Lessons Learned – Corporation Hall

• The renovation of Corporation Hall brought with it many challenges and successes. Members of the building team generated innovative ways to deal with these challenges, and realized different processes that could have benefited the project. The lessons garnered from this experience could be used in future endeavors.
• Value of Building Envelope Commissioning. Although this project did not employ building envelope commissioning, doing so may have saved the need for expensive post-construction efforts. During the first winter’s operation at Corporation Hall, one bedroom had significant trouble maintaining its heating setpoint with the combination of radiant floor heating and the unit’s air system.
• After verifying design calculations and determining the space had been receiving adequate heat, thermal imaging and construction photos revealed significant thermal bridging and missing insulation. Upon this discovery, the problems were corrected, bringing the building’s energy performance back to the level at which it was designed.
• Importance of Advance Coordination of Geothermal Bores on Urban Site. Originally, the geothermal bores were going to be installed at the back of the site; however, this was problematic because it was the job site’s access point. This meant that trucks and equipment would be in the way of installation and vice versa.
• It was then decided to move the geothermal bores to the front of the site, but the challenge of getting the installation equipment down into the basement still existed. The team created a ramp to get the machine down, but due to the limited space in the urban setting, the ramp had to be taken apart after the equipment was in place so it could move around for installation. Then the ramp was reassembled to get the equipment back out. Had there been more coordination during design, a more efficient process may have been possible to save time and energy on the assembly and disassembly of the ramp.