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Phase II of the GWRSD project encompassed 300,000 sq.ft. of renovation and additions to the Campus. In addition to the Arts Building, the Campus includes: Lakes Region Technology Center, Kingswood High School and Kingswood Middle School.
The Campus was designed to comply with CHPS (Collaborative for High Performance Schools), which is a standard based in part on LEED. The CHPS program results in increased ventilation, better lighting and day lighting, energy efficiency, and selection of materials that promote a healthier learning environment. The entire campus is heated and cooled with ground source heat pumps; there is no fossil fuel back up for the campus. The system utilizes 320, 400-foot deep bore holes in the ground under the athletic fields. The bore holes are filled with a continuous loop of plastic piping which is then grouted solid, resulting in a closed loop geothermal system. While this type of system is electrically driven, the heat pumps maximize efficiency resulting in very low energy use for all the buildings.
A common way to measure a buildings performance is the convert all energy used in BTU’s and divide by the area of the building. This number can be large, so frequently the number is expressed in KBTU, which is simply the BTU number divided by 1,000. For a comparison, some average KBTU for different building are:
1. All federal buildings as a whole rate at KBTU 119
2. Conventional school building 83 KBTU,
3. High performance school 60 KBTU,
4. Average office building Kbtu 90
Based on four months of complete readings, our campus achieved a 32 KBTU. Our results to date indicate the campus uses 47% less energy than a “typical” high performance school and 62% less energy than a conventional school; remember these facilities are fully air conditioned. The methods we utilized to get these energy savings can be applied to any building type.
Other notable features of the buildings include: high R-values in walls, slabs and roofs, daylight control that shuts down lighting when enough natural light is available, increased filtration to MERV13, LED exterior lighting, pervious pavement in parking areas, HVAC tied to occupancy sensors, use of skylights to increase natural daylight, extensive sealing of the envelope, web based HVAC control system, light control system, polished concrete floors, and radiant floors in new slabs. Also, during construction, 98% of waste was recycled.
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