No Downtime, No Compromise: Renovating and Decarbonizing a Fully Operational Environmental Testing Laboratory

The Region of Waterloo’s Environmental Enforcement and Laboratory Services (EELS) facility runs accredited water and wastewater testing that cannot stop—not even for a 30-million-dollar expansion and renovation of a facility that has evolved incrementally since 1988. This session details how the project team sequenced a roughly 10,750-sf addition and a full renovation of the existing laboratory so the new building could be completed and occupied before renovation work began inside the operating facility, using multiple phases, sub-phases, and after-hours work to protect testing integrity and accreditation throughout construction.

The project pairs that renovation strategy with an ambitious decarbonization target: an all-electric mechanical system built around air-source heat pumps, glycol energy recovery, and 21 variable-air-volume fume hoods, targeting LEED Silver and the region’s net-zero carbon goals. Energy modeling identified real-time air quality monitoring as the single highest-impact measure, lifting whole-building energy savings from 16 to 26 percent and nearly tripling LEED Optimize Energy points, despite initial client resistance to the technology. The presenters will share how they made phasing decisions, how data-driven collaboration turned skepticism into buy-in, and the practical lessons learned in renovating live, accredited laboratory space without compromising it.

Learning objectives:
1. Analyze strategies for sequencing construction phasing — including sub-phasing and after-hours work — to maintain uninterrupted, accredited laboratory operations during a major renovation and expansion.
2. Apply iterative energy modeling to compare all-electric mechanical strategies against code-reference baselines (NECB 2015/2020) and quantify the impact of individual energy conservation measures.
3. Evaluate how real-time air quality monitoring and demand-based ventilation setback reduce laboratory exhaust energy while preserving the environmental controls required for accreditation.
4. Develop techniques for building stakeholder consensus around unfamiliar or initially resisted design strategies through transparent, data-driven collaboration.