The Sunny Hill Nursing Home in Will County, Ill., is a good example of how smart energy-efficiency upgrades can result in financial savings—34 percent to be exact. The 131,400-square-foot skilled nursing facility is owned by Will County and serves the area’s rapidly growing senior population.
The county is a partner in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Challenge, a program launched by President Barack Obama's administration that supports commercial and industrial building owners by providing technical assistance and proven solutions to energy efficiency. In 2012, Will County pledged to reduce energy use across its building portfolio by 20 percent by 2020, relative to a 2009 baseline. To help meet these goals, a task force created a set of utility cost reduction strategies, which addressed energy conservation and utilities management for county-owned buildings and facilities.
Upgrading with energy solutions
This process started by using funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to conduct an energy audit of the Sunny Hill facility to determine where the majority of its energy expenses were coming from and identify building solutions to save energy and reduce operating expenses.
The community was constructed in 1969 and occupies a single story building with an improved lower level, organized in six avenues with nursing stations around a core area that contains common space and administrative facilities. The energy audit identified nearly $75,000 in potential annual energy cost savings from a package of 10 energy-cost reduction measures, including installing high-efficiency boilers, a high-efficiency chiller, new kitchen equipment, lighting, and other upgrades.
The Sunny Hill Nursing Home is considered an important facility for Will County, due to its proximity to the health department and its size. Preserving it was a more economically viable option than tearing down and building a new building, which also would have displaced senior residents, so the county decided to renovate the building through a multi-phased plan.
“We rehabbed the entire building while maintaining operations,” says Kathy Pecora, energy and conservation specialist with the Will County Land Use Department. “We didn’t have the opportunity to build a new building, so the county decided to do a complete retrofit of every aspect of the building.”
Step-by-step process
Phase I, which was conducted from November 2010 to December 2012, included the installation of new entrance doors, low-E glass windows, and domestic hot water tank-less units, elevator motor improvements, and interior and exterior lighting upgrades. A portion of the roof was also replaced with a cool roof that’s designed to reflect sunlight and R22 insulation was added.
Phase II, which was completed in 2013, focused on an extensive kitchen remodel with new walls, ceilings, flooring, plumbing, and electric service. Insulation was added and all kitchen appliances and walk-in cooling units were replaced with energy-efficient models. Improvements included window replacements and new LED lighting, insulation, and roofing. In addition, bi-level motion sensor controls were installed on stairway lighting and vending machine energy management systems were added.
The final phase, to be completed in 2016, involves a gut renovation of the main area patient rooms with new insulation, windows, and LED lighting with occupancy sensors, as well as upgrades to HVAC systems and roofing with a reflective coating. The residents’ dining area and common area, called the Sunshine Room, will also boast new LED lighting fixtures set to motion sensors and controls on all exterior lighting.
When it came time to upgrade the residents’ 137 rooms, Sunny Hill focused on solutions that would save the most energy and improve the quality of life for residents. That meant new LED lighting with occupancy sensors, new windows, additional insulation, and water-efficient showerheads. The home is also working on upgrading its laundry equipment with more energy-efficient models that will use less water, power, and gas.
In order to prevent the disruption of resident care, Sunny Hill played “musical chairs” with its administrative offices, therapy rooms, salon, and other services while the renovations were in process. During the kitchen remodel, the community set up a temporary kitchen in trailers and carried food into the resident area every day. By moving around non-essential services, Sunny Hill was able to keep the same amount of resident rooms in use and continue the same care level for its residents.
Seeing savings
The completion of the entire energy-efficiency retrofit will decrease the energy use intensity of the community and bring it in line with other similar building types in the region. One initial goal was to increase the community’s Energy Star score in Portfolio Manager, an EPA-created energy management software tool. The staff expects Sunny Hill to achieve that goal, which would place it in the top 30 percent of buildings nationally in terms of energy performance.
With the comprehensive upgrades, Sunny Hill is now seeing 34 percent in annual energy savings and annual energy cost savings of $71,000. It was also able to take advantage of a series of grants and incentives to finance the energy-efficiency improvements, lowering the total cost of the project and reducing the return on investment to less than eight years.
Project team:
- General contractor: Poulos Construction
- Energy auditor: Smart Energy Design Assistance Center
- The Public Building Commission and its Sunny Hill Lead, Joe Mikin
- County Executive Lawrence M. Walsh Office, Building Maintenance Manager Mike Miglorini
- Resource Recovery and Energy Division Director Dean Olson, and Energy and Conservation Specialist Kathy Pecora.
Sarah Zaleski is a policy advisor for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. She can be reached at [email protected].
