Explore how innovative ceiling solutions with phase change material (PCM) are transforming building energy efficiency and occupant comfort, from high-rise offices to schools, in this insightful discussion with Armstrong experts.
Host Bryant Hughes sits down with Mick Dunn, Technical Support Specialist at Armstrong Ceilings and Ian Gumbert, Facility Manager at Armstrong’s Lancaster headquarters, to explore how PCM (phase change material) ceilings are changing the way buildings manage thermal comfort. They break down the science behind phase change materials, explain how PCM ceilings can mimic the thermal mass of concrete at a lower weight and cost, and share real-world examples of how the technology has reduced temperature-related occupant complaints while lowering energy use and limiting manual HVAC adjustments.
Timestamps:
Mick Dunn: [00:00:00] So ceilings, that's what we're talking about here, right, is acoustical ceilings doing more than maybe just what we're used to, which is acoustics, aesthetics, and accessibility. Real major features of why we use ceilings in spaces. What can we do with that real estate, if you like, to do more than just that and help influence temperature and comfort in buildings?
And then obviously the byproduct of that is energy savings, and the technology is called phase change material, and you could think of that a little bit like ice in a cooler. When ice is melting, it's absorbing heat, and that's what keeps your cooler at 32 degrees. And in fact, when all that water's melted and it refreezes, it does the same thing in reverse.
So what we're exploring here is these sort of climate smart renovations using a technology that freezes and melts at room temperature, and what it's doing is behaving like a thermal mass.
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In today's episode, host Bryant Hughes sits down with Mick Dunn, a technical support specialist at Armstrong Ceilings, and Ian Gumbert, the facility manager at Armstrong's Lancaster headquarters, to explore how PCM, phase change material ceilings, are changing the way buildings manage thermal comfort. They break down the science behind phase change materials and explain how PCM ceilings can mimic the thermal mass of concrete at a lower weight and cost, and share real-world examples of how technology has reduced temperature-related occupant complaints while lowering energy use and limiting manual HVAC adjustments.
Now, let's get [00:02:00] into it.
Bryant Hughes: My name's Brian Hughes. I am a senior PR specialist here at Armstrong. Joining me today, we've got two experts who bring different but equally essential perspective to the conversation we're gonna have today regarding climate smart renovation. So, first we have Mick Dunn, if you wanna give a quick intro.
Mick Dunn: Sure. Hi, everyone. My name's Mick Dunn, and work at Armstrong Ceilings, helping support our TEMPLOK energy-saving ceiling product solutions, and that's what we're gonna be talking about a little bit today, so I'm sort of, helping support a lot of technical questions on that front and looking forward to exploring this.
Ian.
Ian Gumbert: Morning. My name's Ian Gumbert. I'm the facilities manager for Armstrong's headquarters campus in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. So while I am an Armstrong employee, I try to represent some of the customer or client-facing side of the TEMPLOK application.
Bryant Hughes: Well, thank you and gentlemen, welcome to welcome to the show here.
So, just to [00:03:00] kind of start us off you know, what are the problems that we're really trying to solve with climate smart renovation in existing buildings? And Mick, if you wanna talk a little bit in simple terms about thermal mass and w- and what that means in a building.
Mick Dunn: Yeah, for sure. So ceilings, when we think, that's what we're talking about here, right, is acoustical ceilings doing more than maybe just what we're used to, which is acoustics, aesthetics, and accessibility, a real major features of why we use ceilings in spaces.
What can we do with that real estate, if you like, to do more than just that and help influence temperature and comfort in buildings? And then obviously the byproduct of that is energy savings, and the technology that Armstrong's introduced to that equation is called phase change material. And you could think of that a little bit like ice in a cooler.
When ice is melting, it's absorbing heat, and that's what keeps your cooler at 32 degrees. And in fact, when all that water's melted and it refreezes, it does the same thing in reverse. It releases heat as it [00:04:00] refreezes. And so this is a fundamental property of a lot of different materials in nature when they go from a solid to a liquid or a liquid to a gas, just like refrigerants do.
It's undergoing a phase change. And so what we're exploring here is these sort of climate smart renovations using a technology that freezes and melts at room temperature, i.e. like 72 degrees or so, 70 to 75 degrees. And what it's doing is behaving like a thermal mass. It's absorbing heat the way that you might think concrete and other traditional forms of thermal mass does, but very lightweight, like only a pound a square foot, so you could retrofit this into a building with the existing grid.
Bryant Hughes: And Mick, how does that compare to like brick or concrete,
Mick Dunn: Yeah.
Bryant Hughes: Which traditionally you think about, yeah.
Mick Dunn: Yeah, the phase change material would be somewhere in the range... If you wanted to match what's in a quarter-inch thick of, of this product we're talking about in concrete, it'd have to be two inches thick in concrete.
