Some companies open small storefronts or even launch splashy webpages to sell their wares.
But if the corporate bottom line is ruled by creating products to monitor and regulate buildings, sometimes the answer is to showcase it on a grand scale by erecting a building to show them off.
That's what View Royalbased Reliable Controls has done. The 26-year-old firm designs and manufactures products that regulate energy, heat, light and water use in commercial and institutional buildings.
Now Reliable Controls is watching crews put the finishing touches on its new building, an $8.1-million, 40,000-square-foot space that is on both the cutting edge of environmental design and the forefront of electrical engineering.
Tom Zaban, Reliable's vice-president of marketing, said the company realized when it took on the job of building its own space, that it "had damned well better be a showcase."
"We've never built our own building before, this is our baby," Zaban said. "There's a lot of new technology in this building, a lot of things that have never been sold before."
Zaban said the building, which is designed and built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Platinum standards, features the kind of technology and controls he hopes will become the norm.
The building is naturally ventilated, with virtually no duct work or air handlers, and instead uses a system to draw air through the sides of the building as each window has a "trickle vent" with a heating-coolant coil. They open to allow fresh air into the space that can be heated or cooled. That air will rise naturally through the open-area office space from convection and is released through dampers at the top of an atrium.
There are 80 different zones with radiant infloor heating and cooling and LED lighting throughout.
The two levels of work space use natural light as much as possible - 98 per cent of the space receives natural light - and all wireless lights are dimmable and harvest energy.
"Each light has a photo sensor on it and you set it to a point for task lighting and it automatically adjusts [depending on the natural light] to what you want," Zaban said.
As the company name would suggest, there are a slew of controls in the space. It's all in the name of energy efficiency, and Zaban maintains this building will set a new standard.
"It's designed to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in energy consumption over a normal commercial building. It is a very high-efficiency building," Zaban said.
Efficiency is of paramount importance to the company. "The premise has been that whatever is good for us as human beings is good for the world - that's the approach businesses, financial systems and the manufacturing industry have had, and that's a problem because it's wrong," said Zaban. "We have to say what's good for the Earth is good for us. We have to turn this around."
That's been the philosophy behind Reliable's business - which through its authorized dealers sells about $150 million in controls contracts each year - and the thinking behind its new building.
"We are in a unique spot. We are the interface between the consumer and the system, so we have a great potential to have an impact, not only on the end result but also the attitude change," Zaban said.
The building also features a green roof to absorb water, minimize run off and preserve open space. It will use 60 per cent less potable water than a standard building through a series of ini-tiatives using rainwater. Also, 56 per cent of the wood used in the building is Forest Stewardship Council certified; 34 per cent of building material was sourced locally; and 99 per cent of construction waste - 526 tonnes of debris - was diverted from the landfill through recycling.
While the building is functioning, all of it can be watched, monitored and regulated online or via smartphone through Reliable's technology. It allows employees to be conscious of their own environmental footprint in their workspace and do something about it by altering heating, cooling and light usage in their assigned area.
This kind of control and environmental design comes at a price. While the project is slightly over budget [by $100,000], Zaban said on the whole there has not been a heavy premium to pay, whereas refitting an older building is often hard to justify financially.
He also said the perception that LEED certification is onerous is outdated. "I can see the initial perceptions it was a cumbersome, paper-laden, bureaucratic, time consuming, expensive, profit-draining exercise. But today, from what I see, these guys have it down. The whole process has gone from significant to something that is now routine," Zaban said, with a nod to Campbell Construction, which took on the project. "The process has evolved."
That is not to say there haven't been issues.
Architect Franc D'Ambrosio admitted he has a love-hate relationship with the building.
"[Reliable] makes environmental controls, so it's doubly onerous to do a place that exemplifies what they do and is a good example of what they do, so incorporating the systems they effect day-to-day was a challenge," said D'Ambrosio. "But it's also a unique aspect of the building. It's quite a machine and very intricate and to keep it calm and make it look simple is difficult."
D'Ambrosio said the tone he tried to set with his design was serenity, natural light and a space for creative people to feel comfortable moving around. "They do a lot of thinking here," he said. "Engineers, science guys and creative people work with casual interaction."
The main floor of the new building will house Reliable's research and development division, with administration, finance, sales and marketing taking the top floor.
The old building will be left to expand Reliable's manufacturing division. The company currently employs 100. "It's getting tight in there," said Zaban, noting they will begin expanding the ranks soon and could see the employee numbers hit 180 in the next few years.
aduffy@timescolonist.com
