The challenge:
How to mitigate long-term heating and cooling costs for newly construction 82,000-square-foot metal building
The players:
MBA Incorporated
ACH Foam Technologies
The process:
The University of Iowa built an 82,000-square-foot metal building large enough to hold a full-scale marching band practices. Since Iowa’s annual temperatures range from below zero to above 90 degrees, a key consideration for the University would be how to mitigate long-term heating and cooling costs for a building roughly the size of a football field for the life of the facility. For a space that size and use, in-floor radiant heating provided a lot of advantages over forced-air.
“Because this was a design-build project, there was opportunity to provide some product recommendations during preconstruction,” remarked Jim Seelman of MBA Incorporated (MBA), who specializes in turf field construction. Seelam was familiar with a variety of architectural grade expanded polystyrene (EPS) insulation products that would support the radiant heating system and recommended ACH Foam Technologies’ Foam-Control+ as an ideal solution.
The insulation’s compressive strength was critical. The chosen product would be covered by a 6-inch layer of rock aggregate and it would have to be able to withstand the weight of the dump trucks brining in the rock aggregate driving on it.
EPS foam insulation has also consistently shown a superior ability to maintain its R-value when exposed to moisture in real-life conditions and holds its R-value better over the life of the product. Other factors Seelman and designers considered were the ease with which the radiant heating piping could be laid into the insulation; and the product’s 50-year warranty.
Seelman estimates that selecting Foam-Control Plus+ saved the project more than $100,000 in material costs alone over the originally specified product. It is also the first EPS insulation on the market to come in uniform pre-scored pieces, increasing the ease and flexibility of installation.
“This product is extremely easy to install,” continued Seelman. “We actually hired the local high school football team to help with the installation.” Under MBA’s guidance, all 80,000-square-feet of insulation were installed in a single 12-hour night’s work, tallying roughly 250 man hours of labor.
