What You Will Learn

• Differences between residential and commercial tests
• Building science and driving forces of air leakage
• Testing standards and code requirements
• Test considerations and planning
• Required materials and equipment
• First-hand experience with setup and use of blower door equipment
• Troubleshooting common problems encountered during testing

This workshop concludes with a full live test at the Centre for Applied Research in Sustainable Infrastructure (CARSI) at Red River College, which will incorporate diagnostic tools and data analysis.

Each session will be limited to 12 participants.

Course Dates and Cost

Dates: April 24-26, 2019 (spots available)

Times: 8:30am to 4:30pm (will end at 2pm on the last day to allow time for travel)

Cost: $1,495 + GST (includes parking, lunch and morning coffee)

Location: Red River College, 2055 Notre Dame Ave., Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Registration

To register, call or email:

Sheila Allarie
sallarie@rrc.ca
204-632-2038

Cancellation policy: Students who withdraw from a course seven days or less before the start date will be charged a $100 cancellation fee.

Instructors

Cory Carson
Cory is a Mechanical Engineering Technologist with over five years of experience in applied research related to energy efficiency, who has tested over 50 large buildings for airtightness.

Kevin Knight
Kevin is a building envelope authority with over 35 years of experience in field observation and testing, commissioning, research, education and training.

Gary Proskiw
Gary is a mechanical engineer with 40 years of experience; he has conducted hundreds of airtightness tests on houses and commercial buildings and has been active in code and standard development.

Additional Course Information

Cory Carson
204.631.3325 | ccarson31@rrc.ca

Other course offerings can be found at rrc.ca/techsolutions.

Red River College’s Building Envelope Technology Access Centre (BETAC) was in the news this week, with a mention in the Journal of Commerce by ConstructConnect. The article highlights BETAC’s partnership with SMT Research Ltd. to monitor the health of the Skilled Trades and Technology Centre as it was being built.

“SMT partnered with Red River College’s (RRC) Building Envelope Technology Access Centre (BETAC) to monitor the structural health of the Skilled Trades and Technology Centre (STTC) as it was being built on the RRC Notre Dame campus in Winnipeg.

Structural health monitoring helps to ensure that new buildings are energy-efficient, durable and perform as expected.

BETAC and SMT installed a wide network of sensors throughout the building as it was under construction.

A total of seven different building envelope types were instrumented throughout the exterior building envelope, as well as the roof and green roof assemblies.

The effectiveness of the STTC’s building envelope, which helps protect its occupants from the extremes of Winnipeg’s climate, will continue to be monitored in real time.”

Read the full article here.

Join industry, business, and applied research leaders for this Lunch and Learn to explore how federal support can bring your work to the next level.

Get a practical snapshot of the spectrum of federal programming available from exploratory applied research, to pre-commercialization, and support for late-stage procurement and testing.

Date: Thursday, May 10, 2018
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.
Location: Prairie Lights, Notre Dame Campus, Red River College

This event is being organized by the Research Partnerships & Innovation office at Red River College in collaboration with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Public Services and Procurement Canada.

Register for the event today

This course from April 17 to April 20 will teach advanced theory and applications of infrared thermography in the preventive maintenance, quality assurance, condition monitoring and non-destructive testing of materials, with an emphasis on building envelope components such as wall assemblies and roofs. Read More →

The Building Envelope Technology Access Centre (BETAC) team has partnered with the University of Manitoba and consulting firm Crosier Kilgour and Partners to develop a new thermal break, or barrier, to help reduce significant heat loss that occurs in high rise buildings with large concrete balconies.
“Commercial alternatives of thermal breaks are available but prohibitively expensive,” said researcher Dagmar Svecova in ResearchLIFE, a University of Manitoba magazine. Read More →

A team of researchers at the Building Envelope and Technology Access Centre (BETAC) partnered with SMT Research to monitor the structural health of the Skilled Trades and Technology Centre (STTC) being built at Red River College.

A paper on their work was presented at the 8th International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure in Brisbane, Australia, in December, 2017.

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of bridges and heritage buildings are essential to ensure modern rehabilitation techniques and materials continue to perform as expected. SHM systems also play a key role to ensure new buildings perform as expected with respect to energy efficiency and durability.

Their paper focused on the application of advanced sensor networks and data visualization techniques on a building instrumented as a ‘living lab’ located in Winnipeg, Canada.

The BETAC and SMT Research team installed a substantial network of sensors embedded throughout the new STTC.
A total of seven different building envelope types have been instrumented throughout the exterior building envelope as well as the roof and green roof assemblies.

The measurements from these sensors can be compared to controlled tests performed on mock-up test walls in the Dual Environment Test Chamber located in the Centre for Applied Research in Sustainable Infrastructure (CARSI) at Red River College.

Field analysis will be performed in real-time during normal building occupancy throughout the temperature extremes inherent to Winnipeg.

View the full research paper HERE.

Read More →

A team of researchers at the Building Envelope and Technology Access Centre (BETAC) partnered with SMT Research to monitor the structural health of the Skilled Trades and Technology Centre (STTC) being built at Red River College.

Background

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of bridges and heritage buildings are essential to ensure modern rehabilitation techniques and materials continue to perform as expected. SHM systems also play a key role to ensure new buildings perform as expected with respect to energy efficiency and durability.

Our Research

• The BETAC and SMT Research team installed a substantial network of sensors embedded throughout the new STTC.
• A total of seven different building envelope types have been instrumented throughout the exterior building envelope as well as the roof and green roof assemblies.
• The measurements from these sensors can be compared to controlled tests performed on mock-up test walls in the Dual Environment Test Chamber located in the Centre for Applied Research in Sustainable Infrastructure (CARSI) at Red River College.
• Field analysis will be performed in real-time during normal building occupancy throughout the temperature extremes inherent to Winnipeg.

Results

A paper on our work was presented at the 8th International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure in Brisbane, Australia, in December, 2017.

The paper focused on the application of advanced sensor networks and data visualization techniques on a building instrumented as a ‘living lab’ located in Winnipeg, Canada.

CANCELLED: This workshop has been cancelled due to an unforeseen scheduling conflict with the instructor, and due to low enrolment.

Join expert Manfred Kehrer for a two-day workshop this February, 2018, hosted by Red River College’s Building Envelope & Technology Access Centre (BETAC).

WUFI® is an acronym for Wärme Und Feuchte Instationär, which, translated, means heat and moisture transiency. Read More →

This three-day course educated participants on:

• Air tightness testing standards and code requirements
• the differences between residential and commercial air tightness tests
• building science and driving forces of air leakage
• test considerations and planning
• required materials and equipment

The workshop also focused on the setup and use of blower door equipment, and finished with a full live test of the CARSI building at Red River College, which incorporates diagnostic tools and analysis/reporting of the test data.

Background

Increasing air tightness in a building is now widely recognized as one of the most influential factors affecting the building’s performance in terms of energy use, comfort, indoor air quality, durability and even noise transmission.

Even though airtightness testing of residential houses is quite common, airtightness testing of commercial buildings is only now starting to grow.

Testing equipment is now evolving to measure a larger range of commercial building types; however, since this type of testing is still relatively new to the United States and Canada, there remains very few qualified personnel able to perform these tests to specific standards.