RSI Projects engaged in a multi-year study with the folks over at The ReCover Initiative to help develop a set of potential panel designs to retrofit several buildings being studied across the country for deep retrofits. Collaborating with an extensive design team of engineers, architects, financial analysts, WuFi modellers and LCA analysts we arrived at a cellulose-filled, vapour open system being the most cost effective, buildable, and carbon responsible solution for this project.

We had the opportunity to flesh out a good deal of the install details to help facilitate future deployment, a few of which you can see below. Though none of the 6 buildings that were studied ended up being executed upon, the results of the studies taught the team a great deal about what it would take to make a deep retrofit of these types of buildings feasible, which will help future efforts be way more effective.

The design work required the development of a range of R-values for each panel system, because not every building needed the same amount of additional envelope upgrade to get to the net-zero ready benchmark we were shooting for. We also developed a flat-roof retrofit panel that could be used on flat roof retrofits. The only trouble we landed in there was that most flat roofs out there are not able to take any additional weight, so that proved to be a less productive excercise.

To see the full extent of the study results, you can read more about that here.

You can download the PDF’s of the two designs here :