So we're talking, like, 25 times the weight if you wanted to [00:05:00]add traditional thermal mass in, in what's being added here. And one of these two-by-two panels of, a ceiling panel would be equivalent of about 13 to 14 bricks worth of thermal mass being added back into a space. So, goal is helping smooth temperatures and make things more comfortable, and the result is saving energy.
Bryant Hughes: Now, Ian, from your perspective when you first encountered phase change material, first kinda heard about, about this, and I know we- we're gonna talk a little bit about how you as the facility manager at Armstrong has, has used phase change material. I mean, how intuitive, like, when you first heard it is this concept and I guess your first brush with hearing about this?
Ian Gumbert: Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, it's fairly intuitive. You know, when you think about phase change material as a thermal battery, basically being able to store and then release energy in a controlled manner inside a building, it's a really intuitive concept. The chemistry behind it is a little bit [00:06:00] complicated.
You know, I'm a mechanical engineer, so the chemistry side of things I don't fully get, but the really good news is that in this type of application when it's in a ceiling, once it's installed, you really don't have to look at it, see it, touch it, or even think about it. There's no ongoing maintenance.
You don't have to work with it. It's just there, it's present, and it's doing its job helping you save energy 24/7.
Bryant Hughes: Yeah, and so when it... Normally, you're thinking about ceilings in terms of acoustics. Mick, that, that marriage of the, of the temperature and acoustics and, and how PCM ceilings kind of address can you s- talk a little bit about that?
Mick Dunn: Yeah. In terms of, like, responding to different temperatures that fluctuate in a building, often we've found that, say, above a ceiling, nobody really knows what's going on up there, and there's sometimes some pretty interesting temperature trends. It's, it's not like what's happening above your ceiling is exactly what's happening in the room, and especially when you think of, like, a single story building or a building with a lot of solar gain and things like [00:07:00] that you get a lot of heat loss and ductwork in the winter and other factors that are coming in, and your HVAC system has to overcome all of that, but it's only able to do that in the space.
And so whatever you can do to help sort of respond to some of those differentials can be really helpful when you've got a melt point that's sort of helping buffer and keep you in that window. And I think to tail on what Ian said about the maintenance side you know, you really don't have to do anything.
There's no moving parts or pieces here, right? It's just a, a completely passive solution. And so then when you think about, like, school districts and places where... and, and buildings where perhaps they're on the, the, what we might call the edge of air conditioning and they don't have air conditioning in a lot of their schools and they only need it for, like, four weeks of the year because school comes back and then it gets cooler again yet you're having issues with learning environments like that or maybe office environments where you just can't keep up, it's just a nice way to introduce something to spaces where you're maybe really limited on what else you can do, right?
So, it, it's [00:08:00] really valuable in that way of being an asset that can help introduce more capacity into spaces that just don't have it.
Bryant Hughes: Yeah. And I mean, you, you mentioned a couple of buildings types like schools and offices. Ian, now, what, what type of... when it comes to temperature and thermal comfort what, what are the types of complaints or, or maybe pain points that you hear on a regular basis?
E- even, you know, tracing back to before maybe you even heard about PCM and, and what you're kind of focused on in that arena.
Ian Gumbert: I'm sure every facility manager out there has some areas that they're supporting that just struggle with hot and cold calls all the time and our headquarters campus is no different.
So there, there's a few areas where, you know, due to a variety of factors you know, you know, exterior walls getting tons of sunlight you know, HVAC systems that are just kind of on the limit of their performance. So we certainly have areas like that where we would get hot and cold calls.
We were fortunate [00:09:00] enough to be able to actually test some occupant and do some occupant comfort tests in a couple of offices that were really prone to temperature swings being southwest facing, again, getting tons of sunlight and having an HVAC system that's really kind of on the edge of, of what it's capable of conditioning spaces.
A- and we were able to see a marked improvement in the number of hot and cold calls that we got using Temp-Block to help keep temperatures stable in an occupied space.
Bryant Hughes: And I mean, you've, you've probably... Have you heard any, I guess, you know, noticeable differences since the, from maybe some of these occupants, anything like that?
Ian Gumbert: Absolutely. The couple of offices that I was referring to we would get complaints almost weekly. One of those real thorn in your side type of spaces where you just hear from the occupants all the time, and, and legitimately so. They were really struggling with you know, hot and cold swings in, in the rooms.
And honestly, I was just thinking about this it's probably been about [00:10:00] two years since we installed the material and since we've had any complaints from those occupants. So, it really did help out.
