Modular Hospital Addition
Collingwood General and Marine Hospital is the largest employer in the small town of Collingwood, ON and needed a quick space solution to meet their expanding needs. The hospital also wanted the new prefabricated modular building to be energy efficient and make good use of renewable materials. The most convenient space available for the facility was the existing parking lot on the north end of the hospital, just south of a retaining pond and small park.
ModSpace worked with the hospital to design, build and install a two-story modular building that would architecturally blend with the existing hospital. In order to maximize space the architect decided to design a second floor that was cantilevered on all 4 sides.
Truly unique to the finished two-story modular building is the geothermal heating that fuels heat pumps throughout the building. Nine geothermal boreholes were drilled 300 feet into an adjacent field 170 feet away and extending back to the underside of the new modular building’s mechanical room.
The piping product used for the earth loop heat transfer system is non-biodegradable HDPE plastic that has no environmental impact when used for this purpose. The heat transfer solution is a biodegradable, non-toxic mixture of either water and corn alcohol or polypropylene glycol. The indoor piping products are also non-toxic and recyclable. In fact, all the off cuts of the pipe system are completely reusable. There is no waste.
Geothermal heating and cooling systems offer many benefits from an environmental stand point as well; clean—no green house gas emissions, safe—no open flames, not affected by the weather outside the home or building, and the energy source is completely renewable.
The geothermal products used were 100% recyclable and environmentally friendly. The equipment is the most energy efficient product available on the market as it uses renewable energy as the power source, and the refrigerant is environmentally friendly. The efficiency of the product is 400 percent resulting in prompt return on investment of time and capital costs.
The increase in costs to include green building techniques was eliminated because the geothermal portion of this project was funded by Industry Canada through the Community Adjustment Fund. Canadian government incentive programs cover capital expenditures immediately so payback begins immediately. This was the case with the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital. CGMH applied for and received $231,000.
