December 2008 - Plumbing & HVAC

Progressive Builders
Green homes to provide operating
classroom for builders, trades
By Simon Blake
Deciding what technologies
to use and from which
manufacturers wasn’t
an easy process.
It’s a common complaint in the
plumbing and HVAC industry that
residential home builders are slow to
adopt new technologies. But builders
tend to be leery about offering anything
that may be considered unproven or
experimental.
A new training and demonstration
facility north of Toronto should go a
long way in alleviating those concerns.
The Archetype Sustainable Home is
actually two semi-detached homes –
one equipped with state-of-the-art
plumbing and HVAC equipment currently
available for mass construction
homes; the second with equipment that
is expected to become more common in
the future.
A joint project of the Building
Industry and Land Development
Association (BILD) and the Toronto
and Region Conservation Authority
A WaterFurnace heat pump provides
heating and cooling in House B.
(TRCA), the home is designed to educate
both the public and trades on the
latest green building technologies. It is
located at the Kortright Centre – an
865-acre (350 hectares) conservation
area just north of Toronto.
“Our role is industry training;
Kortright’s role is public training,”
remarked Stephen Dupuis, BILD CEO.
All equipment will be accessible, with
cutaways in the walls to display aspects
that would usually be hidden.
The technology
Deciding what technologies to use and
from which manufacturers wasn’t an
easy process. “I stayed as far away from
that as I could,” laughed Dupuis.
BILD project manager Larry Brydon,
a senior account manager at Reliance
Home Comfort, Oshawa, Ont., led a
team made up of contractors along with
staff and students from Ryerson
University, Faculty of Engineering and
Applied Sciences, in an exhaustive study
of 17 different HVAC systems.
Ryerson’s Dr. Alan Fung and his team
rated systems based on total energy
consumption, annual greenhouse gas
emissions, annual energy cost, capital
cost, life cycle cost and EnerGuide
house rating.
The study covered
everything from high efficiency
boilers and furnaces
to more exotic technologies
like geothermal, solar,
co-generation and fuel
cells.
“We wanted to add a lot
of technology,” reported
Alex Waters, Kortright
Centre manager and
TRCA’s project manager
on this build. And the
technology includes every aspect of the
each home. The heavily insulated 2x6
walls, for example, are rated at R-32
with the ceilings at R-40.
The basements are made of insulated
Durisol blocks (similar to insulated concrete
form (ICF) walls, but made of recycled
materials). Two-inch XTPS insulation
board provides under-slab insulation
and foundation wall insulation.
Demonstration homes
Each home demonstrates both an electrical
and gas heating/cooling alternative.
House A, at 1,900 sq. ft., features a
forced air system using a boiler and fan
coil with hydronic radiant floor heating
in the basement.
A Viessmann Vitodens 100 condensing
gas boiler supplemented by a VitoSol
flat plate solar collector provides the gas
heating option. It operates through two
Uponor Pro Panels – a pre-fabricated
manifold, pump, etc. system. The first
provides hot water for the air handler;
the second does the same for the radiant
In House B, an Ecologix air handler
provides floor-by-floor cooling.
Peter Kinsey explains the heating system in House A to TRCA’s Sabrina Dodaro.
floor system. All pumps are Wilo Eco-
Stratus models with ECM motors.
A Judo Heifi-Top combination sediment
filter and air eliminator protects
the system.
A 200-litre Viessmann indirect tank
provides DHW. It is equipped with two
coils – one for the roof-mounted solar
collector and the second for the boiler.
A home this size would typically have
two or three solar panels, but in this
case the intention is to demonstrate the
technology and compare it to the evacuated
tube technology on Home B,
reported Brydon.
National design competition
The electric option is provided by a
high efficiency two-stage Hallowell
Acadia air source heat pump from
MITS Air Conditioning Inc., Mis sis -
sauga, Ont. This air-to-air heat pump
can deliver about 35,000 Btu/h of heating
at -30°C and 36,000 Btu/h of cooling
at 35°C (95°F).
Both the boiler and heat pump heat
the home through the same air handler.
It is equipped with a variable
speed ECM motor, a four-pass hydronic
coil for heating and a three-ton
evaporator coil for heat pump heating
and air conditioning.
The Archetype Sustainable House began with a national design competition
conducted by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) and the
Design Exchange, “Canada’s design museum,” in downtown Toronto
(www.dx.org). Architects, engineers and designers across Canada were
challenged to design the ultimate environmentally friendly home that could
serve as a model for housing development in the Greater Toronto Area and
beyond.
The competition drew 17 qualified designs, and on June 21, 2006, the
winning entry was drawn. Dubbed “Building Blocks,” it was selected by a
‘blue ribbon’ panel of judges. Building Blocks was a collaborative effort of
three design firms: Anne Stevens (Fort Architect Inc.), Clelia Lori (Lori
Architects) and Terrell Wong (Stone’s Throw Design). Al Davies of Ecologix,
Cambridge, Ont., was the mechanical engineer for the design competition
while Randy Van Straaten of Ener model Engineering Ltd., Kitchener, Ont.
was engineer for the build.
12 Plumbing & HVAC Product News – November/December 2008 www.plumbingandhvac.ca