Radiant Idea: High school opts for innovative heating and cooling system

by mdoyle | March 5, 2014 10:56 am

[1]

By James Clavel
École Secondaire Jeunes Sans Frontières, a French-language high school in Brampton, Ont., has become the first secondary school in Ontario to achieve Canada Green Building Council’s (CaGBC’s) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification.

Designed by Robertson Simmons Architects, the project incorporates numerous elements of sustainable construction, including:

• indoor spaces integrated with outdoor landscapes;
• water-conserving plumbing fixtures;
• heat recovery on all exhaust air;
• high-efficiency mechanical equipment;
• occupancy sensors on lighting fixtures; and
• vegetated roof assembly.

Further, high-efficiency glazing maximized daylighting and displacement ventilation in the 7432-m² (80,000-sf) school building and approximately 1021-m² (11,000-sf) professional training centre in the northeast wing. The U-shaped building opens to the north with a two-storey west wing and a single-storey east wing.

To maximize both occupant comfort and HVAC system efficiency, the project also incorporates a radiant slab heating and cooling system designed by Klimatrol Environmental Systems Ltd.

A finite element analysis to model the floor construction, and resulting output, helped the school understand benefits of a combined radiant heating and cooling system The results demonstrated significant energy savings due to reduced heating/cooling loads and increased efficiencies of heating and chilled water sources.

[2]

Installed throughout the entire facility, including all classrooms, offices, cafeteria, and gymnasium, the radiant heating and cooling system consisted of 31.8 km (19.8 mi) of 15.8-mm (5/8-in.) barrier pipe and 42 manifolds that were pre-piped with three-way valves into all recessed manifold distribution cabinets.

The pipe was installed at the ground level in a concrete-embedded, slab-on-grade design, using a counterflow spiral pattern for promoting even surface temperatures. To accommodate cambered precast flooring on the second level, the pipe was affixed using clips and then covered with a 50.8 to 76.2-mm (2 to 3-in.) concrete layer.

In addition to securing LEED Silver, the École Secondaire Jeunes Sans Frontières has also become a model for the School Board Viamonde’s future building projects, and continues to report considerable energy cost savings.

James Clavel is the REHAU sales director for Ontario, responsible for the sales and distribution of construction-based products. He has been with the company for 17 years, with a speciality in the window and door programs. Clavel can be contacted at james.clavel@rehau.com[3].

Source URL: https://www.constructioncanada.net/radiant-idea-high-school-opts-for-innovative-heating-and-cooling-system/

---