The Built Environment

 

Cool Roofs are roofs with high solar reflectance and thermal emittance that absorb less heat and more efficiently release heat absorbed by the roof. This helps reduce the heat island effect surrounding the building. Cool roofs are typically a lighter-colored roof than the conventional black membrane, such as white or green. White Roofs cost the same amount as black roofs, but significantly reduce cooling cost and air pollution intensification associated with heat islands. Green roofs come with additional benefits, but also additional cost. While several of our buildings have white roofs, moving forward, white roofs are planned for all new buildings and roofing projects at Rochester Regional.

 

Rochester Regional is committed to increasing energy efficiency through equipment upgrades in our buildings. We are retrofitting internal and external lighting with LED lighting, a technology that consumes a third of the energy of traditional lighting and lasts three times as long saving money on both energy and maintenance. Projects are underway or complete at our five acute care hospitals, long-term care facilities, ElderONE, several destination campuses, medical office buildings, outpatient surgery centers, senior housing, and many other locations.

Other energy efficiency upgrades are focused on reducing the electrical and heating loads of our HVAC systems and other equipment. We are upgrading several pieces of energy intensive equipment that are often not considered, including vending machines, and refrigeration units. We use occupancy sensors on our vending machines which reduce their energy consumption by about 50%. In our refrigeration units, we use temperature control devices that more accurately measure the temperature of food, causing the cooling equipment to cycle less and consume 15-30% less energy. These two simple upgrades have around a one year payback, reduce our systems energy use by 1-2% alone, and significantly reduce the maintenance required for that equipment.

 

 

Rochester Regional is developing a set of green building standards for new construction and retrofitting of existing buildings. These standards will be based on LEED for Healthcare, GreenGuide for Health, and other industry practices. Completed in 2010, Unity at Ridgeway was retrofitted to be LEED Silver certified—the first healthcare building to become LEED certified in the Rochester Area. Some of the building’s features include a geothermal heat pump, a cool roof, and a 30% reduction in potable water usage. The forthcoming Sands-Constellation Center for Critical Care to be built at Rochester General Hospital is targeting LEED Silver Certification, and will break ground in mid-2017. Other construction projects, including the Riedman Health Center, outpatient facilities for occupational and physical therapy, and several other projects in Henrietta and Irondequoit, are all projected to receive at least LEED Silver.

 

 

All new construction projects evaluate the potential of reusing an existing building that meets the space and functional requirements of the project. Many of our construction projects involve reusing an existing structure, such as the Riedman Health Center, which comes with a number of environmental, economic, and social benefits. Environmental benefits result from decreased emissions resulting from a reduction in the amount of materials needed for a project, as well as the energy required to assemble them. Furthermore, demolition waste is greatly reduced in situations where an existing building would have been removed to allow for a new one. Although labor costs usually see a slight increase when buildings are reused, this is more than off-set by decreased material costs needed for the project. Additionally, renovating an existing building keeps more money within the local economy because of the reduced need for costly materials to be shipped in from distant locations.