The new Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses is one energy-efficient place of worship.
Located at 4336-15th Ave., next door to the old home for the congregation, it was the subject of an open house on Friday and in the course of providing a tour, Stefan Freudentheil emphasized the features designed to reduce its carbon footprint.
The central one is a heating, ventilation and air conditioning system that is tied into a motion-sensing system. If it doesn't detect movement for 15 minutes, it will turn off for that particular section of the building all buy itself. The same goes for the lights.
Outside, the parking lot lights are now LED rather than halogen. And radiant floor heating combined with a foundation that holds heat for a long time were among the other highlights listed.
"The system for air conditioning and heating will use outside air as much as possible," he noted. "So say our AC kicks in right now. It's five degrees cooler outside, it will use our outside air to offset what it's using in here because why use our cooling system more than it needs to be?"
Conversely, if the heating system fails and it's -30 C outside, Freudentheil said he has been told the building is so efficient that it will take three days for the pipes to freeze.
"We haven't tested this," he cautioned.
Over the four months since it began holding services, Freudentheil said they've noticed a 63-per-cent savings in electricity and a 73-per-cent savings on natural gas consumption.
Rising difficulty with maintaining the old Kingdom Hall, which was built in the 1970s, combined with a worldwide push to build new ones and reap the economies of scale through bulk buying of materials in the process provided the motivation to embark on the project.
With the help of 296 volunteers, the Prince George Kingdom Hall was constructed over the course of 98 days and completed in late December 2018. It holds 155 seats making it the largest of its kind in Canada at the moment, according to Freudentheil.
"The efficiencies are great but it's nice to be in a newer building," he said. "It really helps everyone to feel invigorated when they attend."
