ICF Student Residence Hall
February 16th, 2010 | From the Field, Marketing, Project Showcase | Award Winning ICF, Building Envelope, Carleton College, Cemstone, educational, ICF Construction, MN
Carleton College Student Residence Halls
This was one of our favorite projects for 2009. There were so many features to these buildings and Carleton College truly showed their commitment to a sustainable campus. In the next few posts I will attempt to give our due diligence to this project, show you different construction phases and the finished project as well. Carleton College Residence Halls also won an ICF Builder Award, which was announced at World of Concrete 2010.
Building Energy Modeling Analysis
A building energy modeling analysis (from The Weidt Group) was completed during design, and it was determined that total energy consumption would decrease a minimum of 28% compared to a standard baseline building performance. Carleton did not install ANY A/C as well due to the tight thermal envelope created by ICFs. I asked Maureen Ness, AIA, LEED AP, CDT, with LHB to explain how the modeling worked:
“It basically shows that by spending $54,941 more than a typical building on specific energy-saving strategies, the annual energy savings will be $29,476. There are a lot of factors in the modeling and one of them that we’ve seen on non-air conditioned housing projects is that you don’t really get credit for not air-conditioning, even though that is a lot of savings over a conventional building.”
The total payback, of the additional costs, of making these ICF Dormitories energy efficient is 1.5 years!
(Do you want an energy analysis done on your current home being designed? We are offering a free energy analysis to show you the dramatic savings you can get with ICFs.)
Sustainable features of Carleton College
Overall, Carleton College has identified over 36 distinct aspects to these building that are considered sustainable features. From low flush toilets that will save 30% on water, to copper tiles on southern facing roofs to deflect heat gain, LED lighting, as well as natural foliage planted around campus that is sturdy and weather resistant. All of these features are contributing to their LEED Gold certification.
Next week, we will show you all the live energy data from the school as well as some more highlights of this project. In the meantime check out the rest of our highlighted ICF projects or our ICF gallery section on rewardwalls.com.
