The Cornerstone Life Lease Estates

Due to planned future development of The Cornerstone Life Lease Estates, the building site had restrictions on where the ground loop could be located. Southern Comfort Mechanical (SCMI)  needed to plan the project to allow provision for future geothermal heating and cooling of additional buildings. We worked closely with the engineer and architect to reduce the heating and cooling loads of the building. The lower heating and cooling loads allowed for geothermal integration.

The mechanical system for the Cornerstone consists of a 67-zone geothermal system with a shallow vertical ground loop drilled 50 feet deep. The building is cooling dominant, so a significant amount of heat needs to be absorbed into the ground via the ground loop. As the ground loop gets too warm, the system is designed to dump heat from the ground loop into the parkade. The building is ventilated by a central heat recovery ventilation (HRV) system to increase system efficiency.

SCMI, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Centre for Applied Research in Sustainable Infrastructure (CARSI) have partnered with The Cornerstone to install a remote building monitoring system. The building created a joint research opportunity for remote building monitoring.