The Stevens Point Municipal Airport is home to a new SolarWall solar air heating system on a community airport hangar in Stevens Point, Wis. The new hangar is designed to accommodate eight single engine planes, with space in the hangar available for rent by pilots. Like any hangar building, ensuring adequate indoor ventilation is a key consideration. As well, Joe Wheeler, the airport manager at Stevens Point, wanted to guarantee that the ongoing energy costs were lower than a traditional hangar.
Conserval Systems Inc., Buffalo, N.Y., worked with its Berlin, Wis.-based representative Sunny Solutions LLC, to design a SolarWall system for the solar-rich, south facing wall of the hangar. The SolarWall system spans 1,300 square feet (120 m2) of collector area. The SolarWall system is powered by the sun to pre-heat building ventilation air; thus reducing the heating load and the building’s fossil fuel consumption.
The project also features 12,000 square feet (1,115 m2) of insulated metal panels—Alumashield model #AW250 with R-19 by Kingspan Insulated Panels Inc., Deland, Fla.; a hangar door from Wilson Doors, Elkhorn, Wis.; joists and seven girders from Canam USA, Point of Rocks, Md.; and structural steel from Endres Manufacturing Co., Waunakee, Wis. Louis Wasserman and Associates, Milwaukee, and Revelations Architects, Stevens Point, were the architects on the project.
Conversal Systems Inc., www.solarwall.com
Kingspan Insulated Panels Inc., www.kingspanpanels.us
Wilson Doors, www.wilsondoors.com
