The garage houses large and small road maintenance sanders, sweepers, graders and pavers in its 42 large storage bays, two wash bays and storage and workshop bays. The building (125 m long x 30 m wide x 8 m high) replaces an existing small garage so that all vehicles are protected from severe weather and are immediately ready to go out onto the streets 24-hours a day, even in the worst of Edmonton’s winter weather. Currently, vehicles must be stored outdoors and take a long time to warm up and charge air-brake cylinders.

This garage is the only City-owned building that is fully day-lit and controlled so that electric lights are needed only at night and when someone is in the building. At present, electric lights are left on 24-hours a day in other garage buildings as they have no other source of light.The 4,000m2 garage is heated with in-floor piping and small boilers so that the air temperature is kept stable and comfortable with very little energy required. A bay will return to its normal 15 deg. C level within minutes of the overhead door closing due to the radiation and large thermal mass of the concrete floor area.

As vehicles must return to the garage regularly in snow storms to change their plowing blades, the quick and economical return to normal indoor temperatures in the workspace is a significant operational issue. The large amount of ventilation air needed to keep the two wash-bays warm and dry will be heated by a large solar air collector on the south wall of the garage. Energy modelling was used to inform decisions about the best way to invest in building energy performance.

Radiant floor heating was shown to have significant advantages over air heating typically used in City garages. Daylighting and daylight controls were shown to be particularly economical as a means
of lighting the work space. Roof insulation was reduced and the money saved spent elsewhere in the building when it was shown that almost no increase of energy use resulted.