"air terminal devices"

Faced with a tight schedule and challenging weather conditions, Belluz Group Ltd. turned to MAPEI for the range of high-end products and support that was needed to complete a new-build terminal project in the heart of Canada’s biggest city.

Renovation stripping out the building completely and rebuilding the walls, Passive Purple® was applied in between the connections of the internal side of the external walls which were a combination of masonry, timber, and steel frame. The ground floor ceiling was removed exposing the warped old timber joists with cracks in the surrounding brickwork and mortar. This was given attention to detail using Passive Purple® Brush to seal above an airtight foam to guarantee the airtightness of this major air leak zone before the final spray coat of Passive Purple® airtight membrane was applied. Passive Purple® was also used to seal window and door linings, ready for the new triple glazed windows to go in. Passive Purple® was sprayed on all the walls and ceiling. This is an ongoing project that still is awaiting an air test, the client is looking to hit 2.5 ach and installing MVHR.

This is a case study of a drop-down ceiling area in a large hospital. This area was sprayed with Passive Purple along all the ceiling joints and 1 and half meters around the opening of the building on all external facades. This project was actually a retrofit with an original air test score of 7. After the application of Passive Purple the score was down to 0.6.

The new Orlando VA Medical Center needed glazing that would not only provide light and transparency, but fire and hurricane protection and improved energy performance. SuperLite® II-XL in GPX® Hurricane Framing from SAFTI FIRST® was installed in exterior fire-rated locations that were exposed to the elements. These assemblies were rigorously tested and certified for fire and radiant heat protection for up to two hours, large missile impact, air and water infiltration, and cyclic wind loading.

Buildings have a profound impact on our natural environment, economy, health and productivity. In North America, the built environment accounts for approximately one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions, energy, water and material consumption and generates similiar proportions of pollution. Indoor air quality is regarded as one of the top environmental health risks today, affecting the well-being, productivity and performance of many people. As concerns increase about sustainability in building design and operation, there is a need to develop a framework for assessing and quantifying buildings so that questions such as, “What is sustainable design?” and “How green is this project?” can be addressed. In response to this, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system was developed to provide such a framework for North America. This document explores how the use of steel structures and components can contribute to achieving a LEED certificate for a building.

Buildings consume one-third of all energy and two-thirds of all electricity generated. Cool metal roofs can help reduce energy consumption by lowering cooling loads with their wide array of finishes, designs and colors.Cool metal roofs are energy-efficient. • The roof can have the greatest impact on the energy use of a building. On a typical summer afternoon, a light-colored, more reflective roof that reflects 80 percent of sunlight will stay about 310C (550F) cooler than a darker roof that reflects only 20 percent of sunlight, as reported by the Heat Island Group of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. • Cool metal roofs are an excellent option for commercial retrofit applications because they can be efficiently installed with above-sheathing ventilation, allowing heat to dissipate through the ridge vent in hot weather while acting as an insulating layer when it is cold. Metal roofs can result in as much as a 30 percent reduction in heat gain through the vented roof. • Metal roofs provide the optimal foundation for photovoltaic installations since the roof can be expected to last longer than the PV system it supports. • Wall and roof solar heat recovery systems can be integrated with steel cladding and used to provide air, water or process heating needs. • Cool metal roofing is available unpainted, with thermosetting coil-applied paint finishes, or with granular-coated surfaces. This family of roofing can achieve solar reflectance of over 70 percent, meeting the EPA Energy Star Roof Products Program performance criteria. • Emittance as high as 90 percent can be achieved for painted and granular-coated metal roofing. • Painted metal roofs retain 95 percent of their initial reflectance and emittance over time. They resist the growth of organic matter and shed dirt more readily than other materials. • Cool metal roofing can help to mitigate the Urban Heat Island Effect because of its high reflectance, which can reduce ambient air temperatures. Cool metal roofs are cost-effective. • Metal roofing has low life-cycle costs, making it the choice of many school, government, commercial, industrial and institutional building owners. • Due to its light weight per unit area, structural savings can be realized in a building when compared with heavier non-metal roofing alternatives. • For re-roofing projects, metal roofing can often be applied over the original roof, saving removal and disposal costs. • Metal roofing is fully recyclable when ultimately removed as part of building renovation or demolition, allowing it to credibly claim both recycled content and 100 percent recyclability by recognized definitions. The product’s recyclability also provides significant savings on construction removal and disposal costs.

It’s a fact that buildings consume two thirds of all the electricity produced in North America and one third of all the energy produced in North America. While it is recognized that cooling and heating costs can be reduced by adding insulation under the roof surface, there is a diminishing return on the strategy of increasing insulation to conserve energy costs. This is where “cool roofing” can play a role in further reducing the energy consumed, and in minimizing the Heat Island effect created in the big urban cities. Cool roofing relies on the properties of reflectivity and emissivity of the roofing material. Reflectivity Reflectivity is the ability of the roof to reflect solar radiation back into the atmosphere. Its primary measure is solar reflectance - the proportion of the total solar radiation that is reflected back to the atmosphere. Any solar radiation that is not reflected is absorbed into the building envelope, requiring further energy to cool the building; or partially convected into the atmosphere increasing the ambient air temperature in the surrounding environment (Heat Island effect). The measure of reflectivity is the Solar Reflectance Index (SRI) which takes into account the properties of the material as well as the cooling effect of wind passing over the roof. The SRI for a low slope roof will be 0 for standard black (reflectance 0.05, emittance 0.90) and 100 for standard white (reflectance 0.80, emittance 0.90).

Global warming and climate change are two terms found increasingly in headlines around the world. Initiatives such as the Kyoto Protocol have brought these issues to the forefront and provide a framework and objectives for reducing greenhouse gases (GHG). GHG are heat trapping gases, such as water vapour, carbon dioxide, or methane that absorb the earth’s heat and hinder it from being released into space. As levels of GHG build up in the atmosphere, a greenhouse effect takes place that warms the earth’s atmosphere and makes global climate change inevitable. A?itudes on environmental issues are changing worldwide. Developed nations are commi?ing to reducing GHG emissions to 5.2% below the 1990 baseline by 2012. Notably, Canada has commi?ed to reducing its GHG emissions to 6% below 1990 levels, which corresponds to a gap of 29.1% of where the nation is and where it wants to be. An ambitious undertaking, considering that Canada’s GHG emissions have been steadily on the rise over the years and in 2004 was actually 26.6% higher than 1990 levels. On a positive note, in the last two years emissions have started to decline, but there remains a long way still to go. =e quest for a greener Canada continues and helping to lead the way to a greener Canada is the nation’s steel industry, which is making great strides in reducing GHG emissions, conserving energy, and lessening impacts on our air, water, and land.