(CBIP & LEED Compliance model, MNECB & ASHRAE 90.1-2001)
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The Spring Creek Fire Hall was one of the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) registered projects in Whistler. The Fire hall building incorporates green building technologies and reduces annual energy consumption by 21% compared to a LEED v2.0 Baseline building helping to achieve a LEED Silver Certification for this building design.
This project was modeled for Hughes Condon Marler Architects in Vancouver, BC with Keen Engineering providing the mechanical and electrical design and energy modeling services. The energy simulation was performed using Visual DOE 3.0/DOE-2.1e to perform the energy compliance simulations required for LEED-NC Version 2.0. The simulation results were provided to the client showing 34% energy savings versus the baseline building case which contributed to achieving a LEED Silver rating on the building.
The building is a volunteer fire department station with a hose tower, three-bay garage, a few small offices, one conference/training room and a second level residence area. The building was designed for natural ventilation and uses increased insulation levels, high performance glazing, a planted (green) roof, and a high efficiency heating system to reduce annual energy consumption.
To reduce energy use in the fire hall a high efficiency furnace was installed in the living area to provide heat. Infrared heaters were installed in the apparatus bay in order to heat only the equipment and occupants working on the equipment. The domestic water heater is a high efficiency heater that will also reduce the energy usage on the building. This building did not require an air conditioning system. An air to air recovery unit was installed for ventilation which will recover approximately 50% of the rejected heat from the exhaust air. In addition to this an air intake located on the lower level of the tower brings in outside air and acts as a natural stack effect for ventilation.
