The 2021 western heat dome highlighted the absence of measures in BC’s building safety standards to reduce the risk of overheating. With the latest code update, things are changing.
For new Part 9 buildings, “an indoor air temperature of not more than 26°C in at least one living space in each dwelling unit” is now required by the BC Building Code. But what does this mean in practice?
Join leaders from the City of Vancouver’s green and resilient buildings team as they introduce Energize Vancouver—the city's new online hub for information and resources on current and upcoming energy and carbon requirements for existing large commercial and multi-family buildings.
It’s widely recognized that addressing new buildings alone will not be enough to get us to our emissions reduction targets. Deep building retrofits are a crucial component of the decarbonization transition.
To ensure we are effectively decarbonizing the building sector, we need energy and GHG performance data. We also need to ensure that the building sector (especially non-profit housing providers), can utilize this data in a cost and time-effective manner to develop practical and effective decarbonization plans.
When it comes to retrofitting a home, replacing a gas furnace or water heater with a heat pump will result in additional electrical load requirements. If adding electrified equipment to an existing electrical panel results in exceeding the existing panel capacity, these retrofits could result in additional costs to a homeowner. But, what if these costs could be avoided/reduced? A B2E article from March 2022 summarized research findings on this very topic.
The debate continues. When it comes to ventilation strategies, there are lots of pros and cons to decentralized, centralized and semi-centralized systems. Cost, ownership type and the building’s energy performance target all influence the decision. For this Tech Demo Workshop, we’ve invited HVAC Systems, distributors of both small and large heat recovery ventilators by Swegon, to give our community the big picture.
BC's green building community has been targeting operational emissions reductions for many years now - in both new and existing buildings. And we're getting the swing of it, slowly but surely. But did you know that embodied emissions reductions are just as important? A key strategy to reduce embodied emissions is ensuring that we keep building materials out of landfills. To achieve this circular built environment, we can relocate buildings or we can disassemble them, reusing as many components as possible in a new building.
Our next Tech Demo workshop is the Canadian launch event for made-in-BC Model N by ZAMBA Technologies. Incorporated in 2021, ZAMBA is a new BC-based company that’s garnered significant attention with its innovative HVAC technology that provides and maintains superior indoor air quality and comfort. In 2022, it was one of only seven recipients of the CleanBC Building Innovation Fund.
As governments begin focusing their emissions-reduction plans, policies and regulations on existing buildings, the market is responding. The demand for retrofit-related services and products is growing, but so is the supply.
Yes, we can't believe it either! It's been FIVE years since ZEBx launched with a big splash - and even bigger aspirations - in the summer of 2018.