On December 6, 2022, Elara Engineering was recognized by the Illinois Chapter of ASHRAE with two 2022 Excellence-in-Engineering Awards. Cumulatively, Elara has now earned a total of 30 ASHRAE chapter awards, several of which have advanced to earn awards at ASHRAE’s regional and international levels, including a recent International Award for 3833 North Broadway Urban Geothermal – New Construction.

The key to these recognitions is Elara’s dedicated and talented project teams and we congratulate them on their achievement and recognition by their ASHRAE Illinois Chapter peers. We also extend our sincere thanks to the owners, managers, and staff of these award-winning buildings for their vision and commitment to sustainable, energy efficiency projects.

These awards once again provide tangible evidence of Elara’s passion and commitment to the sustainable design of energy efficient building infrastructure systems. More specifically, they showcase the breadth and depth of our team’s experience and expertise to deliver practical solutions and designs, and innovative applications of existing and new technologies.

Chicago Public Schools – Christopher Elementary School

• New, more energy efficient air source VRF system replaced main heating and cooling systems.
• Hybrid VRF approach incorporated existing heating systems for supplemental heat to reduce implementation costs.
• Ventilation systems upgraded to new, more robust setup that utilizes energy recovery wheels with improved distribution.
• Displacement Ventilation added to spaces to improve IAQ and as a primary cooling source for select high occupancy, large volume spaces.
• Full project details can be found here.

St. Louis County Residence

• Geothermal field serves entire heating and cooling needs of building as well as DHW preheating.
• Energy and custom, parametric TRNSYS model to determine field performance for appropriate geothermal field sizing.
• Use of new technology – gravity wall units – minimizes (along with radiant floor) the need of fan energy for heating and cooling of spaces.
• System conducive to project requirements with limited ceiling space and multiple temperature zones.
• System eliminated reliance on natural gas for space heating and prepared site for potential future carbon neutral or net zero operations.
• Full project details can be found here.