I am technical engineer and have the opportunity to work with one our Mountee pilots in Dalarna – the new primary school (7000 m2) in the small municipality of Älvdalen. In order to evaluate different technical solutions and reach our target of 70 kWh /m2 a-temp we use LCC analysis and frequent updates of energy balance calculations.
One of the things we have been very concerned about was to design a heating and ventilation system that allows adaptations of the building to other uses in the future. As a result we chose a system of multiple ventilation units – one for each floor and building section – instead of one large unit for the entire school.
We also focused on the future operation and maintenance costs of technical installations. To a large extent we could evaluate this by LCC calculations but we also used soft values. When using high tech installations we often forget about the costs of knowhow, skills and maintenance in the future. The complexity that comes along with the use of high-tech installations puts high demands on the client, and it is questionable whether these solutions really are fit for small municipalities like Älvdalen. In addition, extensive technical solutions often request major reinvestment costs and make the systems expensive over time. Considering these aspects we found some surprising results. In our case for example we have found that room controlled ventilation systems are not economical because of its extensive maintenance costs and we opted therefore for thermal and airflow regulation on floor-level only.
Future maintenance costs have also been an important topic in our discussions with the architect. Aesthetic aspects hade to be related to future maintenance costs, such as choice of window surface in relation to ventilation needs during the summer. Here it was difficult to find common agreements and we see a general need to find better ways to enable early interactions between architects and technicians, for example by common training programs and agreements on common goals.
GOD JUL
wishes Mats Karlsson, Energi & Driftkvalite AB
