Federal grant helping turn
NMCC curriculum ‘green’
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
HOWARD VICS, left, of CleanEdison, leads NMCC construction trade programs faculty through a hands-on energy audit at a private Presque Isle residence. The daylong audit was part of the training the faculty are undertaking to earn their building analyst certification. Participating in the course are, from left: Pam Buck, computer aided drafting instructor; Todd Maynard, electrical construction and maintenance instructor; Al St. Peter, plumbing and heating instructor; Donald Hanson, adjunct instructor for building science courses; and Brian McDougal, chair of the trade and technical occupations department.
PRESQUE ISLE – Plans are presently under way to revise the current building energy systems curriculum across the construction trade programs at Northern Maine Community College to include green energy, building methods, energy audits, and weatherization of existing structures.
The initiative, made possible through a $225,000 grant to NMCC from the Efficiency Maine Trust funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will provide for the introduction of new classes and significant revisions to existing courses offered on the campus that will stress energy efficiency in construction and renovation practices.
“The need for improving building energy proficiency is evident through new codes and building standards, as well as the public’s demand for a reduced dependence on fossil fuels and to improve overall energy efficiency,” said Brian McDougal, chair of NMCC’s trade and technical occupations department. “Whether the buildings are older existing structures or a building that is presently being designed for construction, there are numerous incentives to evaluate and improve a building’s energy performance.”
Under the first phase of the grant, NMCC faculty served as pupils, working to earn their building analyst certification. The weeklong course, offered through the Building Performance Institute (BPI), covered the basic principles of building science to assess energy efficiency in a home while also monitoring conditions that have a direct impact on human health and safety.
On Aug. 18, the instructors were led through a series of hands-on exercises at a private residence in downtown Presque Isle that is currently on the housing market. Through an agreement with local realtor ReMax Central, the house served as a lab for exercises in home energy auditing and home energy efficiency for the day.
The course was led by Howard Vics, a contract instructor for CleanEdison, a provider of training for BPI certification.
“What we’re doing today is the field training; taking what we learned in the classroom and applying it to a real house out in the field,” he said. “We’re doing a comprehensive home assessment and energy audit that meets BPI standards. We’re looking at the house as a system, and how the systems interact.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
TODD MAYNARD, right, electrical construction and maintenance instructor at Northern Maine Community College, checks for leaks in the ductwork of the heating system at a private Presque Isle residence during a recent hands-on energy audit as instructor Howard Vics looks on. Maynard was one of five NMCC instructors who took the weeklong course, offered through the Building Performance Institute (BPI), which covered the basic principles of building science to assess energy efficiency in a home while also monitoring conditions that have a direct impact on human health and safety.
“I’m looking to help the students understand how these systems interact, and we’re particularly using this information as far as health and safety are concerned,” said Vics. “We’re looking for things like combustible gasses – propane and natural gas; we’re looking for the presence of carbon monoxide, the functioning of the heating and hot water system, looking to make sure that it drafts properly so that we’re not getting combustion gasses spilling back into the home, doing diagnostics on building leakage, and more.”
Participating in the course were McDougal, Pam Buck, computer aided drafting instructor; Todd Maynard, electrical construction and maintenance instructor; Al St. Peter, plumbing and heating instructor; and Donald Hanson, adjunct instructor for building science courses.
Vics admitted the local course was “probably the toughest class I’ve ever had to teach.”
“These people – because of the depth of their training and background – are really pushing me, which, quite frankly, makes me better and hopefully they’ll learn something, as well,” he said.
This was the third energy auditing course St. Peter has taken.
“I take all that I can to learn all that I can,” he said. “I’ve been in several houses and it’s amazing the lack of insulation and the heat loss that goes through these buildings. It’s staggering how much fuel we’re wasting on these buildings that were constructed with really no insulating value in mind.
“Today we’ve been making sure that the combustion zone – where the furnace and hot water heater are – has an adequate amount of ventilation before we seal the house up,” said St. Peter. “We want to make sure that if we come in to insulate and seal all the air leaks that the heating appliances and the water heater are still going to be able to work.”
St. Peter said he wants his students to get more out of his classes “than just oil burner basics.”
“I’m going to be able to share with the students the information and technologies that are available to them to properly evaluate a building as a whole … a building that will properly capture the heat that is being generated from the heating system,” he said. “I’m very fortunate that the school has given me the opportunity for this training. It’s something that I plan on sharing with the students for the rest of my years teaching.”
For Buck, the weeklong course was a way to bring additional information to her students.
“I wanted to take part in this seminar because I’m hoping to introduce some of the energy conservation measures into my curriculum,” she said. “We do residential and commercial building design, and I think it’s very important for the students to be aware of the weatherization techniques and the new things that are happening in that field. I thought if I got certified, it would be a good way to bring that information to my classroom.
“My students are responsible for doing the plans for the Sinawik house, and if we can include things like leak sealing techniques and energy conservation measures into the design of the house,” Buck said, “the homeowner will be that much more pleased. We can also include the information in our theoretical design projects that we do. Everybody designs a house or commercial buildings and it will be a requirement to work that into those design projects.”
Moving forward, McDougal, and the faculty members in the construction trade programs, will begin developing the new curriculum, which will include the addition of courses in Energy Auditing and Solar Domestic Hot Water.
The Energy Auditing class will be based on BPI certification standards as required for Efficiency Maine and Maine State Housing. It will be required of all plumbing and heating program students and be offered as a technical-related elective for other construction cluster programs.
The Domestic Solar and Hot Water course, the only one of its kind offered in the region, will also be added to the plumbing and heating program as a graduation requirement. The three credit hour course offering will feature both classroom and lab time over a 15-week semester. The curriculum will follow the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP) principles for solar water heating.
Aside from the new courses, the plumbing and heating curriculum will be further enhanced by adding instruction modules in energy control and management techniques into existing heating and refrigeration courses in the program’s third and fourth semesters. The new modules will reflect newer energy management techniques such as direct digital control.
The Electrical Construction and Maintenance I and II courses will be revised with additional focus on designing and managing electrical systems, particularly energy efficient systems, efficient motors using alternative and renewable electrical energy sources, retrofits and energy audits.
A current course, Blueprint Reading for the Construction Trades, which is required of all construction cluster students, will be strengthened with green energy elements, including isometric and orthographic drawings to show green building materials and energy systems. The Building Science I and II courses will be expanded from three credit hours to four credit hours with the addition of 30 hours per semester of laboratory training.
“Students within the building trades program will be receiving training in ‘greener’ building methodologies in their building science courses,” said McDougal. “As we refocus our courses, and look toward a reduction of energy consumption by shifting to the teaching of alternative energy sources, we not only are preparing our students for a changing workforce, but are also helping to reduce our carbon footprint.”
In addition to the curriculum enhancements in the construction trade programs, a small portion of the Efficiency Maine grant will be used to purchase equipment for NMCC’s Wind Power Technology Program, the first and only of its kind in New England.
