WALTHAM, MASS. — Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc. (SGH) will be participating in Earth Day on April 18 at St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H. SGH’s hands-on workshop will evaluate one aspect of whole-building energy efficiency at St. Paul’s schoolhouse building, used for classrooms and office space. The hands-on workshop is part of a four-year partnership between SGH and St. Paul’s on comparative energy use and energy model validation research.

In the summer of 2012, St. Paul’s School will replace the existing schoolhouse building windows to lower annual heating requirements by reducing heat loss and air leakage. Installed in the 1930s, the existing windows currently leak significant amounts of air and are not thermally efficient. In partnership with St Paul’s, SGH equipped the schoolhouse with instruments that continuously monitor current interior conditions, heating and electricity trends, and exterior weather. SGH will use the information gathered before and after the window replacement to compare actual building performance to results generated by SGH’s whole-building energy model. SGH intends to validate the use of whole-building computer energy models for future building renovations.

As part of the project, SGH will be providing this hands-on Earth Day workshop where students will assemble and run investigative air-flow testing equipment, construct a pressure chamber on the interior of the schoolhouse, and operate the equipment used for data collection. The students will measure the performance of the windows, relate results to whole-building energy efficiency, and consider how the upcoming renovation impacts overall campus sustainability.