Wow! Looks good....

A Wall of Windows on the North Side, this must be just great to keep this Place warm ?

30 year payback. Everything will be worn out or will have been replaced before the high costs of the high tech. construction
break even. The windows are 'low-e' they are actually quite efficient, far more so than the traditional twin seal units.
metalman.

Looks to me like a lot of wasted space similar to the court house?

bitch, bitch, bitch - is that all that any of you know how to do. The place looks great, windows will brighten everything up and the streetview is good too. I'm happy this was built - long overdue and now the students can spend their day in a first class facility - unlike the rat infested one they were in.

Glad to hear they got LEED Gold certification. Although construction costs for LEED are higher than average, the long term savings will more than offset any higher costs.

I have heard that costs for the old Duchess Park building are now $120,000/year while this new building is supposed to be $60,000/year. As a taxpayer I'm glad to hear that school district is saving money.

Howard. The savings so far are only on paper.

In order to see if there are actually any savings we would have to look at the costs again, in one or two years.

I havent seen a Government project yet that actually came up with the predicted savings, so dont know why this would be any different.

I suspect that at some point they would want to scrap all the high tech heating advantages of this building, and have it hook up with the Community Energy Plan, whch would of course *nudge, nudge, wink, wink, get us even further savings.

At least this time our children get to enjoy something new to spend most of their days in. This is a good thing.

The projected savings are optimistic, in my opinion, but they have to be, or else these showcase buildings might not get built. Having said that, there is no doubt that this building will cost less per square foot to operate than the existing DP school, not sure how the area compares between new and existing. HStern is right about the installed costs being higher than average or conventional construction, but the key point is, they are much higher. The heating and cooling system for example; Geothermal wells do not come cheap, and they have lots of them. Every system or zone in the building relies on heat pumps to do the temperature conversion to/from heating/cooling, this plus every system also requires pumps. The long and short of it is, this new building will use a lot less natural gas than the old one, but I'll bet that the electric bill is going to be hefty, especially considering the graduated system Hydro now has for non residential accounts.
metalman.

This was long overdue and I'm very happy that the students have such a nice school to enjoy.
I only hope that students respect and appreciate it without vandalizing it.

Papalou I'm not saying the savings will come immediately or maybe even at all, but I know if I ever build another house (and that is a huge "IF"), I would seriously look into building a house that is not so reliant on the existing grid of BC Hydro and Terasen Gas. I just like the idea of being able to control my fiances through efficient building.

Of course the conspiracy theorist in me says that BC Hydro and Terasen probably have the patents on all sorts of alternative energy programs that exist right now.

Metalman - with that tiny little baby 600A/600V electrical service the bills can only get so high!

Hope that small service size doesn't bite the school district come wintertime.

I see the building on 17th and Queensway, which has geothermal heating had 25 windows open to-day. There is not a day that goes by that this bulding does not have a least 10 open windows. Even at -30 they had 12 or more open.

It would appear that there is someting seriously wrong with this heating system. There must be some serious heat loss taking place, and of course this would mean a higher cost.

What gives??

Nice to open a new school while there are 14 others on the chopping block... Isnt this kind of like bragging about your new car while the bank forecloses on your house?

A 2x6 Wall has a R20 Value , no Window System will even get close, not even low e, a
Wall of Windows on the North side is Waste of Energy, my look Nice and provide lots of Light.