The Power of Electrification in Preservation: NPS Fort Vancouver Museum Facility
Background: The National Park Service (NPS) stores, maintains, and displays historic collections, artifacts, and culturally significant pieces across various sites. Recognizing the need for efficient infrastructure, NPS seized the opportunity to relocate collections and archives from several sites in the Northwest Region into one larger facility at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site in Washington. Key Objectives: Site Selection: NPS chose Fort Vancouver Building 405 as the repository for collections from four national parks, totaling over 3 million items. Fort Vancouver Building 405 Rehabilitation Project Facility Overview: Public Engagement Spaces: Mechanical System Options by 360 Engineering Discovery and Presentation on Anderson Hallas Architect’s Team: Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) System Selected: Advantages of VRF System: Conclusion Adopting the Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) system for Fort Vancouver marks a significant step in realizing NPS’ Service-Wide Curation Facility Plan. This decision ensures optimal preservation conditions for the extensive collection while promoting energy efficiency in line with NPS’ principles. Ready to upgrade your building or project with electrification? Let’s discuss your Mechanical Engineering needs today. Contact us to book a 30-minute consultation.
Exploring Complete Electrification in Denver
At 360, we are constantly looking for ways to comply with the ever-changing permitting requirements and climate change mitigation efforts that the city of Denver implements. Our world is constantly evolving, and we need to find solutions to new climate challenges each day. In this blog post, we will discuss the opportunities for Complete Electrification in Denver. Our team is critically looking at options to ensure each project we work on not only meets the required regulations but is cost-effective too. Read along to see the importance of electrification and its impact. What We Look At In 2019, buildings and homes accounted for 64% of all community-generated greenhouse gas emissions in the city of Denver1. In 2020 Denver had the worst air pollution in 10 years2. Natural ventilation isn’t as effective when the air quality continues to decline, and moving to an all-electric system could mitigate safety issues associated with poor air quality while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Limitations of Electrification Let’s Wrap it Up With the new regulations coming, Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) will become even more important to show the offset of maintenance, utility, and upfront costs between mechanical systems. It is important to know the regulations to ensure the safety and longevity of your product. Energy modeling is already required in some cities like Boulder and will become required in Denver to demonstrate energy compliance. For any questions or inquiries or to get started on your next project, Contact Us. References 1 https://denvergov.org/files/assets/public/climate-action/documents/denver-nze-implementation-plan_final_v1.pdf 2 https://www.colorado.gov/airquality/tech_doc_repository.aspx?action=open&file=2020AnnualDataReport.pdf Vocabulary Direct Expansion (DX): the most common type of air conditioning in the US where the indoor air is cooled with a refrigerant liquid. Electrification: the conversion of a machine or system to the use of electrical power. Energy Use Intensity (EUI): refers to the amount of energy used per square foot annually. Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA): it is an economic evaluation technique that determines the total cost of owning and operating a facility over a period of time.