May 15, 2006

Toddlers embraced in state-of-the-art comfort

Village day care gets modern edge with green redesign, adds spaces

STEVEN DIETER

correspondent

KINGSTON

As in many small communities, Merrickville’s main day care and nursery called an old church with inadequate space, poor air quality, ineffective heating and ventilation home.

However, people in the small village of 1,000 had a dream.

They took on a “Green Demonstration Project,” implementing the latest innovations in green technology into a new, state-of-the-art facility.

Using funding offered through the Province of Ontario’s Best Start program, Merrickville Daycare Nursery School will increase its size to 5,100 square-feet. Twenty-three spaces for a total of 61 day care spots will help fill growing demand from residents in Merrickville, nearby Kemptville and other neighbouring small communities.

The current day care and nursery school have been located in a local church for the past 15 to 17 years.

“It may be the best (location) around, but that doesn’t make it the right one,” Wayne Trusty, President of Athena Sustainable Materials Institute (and a resident of Merrickville), told a captive audience at a Kingston green technology conference.

Trusty said without the support of many organizations, whose products and services were either offered free or at a substantially reduced rate, the project could never have occurred.

Even with donations, the project anticipates carrying a mortgage of $250,000.

The unique story of a small community with a big dream achieving an amazing goal has garnered its few moments of fame by being featured in major Ontario newspapers and national television networks.

Some key features in the new facility include air-in-floor heating built underneath a totally floating slab system, a Swedish concept made in Cornwall.

As a result, the building can maintain a reasonable room temperature for up to three days after the heat is turned off.

The walls, constructed of insulated concrete form, were assembled by the Carpenter’s Union as part of a training program.

In-line fibreglass windows, dual flush toilets, an environmentally-friendly interior, and effective quiet zones for the four rooms inside the Daycare Nursery School, are some of the other green features being utilized in this state-of-the-art facility.

While innovative features have raised production costs to roughly 10 per cent above the cost of a conventional building, energy savings are estimated to be between $5,000 and $6,000 per year.

Trusty sees this kind of structure as the wave of the future.

“This is the kind of building we should have for day cares, schools, hospitals and nursing homes in communities throughout Canada,” he says. Donations from the community assisted in making the dream a reality Wayne Trusty President, Athena Sustainable Materials Institute

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