Summary

The picturesque, agrarian landscape of Prince Edward County, Ontario is the backdrop for the 4,200 square feet Fifth Town Cheese Factory. Owned by sustainability enthusiast Petra Cooper, this mixed use facility aims to achieve a Platinum certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – New Construction (LEED - NC) rating system. The facility also aims to achieve five Green Globes and become carbon neutral. Green Globes is an online building and management audit that helps property owners and managers measure the environmental performance of their buildings against best practices in areas such as energy, water, hazardous materials, waste management and indoor environment.

Challenge

In North America, buildings account for over 1/3 of all energy use and consume roughly the same percentage of raw materials.  Buildings are also responsible for nearly a third of all greenhouse gas emissionsⁱ. That is why, it is important for the facility to achieve LEED certification as it is the most rigorous green building standard available in Canada. The LEED program criteria and the overall rating system provide a proven set of criteria for building green.

LEED credits can be achieved in six principal categories:

- Sustainable Sites
- Water Efficiency
- Energy and Atmosphere
- Materials and Resources
- Indoor Environmental Quality
- Innovation & Design Process

Fifth Town is committed to leadership in the area of sustainable enterprise where Cooper is taking a comprehensive systemic approach towards maximizing the use of green technologies and innovations. To achieve LEED and Green Globes, the Cheese Factory will incorporate building systems that offer optimal, sustainable, economic and environmental value.

An important building consideration was to separate the spaces with extreme climates i.e. warm and moist on one side and cold and dry on the other side. Without achieving this, the walls could have been highly susceptible to the risk of condensation and mold growth.

Solution

Builder K. Knudsen Construction Ltd. and Designer Lapointe Architects reviewed and assessed a variety of eco-friendly building materials that could provide energy efficiency, durability and have very low environmental impact.

In addition, they were also assessing products based on payback on investment and their ability to achieve LEED credits. Based on the requirements, the one product that scored highest was Icynene^® spray foam insulation.

The builder focused on an air tight building design to achieve an energy efficient space with the help of Icynene^® insulation, an insulation of choice for many builders looking for healthier, quieter and more energy efficient building options. Icynene is a healthy insulation and definitely played a key role in achieving incremental LEED credits. 

Before the Icynene^® application, 6 mil poly vapor barrier was used on the studs to provide effective moisture management for a durable building structure and a healthier indoor environment and minimize the potential for moisture and related problems such as mold and mildew.

Icynene Dealer Healthy Insulation Services of Kingston, ON sprayed Icynene^® between studs on the exterior walls of the retail area and on the second floor office walls at an R-value of R20; between floor joists separating the office from the cheese production area; on partition walls for sound proofing at R12 and; the floor joists and roof joists at R40.

Applied to the ceiling to separate the production area from the office area upstairs, Icynene^® acted as an air barrier, reducing air filtration from the warm, moisture-laden production area into the cooler office. This not only helped in minimizing potential condensation but also with sound attenuation.

Spray foam insulation simplifies the application in difficult areas such as headers. Icynene^® spray foam insulation expands to 100 times its initial volume to completely fill every nook and cranny. The tight building envelope in combination with the HVAC system will result in lowered heating and cooling costs and help maintain a comfortable indoor environment. By sealing air leaks, Icynene^® will help reduce the building's carbon foot print and garner additional LEED credits.

The current building design features include solar energy, a high percentage of recycled building materials and a ground source heat pump. Most recent energy model shows reducing the space heating and cooling costs by 84% when compared to a similar building designed in conformance with the Model National Energy Code of Canada (MNECB). 

Results

Although the entire project is built to green building standards and at the end, a combination of technologies and services will be installed to meet the sustainability goals, the contribution of Icynene^® in achieving LEED credits is significant. Icynene^® helped increase the energy efficiency by completely sealing air leaks and reducing the carbon emissions of the building. This greatly helped in achieving LEED credits in the Energy and Atmosphere category. In total, Icynene helped achieve credits in four out of six categories of LEED Certification Program namely Innovation and Design process, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources and Indoor Environmental Quality.

“Icynene^® greatly contributed to the green design of the Fifth Town facility. It complemented other systems in reducing the carbon footprint of the facility as well as offered a healthier indoor environment ensuring that we would meet Platinum LEED certification levels” said Francis Lapointe.

Cooper and her team have already estimated tremendous energy cost savings on the base building alone which translates into savings of 23 tons of GHGⁱⁱ (Green House Gases) which is the equivalent of taking about 5 cars off the road. This number is expected to double when systems such as solar power, bio wetlands etc. will also be in place and operational.

Icynene^® installation was completed in February 2008. Now the facility is in the final stages of being completed! Once fully functional, it will begin making its full line of cheese and set out to become North America's first Platinum LEED Cheese Factory.