Carleton College is up for the 2010 annual Greensite awards in the Institutional category. We have blogged numerous times on this project, its sustainable properties and the efforts of the college to to receive a LEED Gold certification. So along with an ICFA, ICF Builder, and Minnesota ARM award, this project wants YOUR votes so we can add to its trophy case!

(Catch up on this ICF dormitory)

To read about the Greensite awards and to view Carleton College entry go to the official Greensite page.

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To skip reading over everything, and just trust us that this is the best project of the bunch just go ahead…

VOTE for Carleton College

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ICF Construction and Design Team

Owner: Pegasus Group/Carleton College
Architect: LHB
General Contractor: J.E. Dunn Construction
ICF Installer: Northland Concrete and Masonry
ICF Distributor: Cemstone

Some Cool ICF Pictures

The picture above shows a sunny, however frigid day in Minnesota. If you have been up there in the winter months you know it can get pretty serious. But with the dorms needing to be ready for fall semester they worked through the winter in sub freezing temperatures. Many days hit below zero, but luckily ICFs allow for concrete placement and curing with sub freezing temperatures.

This picture below is a meat thermometer(highly sophisticated measurement) stuck in an ICF and the concrete after placement. It shows what the curing temperature is of the concrete…100 degrees. The outside air temperature was under 20 degrees.

Finished Insulating Concrete Form School

Please enjoy the pictures of this awarding winning school.

As the year goes on and hopefully this projects racks up a couple more awards and we’ll post some updates on the continual energy use and any more ambitions from that campus.

Reward Wall Systems tieKey is the only patent-pending ICF masonry anchor in the market. It is an easy to install, cast-in-place, adjustable masonry tie anchor embedded into the concrete wall formed by the ICF. This product is designed to provide the strength and security required when installing brick or stone veneer finishes, and providing a strong resistance to negative and positive lateral loads.

Reward’s tieKey® is part one of a two-part system: Reward’s ICF masonry anchor and any standard wire tie(not provided). The masonry anchor is inserted through the ICF as the wall is constructed. The wire tie is installed by the mason contractor as the masonry facing is constructed. The tieKey® has been tested for tension and compression strength by an independent laboratory to verify its capacity to resist lateral loads. This innovative product is available in two materials, either hot-dipped galvanized or stainless steel.

Engineering Requirements

Ultimately the tieKey anchor must meet the design requirements for the project specific design loads and the building code requirements for spacing. The tieKey anchor is designed to resist the negative and positive lateral loads imposed by seismic and wind.

The tieKey anchor has been tested for strength by an independent laboratory — Structural Research Laboratory at the University of Nebraska — Lincoln’s Pieter Kiewit Institute. Testing has shown more than adequate strength to resist high seismic and wind lateral loads.

Building codes dictate a maximum horizontal and vertical spacing along with a maximum area of wall that a tieKey anchor must be located. To meet building code requirements and to work well with all Reward ICF product lines, we recommend placing the tieKey anchor every 16 inches vertically in the center of each course of ICF, and centered between the two plastic tie rods and every 24 inches on center horizontally.

This product is one of the ancillary items Reward provides to customers, to ensure a successfully built ICF building enclosure.

ICF Project Statistics

• Location: Northfield, Minn.
• Type: MultiFamily—Two Student Residence Halls
• Size: 91,536 sq. ft. (floor) 52,150 + 39,376
• ICF Use: 63,840 sq. ft. (walls)
• Height: 4 stories plus gables
• Cost: $26 million (budgeted)

Live Energy Use Data

One of the unique features of the project is that there are energy use monitors installed in the Residence Halls. This allows the school to track energy use per building, per floor, and for each individual dorm rooms as well. They can identify energy hogs, and maybe advise heavy energy offenders how to cut energy use as well. This is a huge advantage when educating responsible behaviors to students and getting them thinking about the cost of energy.

Along with energy use monitors, they also have the ability to track the energy creation through photo-voltaics and steam generation as well. Those systems were put in place to help heat the water and to offset energy use. Carleton understood the importance of securing the building envelope so it made sense to add P/V systems.

Energy creation is good…and seems to be the only thing to get the government’s attention…but won’t be a feasible source (cost wise) if buildings don’t start limiting their energy consumption. ICFs can limit a building’s energy use! See their live energy use data.

Beyond the Insulating Concrete Form

Carleton College has identified over 36 distinct green attributes to these buildings, other than the use of ICFs and fly ash in the concrete. From reflective roof tiles, to using local vegetation for landscaping, this college is on the leading edge of sustainability.

As you can see there are wonderful things going on in the ICF world up in Minnesota. Next week we’ll go over the star contributors to this project and show some great cold weather concreting pictures.

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.

This school in Northfield, MN used fly ash in their concrete mixture with Reward's ICFs. Carleton College will be LEED GOLD certified.

Fly Ash is a supplementary cementitious material used in concrete mix designs. There are two types of Fly Ash – Class C & Class F which have to do with the type of coal that is being used at coal-fired power plants. The different types of coal come from different areas of the country.  Fly Ash is the by-product of combustion of pulverized coal in coal fired-power generating plants. Fly Ash is the non-combustible mineral of coal. They are molten particles that solidify into spheres rich in silica, alumina and calcium. Fly Ash is readily available in most parts of the country. The use of Fly Ash in concrete is good for the environment because it is the waste of generating power using coal. This waste could end up in our land fills otherwise.

The use of Fly Ash can, in most instances, help control the costs of concrete because it is inexpensive replacement for Portland cement. It is a by-product that in some instances can end up in our landfills. By using fly ash we save valuable space in our land fills. It just so happens to be very good supplemental cementitious material for the production of concrete. It doesn’t need to be produced like Portland cement, which requires energy to produce.

Fly Ash normally reduces the amount of water needed for a given slump. The water reduction for batch design is typically in the 2% to 10% range depending on the percent of Fly Ash and the type. The spherical shape of Fly Ash particles creates less friction allowing greater pumping distances of concrete. The workability of concrete also creates greater flow ability inside of ICF’s than same given slump with just Portland cement in concrete. Although Fly Ash is normally only used in volume of 15% to 25% compared to Portland cement. It helps aid in flow-ability. Flow-ability in ICF forms is very beneficial especially around areas of concentrations of reinforcement. In most cases, mixes with Fly Ash generally require less mixing water for a given slump than mixes with just Portland cement.

The following are some of the highlights of using Fly Ash in the batch design of concrete.

• Greater workability ( Better flow ability inside of ICF walls )
• Pumping ( Greater pumping distances, pumping requires less energy to pump less friction )
• Improved cohesiveness ( Reduced segregation )
• Reduction of heat of hydration ( Thicker walls )
• Higher strengths ( As supplement for Portland Cement )
• Saves energy ( Supplement to Portland Cement )
• Conserving  landfill space
• Qualifies for LEED credit in sustainable construction

For more information on Carleton College visit our gallery or Carleton’s website to see all of the green features of this school.

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