...in Lucknow after 10 years of searching for a site with sufficient space for our building and parking for 20 employees. We are grateful to our neighbours for their patience during construction, and while cleanup continues. We thank the community for supporting our business over the last 30 years and are happy to have a place to welcome you this Friday for our Grand Opening.

Cliff has watched hundreds of buildings go up over the past 35 years giving him a multitude of ideas to use when planning his new shop. We thank Oke Woodsmith and Strik, Baldinelli & Associates Ltd. for transferring our ideas into a working drawing. The building is designed with insulated concrete form (ICF) wall construction which provides high thermal and sound insulation, fire safety rating and a solid structure. Hometown Construction was great at foreseeing conflicts between our desired floor plan and actual finishing details so we were able to avoid costly mistakes during construction.

Maitland Valley Conservation Authority provided valuable advice to James for determining the grades and the situation of the building on the lot to protect the stream running through it. Collins Construction and Huron Landscaping were able to get the preliminary landscaping done the day before the first snow so this spring the berm and pond were able to work as planned. Happily we have heard reports of some large fish returning to the stream.

Discussions about runoff from the building prompted Cliff to design the plumbing system to collect water from the eaves troughs to fulfill most of the buildings needs. Porters Septic Tank Service manufactured a 5500 gallon cistern to store the water and it has proved adequate so far. Having a team of excellent plumbers on staff made the rest of the job easy!

Research on green building practices prompted us to choose a white roof to decrease the cooling load in the summer. Diamond Steel Roofing Systems manufactured and installed a standing seam metal roof made to last for years.

An effort was made to incorporate natural light into the design of the building to reduce the need for artificial light and provide a healthier indoor climate. Pegg Construction Ltd. provided North Star Energy Star low E windows throughout the office and showroom area. Garage doors were provided by. J.E.M. Door Co. Ltd. from Fordwich, leaders in the polycarbonate overhead door industry, recommended by both Pegg Construction Ltd. and Kenkor Construction Ltd. To provide our additional lighting needs Sepoy Wiring Ltd. installed energy efficient I-beam lights that use high-efficiency T8 flourescent bulbs generating more light per watt.

The expertise of Cliff and the sheet metal department was used to engineer a heating, cooling and ventilation system to suit the different functions of the building. Installing a Waterfurnace geothermal heating and cooling system was never in question because we have had a Waterfurnace in our shop on Willoughby Street since 1984 and have experienced the energy savings and reliability of this product first hand. While excavating the site we discovered a spring at the edge of the property which caused a lot of grief but luckily proved to be a constant supply of water we could use for the geothermal system instead of installing a ground loop.

The Waterfurnace Synergy Unit is used to heat the water for in floor heat and also a forced air heating and cooling system. The radiant floor heat has eight zones and the forced air system has six zones allowing us different temperature settings for the various needs of the shop, warehouse and offices. These are controlled with set back thermostats to save on Hydro consumption. Cam Moffat of Moffat Technologies was recommended by Sepoy Wiring to install a specialized control panel to monitor and maximize the efficiency of the geothermal system. We are excited to see what all this translates to in energy savings.

A special thank you to our own employees for their contributions towards achieving this goal, and to Nick, James, Russ and Diana for their support and help.