BigHorn Home Improvement Center Energy Performance

The BigHorn Development Project, located in Silver-thorne, Colorado, is one of the nation's first commercial building projects to integrate extensive high-performance design into a retail space. The BigHorn Home Improvement Center, completedin the spring of 2000, is a 42,366 ft² (3,936 m ²) hardware store, warehouse, and lumberyard. The authors were brought in at the design stage of the project to provide research-level guidance to apply an integrated design process and perform a post-occupancy evaluation. An aggressive energy design goal of 60% energy cost saving was set early in the process, which focused the efforts of the design team and provided a goal for measuring the success of the project. The extensive use of natural light, combined with energy-efficient electrical lighting design, provides good illumination and excellent energy savings. The reduced lighting loads, management of solar gains, and cool climate allow natural ventilation to meet the cooling loads. A hydronic radiant floor system, gas-fired radiant heaters, and a transpired solar collector deliver heat. An 8.9 kW roof-integrated photovoltaic (PV) system offsets a portion of the electricity. After construction, the authors installed monitoring equipment to collect energy performance data and analyzed the building's energy performance for two-and-a-half years. The authors also helped program the building controls and provided recommendations for improving operating efficiency. The building shows an estimated 53% energy cost saving and a 54% source energy saving. These savings were determined with whole-building energy simulations that were calibrated with measured data. This paper discusses lessons learned related to the design process, the daylighting performance, the PV system, and the heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning system.