Tall & Urban News

CityHousing Hamilton and a host of partners celebrated the completion of the 18-story Ken Soble Tower retrofit job in the Ontario city recently, paying tribute to the project as one of the largest Passive House retrofits in North America.

Built in 1967, the seniors’ residence is the oldest high-rise in CityHousing Hamilton’s portfolio and was falling into disrepair. After weighing options the agency opted for the Passive House program for a retrofit and at the 24 September  ribbon-cutting ceremony speakers praised the vision and results, which include an over 90 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

At its peak, the total energy needed to heat or cool each unit will be equal to the energy needed to run three 100-watt incandescent light bulbs.

Design and construction collaborators included ERA Architects, PCL Constructors Canada, Reinbold Engineering Group as mechanical engineer, Entuitive Corporation as building envelope and structural engineers, Nemetz (S/A) and Associates as electrical engineers and JMV Consulting as Passive House consultant.

The renewal is designed for a changing climate, using multiple temperature projections to ensure thermal comfort into the future. A five-stage cooling strategy included glazing with a low solar heat gain coefficient and a decentralized cooling boost through a variable air volume unit activated by in-suite controls.

A typical wall section achieving R-38 effectiveness contains over a dozen air-tightness features including AWB flashing, silicone transition strips, galvanized steel girts and fiberglass cladding clips.

For more on this story, go to Daily Commercial News.