Net Zero Water Team Chosen to Design Rainwater Reuse System for Vancouver’s New Tallest Office Tower

The new high-rise building on 1133 Melville Street will be the tallest office tower in downtown Vancouver upon its completion in 2020. The proposed 37-storey building is 550-foot-tall, with 540,000 square foot of office space. The tower is aiming for a LEED Platinum green standard target, and it will be one of two towers in Canada to be a part of the Canadian Green Building Council’s Net Zero Carbon Pilot Program.

To satisfy LEED certification requirements, the developers are integrating a rainwater harvesting and reuse system in this building to reduce demand on municipal water supply and the impact of storm run off. Rainwater will be collected from a hard rooftop area and will be treated to supply toilet flushing for the entire building.

Net Zero Water worked with Integral Group Engineering of Vancouver and PML Professional Mechanical Ltd. of Port Coquitlam BC, to design a turn-key rainwater harvesting treatment system for this building. Rainwater will go through Net Zero Water rainwater treatment package system after being pulled from the poured concrete cistern. The treated water will then be stored in a 2000 US gallon day tank before going through a booster package to get to the top of the building. The main challenge facing Net Zero Water engineers was designing a booster system that is able to deliver the water to the top floor at 300 psi. Also, the NZW system design needed to consider the restricted size of the mechanical room plus low doorway sizes in order to fit equipment through. A final challenge was the implementation of the bylaw to amend the Building Bylaw regarding non-potable water systems. In order to have the NZW package comply, the engineering team needed to add an online turbidimeter to record the turbidity level of the water at all times. Net Zero Water provided many concepts, options, drawings and written specifications until the final design was agreed upon.

The Net Zero Water treatment system was designed to be compact, configured for ease of maintenance, skid mounted and complete with stainless steel pipe and fittings. The system also incorporated a Net Zero Water control panel with colour HMI screen and communications to Building Automation System.

As part of all Net Zero Water’s turn-key solutions, system commissioning, testing and training is included in the purchase of the system to ensure system operation and reliability for years to come.

Installation scheduled for late 2020.