Bryant Hughes: Yeah. No, that, that's great. And, and as someone that works in a building, I, I, I do tend to notice it as well.
so, wondering if you could maybe share a quick example or two maybe some other scenarios where PCM ceilings have, have you know, created a measurable impact.
Mick Dunn: Yeah. We touched on schools earlier, and maybe that's a good starting point because I think it is a really great application for both the energy side of the equation and the thermal comfort where that becomes really important, and classrooms tend to be highly occupied, so you get a lot of internal load there.
So yeah, there's been some really interesting applications we've been exploring and installing some projects in, in cold climates and warm. We've, we've had really interesting results and really promising outcomes in Palm Springs all the way up into like New England and New Hampshire looking at both thermal comfort and energy savings on the [00:11:00] heating and cooling side.
So, you know, that's a definitely a really interesting application. Office buildings, currently we've got multiple high-rise office buildings in areas like New York City and 15-story retrofit renovations that are being taken at, at all the way through new construction towers that are incorporating the phase change material.
So there you're sort of talking about the differences between, say, plenum return and, and ducted return. And as you get into like a plenum return environment, which is really common in high-rise buildings, now this phase change is like literally in the return air of the ductwork streams. It's like part of the HVAC system in a really unique way that you know, is really advantageous as well.
And then so beyond that, you know, there's a lot of different building types that can sort of apply to, to this you know, in different sectors of the market. But you know, there's a couple of examples at least of, of the types of things that we've been seeing from the market and where a lot of the interest has lied.
Probably higher ed as well is another interesting one where there's a lot more sustainability drive and, and [00:12:00] embodied carbon and carbon... operational carbon is, is a, a really big concern as well.
Bryant Hughes: Yeah. And you know- PCM ceilings, they're not gonna work just on their own. You're not gonna be able to just install them and notice, you know, a difference right away unless there's some sort of coordination with the HVAC systems.
You know, could, could you talk about maybe some of the adjustments that, you know, facilities can... And Ian both of you guys could speak on this, just some of the strategies that PCM ceilings can work better with the existing HVAC systems in these buildings.
Ian Gumbert: Yeah, absolutely. I guess the important thing to understand is, you know, knowing that this is a phase change material, you need to make sure that you are actually changing the phase of the material, right?
So whether you're doing that through controlled temperature changes or whether the space is doing that naturally, like the offices that I was referring to earlier-
Mick Dunn: Yeah ...
Ian Gumbert: you need to make sure that you're actually getting it to store the energy and then release it. Setting up in an ideal [00:13:00] world, setting up a schedule that allows the temperature of the space to change in a controlled manner is ideal.
Best practice is to take as much advantage of free cooling as you possibly can. So in the cooling seasons, cool the building down overnight with the kind of free outdoor air as much as you can, and then allow it to heat up on its own again, to freeze and thaw that material. Obviously, you wanna make sure to do that, and like you said, in a controlled manner so that you're not impacting occupant comfort.
And you also wanna make sure that you're not kicking on the heating systems. Getting those schedules right which was something that we experimented with a fair amount in a couple of trials that we did on our campus, is, is really important. Funny enough, the, the second place that we installed phase change material here on campus, when we first put it in the space had, you know, n- new controls, brand new air handler and it held temperature too well.
So, so the phase change material wasn't actually doing anything. It was just holding a stable temperature all the time, and so you weren't able to take [00:14:00] advantage of that thermal storage capacity.
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Mick Dunn: Yeah, that's like a common thing. As an example, we had [00:15:00] a customer out in San Diego doing some similar things to what he is talking about in terms of doing some testing of where they'd had installations in a, a bit of a more of a controlled area where they were like, "Oh, we've got this installation across the office building, but in these two rooms we've actually got fairly identical two VAV units that are controlling these two offices separately, separate thermostats pretty consistent exposure to you know, elements and such."
So they decided to run a little bit of a test, and it was a very similar result where working with the facility managers sort of saying, "I'm not seeing much change here. It's like everything's the same. It's all still sitting at around 72 degrees." And a lot of that was just because the HVAC was doing all of the work.
And this was actually more heavily into the summer and so one of the things we picked up on was, well, if you pre-cooled the space to, say, 70 degrees early in the morning at about 4:00 in the morning or 5:00, and then it would just set the space up before everybody comes in, and then maybe you could run a test in the [00:16:00] afternoon.
So they decided to just isolate the offices so that they could run everything without occupants in them and shut off their cooling to... or set it back to about 78 degrees or, or so, or 77, I think, in the afternoon from noon to 4:00 PM. And so what happened was the phase change material just kind of stayed at an even level while the regular room rose about two, two and a half degrees over that period.
So that's where they helped to see what it could do and then begin to evolve their controls a little bit better that they had to s- begin to optimize for its use and sort of, get better, stretch, especially in demand periods and things like that in, in places like Southern California where you get whacked with the pretty high demand charge.
