Tag Archives: Energy

Identifying green buildings that work

Is a green building defined by what it looks like? Should it have various ‘sexy’ technologies like solar panels, green roofs, and straw bale insulation? Or does it need to have low off-gassing materials, plentiful daylighting, and native species landscaping?
Instead of defining a green facility by a checklist of technologies, one should define a building by its actual reduced environmental footprint. As the most significant direct impact of structures, energy use should be the most important way they are ultimately judged. Without significant, monitored energy savings, no facility should be called ‘green.’

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Windows Versus Walls: Debunking the energy myth

Canada’s climate is one of the more diverse on the planet. It varies based on geography, ranging from long, cold winters and sunless days in the Far North to four distinct seasons along the U.S. border, and typically mild winters in the B.C. Lower Mainland. Temperatures can climb to more than 40 C (104 F) in the summer and drop below –50 C (–58 F) in the winter.

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Thermal importance of windows

Of all the components of a building enclosure, windows can have the greatest impact on energy consumption. This can be disproportionate to the area of the enclosure the windows cover. Therefore, it is important architects and specifiers are aware of the significant impact of windows on the overall building enclosure’s thermal performance when designing, evaluating, and selecting enclosure assemblies for new buildings and retrofit projects.

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Sealing open doorways and saving energy with air barriers

One of the greatest sources of energy loss in a building is through an open door. For years, facilities have been losing substantial amounts of energy and money, while occupants suffer the discomfort of cold drafts blasting in when the doors are open. What some people do not know is there is a technology on the market that can create a significant energy-efficient seal on open doors by simply re-circulating facility air across the doorway.

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Canada’s first LEED platinum affordable housing project

Brampton, Ont.’s Chapelview has become the country’s first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum affordable housing building. The project is one of only about 17 LEED New Construction (NC) Platinum buildings in Canada. Through the initiative of the Region of Peel and Enermodal Engineering, Chapelview is expected to achieve 50 per cent energy savings and 46 per cent indoor water savings compared with a conventional multi-unit residential building.

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