to the product and service database: green cleaning products and green cleaning services. We have been researching many green cleaning products and services and what sort of standards they should have to meet to be featured on the Atlantic Green Building website. Some criteria we are looking at is where the product is manufactured, the biodegradability of the product, whether or not it contains phosphates and the recycled content of the packaging. Being locally manufactured reduces the carbon emissions it would take to ship the cleaning products here. They should be biodegradable, meaning the products decompose easily through natural processes, with the help of air, sun, water and microorganisms, into more environment compatible components. When cleaning products containing phosphates go down the drain and eventually end up in a body of water, they affect aquatic ecosystems. Eutrophication occurs, which is when the addition of phosphates to an aquatic environment provides nutrients to algae and phytoplankton that allows their population to boom. They deplete the oxygen in the water and oxygen-dependent aquatic life dies as a result, this disrupts the aquatic ecosystem by decreasing biodiversity and providing niches for new invasive species.

We also took a visit to the Halifax Seaport Farmers Market to take some photos and video pans of the green features. Before we went, we made a list of everything we wanted to take a picture of to be sure we would have enough photographs. We plan to overlay the pictures with audio of us, recorded in the office to get a clean sound. The market has many impressive green features including solar evacuated tube collectors, wind turbines, a green roof, a biowall, geothermal wells, etc. A non-visible green feature of the building is how the material was chosen. One third of all building materials were locally sourced while another third contained recycled content. Materials from the original building were reused as well. Concrete was crushed and used as filling and the steel and roof deck from the original building were reused. A lot of the wood used was salvaged from the trees destroyed by Hurricane Juan. There is an elevator to the green roof, accessible to the general public. The market is located at Pier 20, overlooking Halifax Harbour, so there was quite a nice view from the green roof!
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Laura & Fin

Monday certainly was a busy day for us! In the morning, Jordan accompanied us to the Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute (MTRI) in Kempt, NS, where we had the chance to observe Jordan’s pre-drywall inspection of the building, as well as conduct a video interview with the project coordinator, Jesse Saroli. The MTRI project is a green gut rehab along with a new addition to the side of the existing main building. When we arrived for our site visit, most of the green technologies were installed and working, but some areas were still under construction. The MTRI is targeting LEED for Homes Platinum certification and they want to be able to show homeowners the benefits of having a green home. As a green demonstration site, many different green technologies are used such as solar hot water, solar photovoltaic, wind turbines, geothermal, grey water recycling system, etc. They implemented different kinds of green technologies to be able to tell homeowners which ones are the most efficient.

On Monday afternoon we headed to Hubley, NS to visit the Hawkin’s House, a residential home targetting Passive House certification as well as LEED for Homes Gold certification. There we met Natalie Leonard, project designer/builder of the Hawkin’s House. Instead of generating enough renewable energy to meet the house’s heating demands, this project is trying to minimize the heating needs altogether by conserving energy. Energy efficiency really pays off as the estimated bill for heating the house is estimated at $200 per year! A big part of conserving the energy is using more insulation than a typical house and trying to stop thermal bridges from occurring. We came to observe Jordan performing a blower door test to test the air tightness of the home. The blower door test is used to identify air leakage sites during the early stages of building to be able to address these issues as construction continues. If there are too many leakage sites, heated air will leak out of the building and it will take more energy to heat the air. A plastic door temporarily seals the doorway and has a hole in it for the fan. A fan blows air either in or out of the house, which creates a pressure difference between the inside and outside of the house. Air is forced through small holes because of the pressure difference and then you are able to feel areas where air is leaking in or out of the building, it was really cool!

In the next couple of days, we edited the video for the MTRI site visit, which is ready to be uploaded to our website. We also started converting the old case studies already on the website to the new standard format for the project profiles. This way, we can identify the information that is missing for the new format and not have project managers fill out the whole form again.

In between editing and writing reports, we took a self-guided tour of the Mona Campbell Building at Dalhousie University. It is Dalhousie’s greenest building on campus. They used green technologies such as a solar wall, green roof, and rainwater-harvesting cistern to name a few. We went to take pictures for the project profile and to find out more information on the green features of the building. Luckily enough, there is a self-guided green tour of the building, available to the general public. A unique green technology they used during construction is Bubbledeck. In Bubbledeck 100% recycled plastic hollow spheres are inserted into the floor slab. Concrete is placed around the spheres, which reduces approximately 30% of the concrete needed to make the floor slab, thus saving the energy and materials needed to make the cement for the concrete.
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Fin & Laura

Our second week at ThermalWise was a busy one. We got the opportunity to sit in on a preliminary evaluation for the planning of a home that is targeting LEED for Homes certification. It was a very interesting meeting and greatly increased our knowledge of the LEED certification process for homes. LEED certification works as a point system and the more points your home achieves, the higher the level of certification the home receives (the levels are LEED Certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum). Some items on the list are prerequisites; these important environmental strategies must be completed for the house to be considered for LEED certification. In our meeting, we went over the whole checklist in great detail with the project team to make sure that the home is on its way to certification whilst still in the planning stage. This is done because if the house had already begun construction, it would potentially be a waste of materials, time and money if a major change is needed to be made for it to be LEED certified. We went over areas such as using renewable solar energy for power, conserving water and efficient heating.

Some of our time was spent updating the rebates section of the website and also preparing and perfecting interview questions for the site visit we had planned. We played around with the mini-disc player, video camera and camera in the office to make sure we knew how to use the equipment for our site visits. We also began contacting some potential green building projects in the Atlantic Provinces.

The most fun part of our week was our site visit to the NSCC Waterfront campus’ Centre for the Built Environment (CBE) in Dartmouth, NS. A case study was done on this building last summer, but we wanted to record an audio tour, take some video and take more pictures for the website. Don Jardine, the Academic Chair for the department of Environmental Sustainability & Development, was kind enough to have us back again this year to update our project profile. Our NSYCC coordinator, Camaro West, also came along for the site visit. We spent a wonderful day at the CBE, exploring all the green features such as the solar panels, solar wall, Cansolair, wind turbines, green roof, biowalls (both indoor and outdoor), bioswale, etc. Don even showed us some cool new technology they have that prints 3D objects out of a sugar cube-like substance. The objects are designed on the computer using CAD software and then can be coloured and printed in 3D. It was amazing! Don emphasized the CBE’s efforts to incorporate the students working directly in building development with environmental practices. The CBE is a wonderful environment for these students to learn because they will not only be reading about these green features, they will also be researching and monitoring the green features hands on. Don was an excellent tour guide and was nice enough to answer some interview questions on video for our website. We will be editing and compiling a video to upload as soon as we can!

Our next adventure is a site visit to the Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute in Kempt, NS on Monday. Stay tuned…
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Laura & Fin