Design & Engineering Services
Discover why forward-thinking design & engineering can take your building from ordinary to extraordinary.
Warming up to cold climate heat pumps
How a rural community centre made the move from fossil fuels to clean energy.
The story
You might not expect a community centre in a rural Ontario village to embrace technology as modern as cold climate heat pumps – but the facility had a challenge. It needed to lessen its reliance on fossil fuels, improve building energy efficiency, and still meet its heating and cooling needs for year-round comfort.
With no access to natural gas, the centre relied on a heating system consisting of two aging oil furnaces and a roof-top unit. While it considered replacing the old units with new oil furnaces, the decision would have locked the centre in for decades to old technology that’s harmful to the environment.
After assessing its options with the help of Envari, the association decided to install two air-source cold climate heat pumps.
It was a visionary choice. Air-source heat pumps use long-proven technology to absorb heat from the outside air – even in cold temperatures – and move it inside to provide heat.
The process also works in reverse, as a cooling system, so there’s no need to install a separate air conditioning unit. Because they don’t burn fuel like natural gas, oil or propane furnaces, heat pumps provide a cleaner source of heating and air conditioning. An innovative building solution.
To support the transition to net zero, Envari also issued a call to homeowners to join a unique pilot project. Hundreds of people applied to participate in the two-year study assessing the performance of cold climate heat pumps. The results showed that cold climate heat pumps perform well not just in the controlled lab setting but also in a real-world environment. Data from the studies show that heat pumps operate quietly and efficiently, producing approximately three times the heating energy output for every unit of electrical energy needed to run them, which means lower utility bills.
The big revelation: cold climate heat pumps now provide comfortable heat with outside temperatures as low as -25 Celsius!
That’s a game-changing result that bodes well not just for home heating, but also for future industrial/commercial applications.
Are you looking to decrease your reliance on natural gas, oil or propane? Consider a sustainable engineering project involving cold climate heat pumps.
Contact us
Browse similar stories:
Lights, control, action...reaction
How a smart lighting system provided resiliency to a major institution.
Waste not, want not
How a wastewater facility is future-proofing its assets.
Back. In a breeze
How a major school board improved air quality during a critical time.
Transforming a building's purpose
How finding the right balance is key to retro-commissioning an HVAC system.