Our Results
Municipal FEED Studies
The ReCover team was presented with a tremendous opportunity to take deep dives into understanding what it would take to implement panelized deep retrofits for 6 municipally owned buildings. This work took the form of Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) studies that evaluated the feasbility and lifetime impacts of a panelized deep retrofit approach to each selected building. Listed below are the highlights of each municipalities results, as well as links to the in-depth reports that were generated as a result.
The ReCover team would like to extend our gratitude to the project partners that made this work possible; Efficiency Canada, Efficiency ONE, Habit Studio, RSI Projects, McNeil Consulting, Passive Buildings Canada, and QUEST Canada.
Additional project funding was generously provided by; The Atmospheric Fund, Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources and Renewables, City of Burlington, Municipality of Colchester, Halifax Regional Municipality, Town of New Glasgow, City of Oakville and City of Saskatoon.
Halifax
The Harrietsfield Williamswood Community Centre is a two-storey building with a gross floor area of 581m2 (6,256sq. ft).
The upper level of the building contains a day care centre which operates an after-school program and full day programs during summer and March Break. The facility includes a multipurpose room which is used for community recreation services including fitness classes, meetings, art classes and workshops and for private event rentals.
51%
Lifetime Operating Cost Savings
31 tonnes
annual GHG savings
77%
Improvement in EUI
69%
annual GHG improvement
New Glasgow
The New Glasgow Municipal Operations Building is a one-storey steel structure with a gross floor area of 7,430m2 (80,000 sq. ft). The space is divided into two areas, a 5,670 m2 retail space at the front of the building, which is presently unoccupied, and a 1,760m2 space at the back used by the New Glasgow Public Works and Engineering Department.
The facility is used as a maintenance shop for storage and servicing of New Glasgow’s fleet of trucks, snowplows, and other heavy machinery. It also contains office space, storage rooms, washrooms, and service spaces. The north wall of the building is partially shared with an adjacent movie theatre.
Colchester
The Debert Water Utility Building is located at 251 Lancaster Crescent, Debert, Nova Scotia. Debert is a rural, predominantly agricultural community in Colchester County, NS. The Water Utility Building is in an industrial area surrounded by woodland. It was built in 1
79%
GHG improvements
$1.3 M
lifetime savings
$10.2 M
Lifetime Savings
97
Tonnes of GHG reduction
Burlington
The Burlington Seniors Centre is a one storey structure with a gross floor area of 2,000m2 (21,526 sq.ft). Its footprint is irregularly shaped with many 135-degree angles. The original building was built in 1979 and it underwent a renovation and expansion in 2005. The Burlington Seniors Centre offers a variety of recreation services for people aged 55 and older, including fitness and art classes, social events, church services, and workshops. It is also rented out for events such as parties, meetings, and trade shows.
Oakville
The Sir John Colborne Centre is a one-storey building with a gross floor area of 852m2 (9,171sq. ft) constructed in 1989.
The facility is well used, offering daily social, recreational, and health and wellness programming for seniors. throughout the day with little down time. The building includes an auditorium which is used for recreation activities including fitness classes, drop-in social activities, music, games and for private event rentals. Smaller programming rooms offer arts and crafts, woodworking, and billiards. The central corridor of the building functions as a lounge and the kitchen operates as a café during all working hours. The building also contains administration offices for staff of the facility.
100%
GHG improvements
$6.3 M
lifetime operations savings
74%
EUI improvements
568
Tonnes of annual GHG saved
Saskatoon
The City of Saskatoon’s Access Transit service provides on demand transportation to people with disabilities within Saskatoon’s city limits. Their operations are based out of two buildings connected via a pedestrian link, located at 422 and 510 46th Street East, Saskatoon. Both buildings are one-storey prefabricated steel structures.
Toronto Community Housing
The work described in this report was supported by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC). We would like to express our gratitude to Noah Slater, Senior Director of Capital Planning, Design and Engagement, for his forward-thinking vision in endorsing this study and to Anna Kazmierska, Design Manager, Multi-Disciplinary and Special Projects, for having the imagination and creativity to implement this innovative project in TCHC. Finally, special thanks are owed to Adam Cohen for initiating the early conversations that led to the project.
This study was completed to support the development of a plan to retrofit Toronto Community Housing Corporation’s townhouse portfolio.
Technical solutions for deep retrofits are complex but achievable. The critical barrier to implementation of deep retrofits at scale is cost. In this study, performance upgrades were designed and the associated financial impacts were assessed for a TCHC townhouse block located at 22-32 Scarlettwood Court.
Scarletwood
Designing the optimal deep retrofit solution involves balancing many important, often conflicting, variables. Performance targets and evaluation criteria to inform decision making for the project were developed collaboratively by the design team, its advisors and the staff of TCHC.
94%
EUI Improvement
$3.7 M
lifetime savings
Low Rise MURB
The pilot building is a four-storey residential building in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was constructed circa 1980. Each floor consists of a dwelling unit as well as common stairwells—the first floor has a two-bedroom unit while the other three floors each have a three-bedroom unit. The first floor also contains a garage space, laundry room and a mechanical room. The dwelling units on the first and second floor are currently occupied by a single family. This is important to note for energy modeling interpretation, because although this building could be used as a four-unit, it is lived in as a three-unit building.
All spaces in the existing building are heated using hot water baseboard heaters. Hot water for these baseboards is provided by an oil-fired boiler, likely set at 180 °F. Domestic hot water (DHW) is heated through an indirect tank from the boiler water.
The living rooms and master bedrooms of the dwelling units are provided with cooling by mini-split heat pumps. These heat pumps are not currently operated in heating mode, presumably because they would increase tenant energy cost (heating from the boiler is included in their rent).
74%
EUI improvements
568
Tonnes of annual GHG saved
Lawrence Street
This 4 unit MURB in Halifax was built in 1980, and could clearly benefit from a meaningful retrofit. Our team reviewed the possible solutions that would be feasible for this building and discovered that a panelized deep retrofit would be able to deliver Net Zero Energy results, while being minimally disruptive to occupants.