Empire Communities’ Hybrid Housing – Evaluating the Performance of Innovative Building Envelope Systems for Basement, Exterior Wall and Attic Assemblies

George Brown College will work with ROXUL® and Dow Building Solutions®, as well as Empire Communities and Clearsphere consultants, to evaluate and monitor the performance of new building envelope systems on two demonstration homes. ROXUL® and Dow Building Solutions® are existing applied research partners of the College, who develop and market complementary building products. They will be the primary partners on this project and are providing the materials that will be incorporated into the wall assemblies that are being tested. Empire is a successful homebuilder in the Greater Toronto, Hamilton and Niagara regions, who distinguish their product based on quality and performance. Clearsphere is a consultancy firm with expertise in sustainability and residential energy efficiency.

Students and faculty from GBC’s Centre for Construction and Engineering Technology (CCET) will install sensors and monitor the performance of innovative wall and attic assemblies that incorporate materials from ROXUL® and Dow Building Solutions®. For each of the demonstration homes, testing will occur on the east and west wall exposures. This will be completed utilizing two demonstration homes, which are a part of an ongoing Empire Communities development in Caledonia. The basement, above grade walls and attic assemblies will be measured against current OBC standards, Energy Star standards as well as the proposed changes for 2017 OBC and Energy Star programs. Basement assemblies will also be tested against a standard R20 insulating blanket, which is the current standard for builders across Ontario. Data collected from each of the wall and/or attic assemblies will be monitored, analyzed and interpreted to provide insight and validity to the effectiveness of materials and assemblies and verify thermal resistance. This will include moisture content, relative humidity, temperature and heat flux sensors to provide a holistic analysis of the assemblies.