The Ottawa Curling Club has spent almost half a million dollars on major equipment upgrades for its 162-year-old Centretown building for the 2013-14 season.
Located at 440 O’Connor St., the club is home to current Canadian women’s curling champion Rachel Homan. Other famous names include Earle Morris, the first man to go to the Brier, the Canadian men’s curling championships.
The club's 2012 maintenance check-up revealed that the 27-year-old refrigeration system needed to be replaced.
Along with the plant, a new machine room was required as the club’s old one wasn’t up to code.
A committee was created to carry out the project and kept two goals in mind.
“Efficiency was the biggest thing we were going for – reduction of usage of energy,” says club president Michael Loewen. “We also wanted to complete it in the summer instead of having a breakdown midwinter, then we wouldn’t be able to curl at all.”
Focusing on efficiency, environment-friendly features and a specific time frame, the club chose York Urbanist, a landscape architecture and urban design company, to complete the project.
According to Loewen, the upgrade cost $460,000 in total – $360,000 for the new state-of-the-art ice plant and $100,000 for the machine room.
The funding for the project was generated from membership fees, bar and kitchen sales and ice rentals. Members also pay $50 into a capital investment fund each year.
Loewen estimates it will take five to eight years to rebuild the club’s capital reserves.
“Usually the ice installation process takes a minimum of two to three weeks. With this plant, we could have it finished in potentially half the time,” says Jon Wall, head ice technician.
The new ice plant features two 30 horsepower compressors instead of one 50 horsepower compressor. This increases cooling and energy efficiency as only one of the two smaller units is needed to maintain a playing surface once the ice has been frozen.
In addition to the advanced compressors, two dehumidifiers were added to opposite corners of the rink to keep temperatures and ice levels consistent.
“It’s a domino effect; if one area works more efficiently the rest of the arena does too,” says Wall.
The Ottawa Curling Club is set to open on September 30.