When shopping for existing or new condominium units, Canadians have more than price on their minds. The vast majority want buildings that are energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly.
This comes as no surprise to association boards, building managers and condo developers who understand the appeal of impressive performance audits of green buildings. Many high-rise condos that have been built over the last 10 years make use of technologies and design features that reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption.
In recent years, higher energy costs, new innovations and environmental regulations have raised the bar on green buildings, providing economic incentives for boards, building managers and developers to strive for good performance audits for both existing condos and new construction projects.
Today’s best high-performance buildings are designed to meet specific criteria for water and energy use, uptime and system reliability, environmental compliance, and occupant safety, comfort and productivity. The performance standards they use are created, validated and continually measured to deliver established outcomes in specific tolerances.
Using sophisticated software for building modelling and energy, teams can analyze different HVAC technologies and other systems to determine which will deliver maximum performance for the building’s occupied life. For example, the team conducting performance audits can run computer simulations to compare the performance and energy efficiency of a geothermal heat pump to those of a conventional heat pump.
At Belanger Engineering, our team of building science engineers is involved with performance improvement and repair. Our experience with electrical, mechanical and structural projects involves both restorative and new construction.
