Welcome to Crowsnest and Aurora Halls, your home for the 2015‐2016 academic year. In keeping with the university’s Eyes High vision, these brand new buildings incorporate many sustainable design features. In order to help make you as comfortable as possible we’d like to provide you with some basic information about the design features of your new home. Temperature Control The thermostat (see photo 1) located on the wall of your room has a slider hidden underneath a small door beside the temperature readout. You can move the slider up if you want warmer temperatures and down for cooler temperatures. The only control for heating or cooling your room is this slider switch. The digital temperature readout on the front of the thermostat indicates the current temperature of your room. When a room is occupied there may be a 1 to 2 degree temperature difference between the digital readout and the temperature setting you have set using the slider, this is normal. The digital readout is the actual temperature in your suite. The heating / cooling system is designed to keep your room temperature between 18 and 24 degrees Celsius. Even if you move the slider up to the maximum 35 degrees shown, the heating system only stays on until the room temperature reaches 24 degrees. Even if you slide the switch down to the minimum 15 degrees, the cooling system only stays on until the room temperature reaches 18 degrees. Slider Photo 1 Occupancy Sensor You may have noticed white boxes with small white domes mounted on one wall of each room in your suite. (see photo 2) These are occupancy sensors and are just one of the sustainability features of the building design. These sensors detect both heat and motion and tell the heating/cooling system when a room is occupied. When a room is occupied, the heating or cooling system responds to the thermostat setting which you can control as described above. However, if no occupant is detected in the room for at least one hour, the room temperature will slowly revert to a more energy efficient setting to reduce the amount of heating or cooling being used, depending on the season. So if you are away from your room or suite for more than one hour, upon your return you may find the room slightly cooler (or warmer) than when you left it, depending on the season. There is no need to adjust your thermostat, the occupancy sensor will immediately sense your presence and resume heating (or cooling) your room back to the setting you have chosen previously using the thermostat slider. Photo 2 In rare instances, if you are a very still sleeper (no tossing and turning!) you may fool the occupancy sensor into thinking that there is nobody in your room and you may awake to find the temperature has slowly changed during the night. Ventilation In order to meet mandatory building ventilation standards, each suite has a small fan that is either mounted in a wall or ceiling space. This fan blows fresh air into your suite or room through a grille and runs at a low speed 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. There is no on/off control for this fan. The temperature of the fresh air will typically be about 20 to 22 degrees C unless you set your thermostat slider to make your room cooler. In this case, the fresh air will be blown in at about 16C. This air is NOT meant for heating your room – just to provide fresh air and cooling. Your suite is heated by radiant panels (see the next section). If you find the vent mounted high on the wall (see photo 3) is blowing air downwards and making you uncomfortable, please put in a maintenance request to have the blades on the vent rotated so that the air is blown upwards into the room. Please do not try to adjust the blades yourself! Photo 3 Heating Heating for your room comes from the radiant panel that you will see near the ceiling along the outside wall (see photo 4). When the thermostat is set high enough, you will feel radiant heat coming from the panels. You may hear clicking sounds; these are sounds that the control valve for the panel makes as it repositions itself or may be sounds made by the expansion of the radiant panel pipes as they heat. Radiant panels don’t produce heat instantly and it will usually take 5 to 10 minutes before you start to feel increased warmth after you return to your room. Photo #4