Digital Commemorative Magazine - 30

TRANSFORMING OUTDATED INEFFICIENCY INTO A HEALTHY,
SUSTAINABLE MODEL WITH PEX PIPING SYSTEMS

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As one of the world's leaders in advancing innovative and sustainable building practices, ASHRAE
recently took on the challenge of designing and
renovating a 1970s era, ineﬃcient building, 66,700
ft2 (6,197 m2) as its new global headquarters while
establishing net-zero energy goals and working
towards a score of zero for ASHRAE's Building
Energy Quotient (Building EQ) Performance Score.
As the hub for the development of building solutions
for a healthier world and a teaching center
for professionals, the project required thoughtful
design, unique construction and exceptional products to create an economically successful retroﬁt
model that was viable to replicate.

In addition to the requirements for net-zero oﬃce
advanced design, the building also needed to
consider worker productivity and wellness through
acute visual perception, abundant daylight, astute
acoustic properties, exceptional thermal comfort
and healthful air quality.
As the team began their work on the concepts and
designs to consider how to meet all of these important building goals eﬀectively, the plumbing, heating
and cooling systems came to the forefront as one of
the major factors inﬂuencing the building's environmental quality.
While a plumbing system's job is to deliver water to
ﬁxtures throughout a building eﬃciently and eﬀectively, the system's design and the material of the
product make a signiﬁcant diﬀerence in the sustainability and performance of the structure.
The Uponor AquaPEX® plumbing system in the
ASHRAE global headquarters renovation features
3,600 feet (1,097 m) of ½ in. to 2 in. (13 mm to 51
mm) crosslinked polyethylene (PEX) pipe, which
has become the new standard for plumbing piping
systems in homes and business nationwide.
With its modest beginnings in the early 1970s as
a residential radiant ﬂoor heating pipe, PEX has
advanced into various other applications, including
residential and commercial plumbing, residential
ﬁre safety, commercial radiant heating and cooling,
commercial hydronic heating hot-water piping and
commercial chilled-water piping.
The ﬂexibility and stable material costs of the pipe
are what brought forth its initial popularity among
installers who were looking for a system that was
more economical and faster to install. However,
professionals quickly learned about other beneﬁts of
the pipe, including its resistance to corrosion, pitting

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