Ian Gumbert: One additional benefit that I'll mention you know, while it does take a little bit of work to set up a schedule to, you know, again, allow the phase change material to change phase by, you know, you're essentially shedding some of your cooling load into the evening and overnight hours. And being [00:17:00] able to do that you know, kind of spreading that load out has some real maintenance benefits especially in areas where as I mentioned before, air handling systems can be kind of on the edge of their performance you know, n- not keeping spaces in condition where you might want them to.
So being able to shed that load and, and defer it reduces the peak demand on your current HVAC equipment. And in situations where, again, you've got older equipment that may not be performing correctly, or if you're designing new equipment for a new space, you can actually reduce the size of the equipment that you need from the get-go.
So some real benefits on there too.
Bryant Hughes: So back to kind of what both of you guys were saying, I ha- just had a quick question. Like, let's say you, don't have a scenario where you can conduct tests. I know that there's energy modeling and, facility managers can take advantage of those types of services to kind of see what those tests would look like maybe before they even are thinking about phase change material.
Mick Dunn: Yeah, that, that can be a little bit more common in active renovation, new [00:18:00] construction projects where the consulting team, the design team have an energy modeling consultant or sustainability consultant on board, and they're using that to drive a lot of decisions on the project. That's like a really easy, obvious way to use tools like that.
And there's a tool called IES VE, which is a virtual environment energy modeling software that this technology's actually part of, so that professionals already using that really common software program can actually see that a-and see how it's gonna influence the building all the way through mechanical design.
But even in existing buildings that don't have a model, some of these technologies allow you to just kind of run what you might in the industry call a reference model or get a, an example of what might happen in, in buildings like that. So, there are still ways to kind of get a reference of you know, what the impacts could be and how to best leverage things like controls to get the most out of the material, especially if there's a particular goal in mind that you're trying to sort of address.
Bryant Hughes: Yeah. [00:19:00] So I just wanna switch gears to, like, an implementation standpoint and, you know, kind of what the installation looks like, easy to retrofit, and maybe some, you know, what are some of the biggest barriers that, that you guys see in terms of, you know, complexity, cost, that sort of thing, when it comes to installing these in an existing space or yeah.
Mick Dunn: If you're listening or watching, like you could think of this just like a regular ceiling tile.
It's a backer on that tile, so nothing changes on the look or the performance. In fact, we sort of boost the acoustics a little bit when we add the phase change 'cause we're increasing its ability to block sound from space to space, which is really good for speech privacy and, and things like that. And so, there are multiple families of tile with this technology called CALOP and Ultima.
And so it's quite easy to match with existing specifications on, on projects when you're thinking of a lot of the common tiles that you'd run into in, in the [00:20:00] market, especially when we talk about offices, office buildings and, and healthcare and things like that.
So it's possible to retrofit this into an existing building and match the tile you already have in, in many instances. And then in others where there's an active renovation happening, chances are there's a solution that will match what's already been sort of specified. So that bit's relatively easy, and then it sort of transitions into the install bit in terms of like, no need to change your grid.
The grid carrying capacity on the ASTM ratings is fine for light all the way through to heavy duty grid in terms of anything that we're adding. so that, that bit on the specification and, and planning side is relatively pain-free other than just kind of matching visual, which can differ from space to space.
Maybe you could touch on the install bit and what your experience has been with, with that.
Ian Gumbert: Yeah. From an installation standpoint, it really is pretty straightforward. If you have teams crews that can install ceilings, they can install this product too. It's a little bit heavier [00:21:00] than a normal ceiling tile, but otherwise the process is exactly the same.
Right now on our campus, I think we have about 40,000 square feet that are covered and at about half of that, we've actually just done the tile. So, an existing grid, we just pulled out the whole square two-by-two tiles, dropped in a TEMPLOK tile, you know, matching the same product, so CALA for CALA in our case.
And it was lickety-split, very simple. So it, it really is that easy, and then obviously, and you've got the HVAC temp changes that you need to make. Yeah.
Mick Dunn: It's probably worth mentioning real quick too that where the PCM panels go is just on the full tiles. So currently they're not designed to be cut for MEP devices in the perimeter cuts, so those areas remain a regular ceiling tile.
So if you are retrofitting and you do already have some of these products like Ultima or CALA, chances are you can just put the full panels in and that's it. We don't need 100% coverage of this stuff across the space. We just need 50% to 70% to be [00:22:00] effective, and so that sort of gets us there without having to disrupt the process of what happens with the MEP devices and, and perimeter cuts.
So that way the labor doesn't need to change because everything's the same in terms of, sort of the installation procedure.
Bryant Hughes: One more thing that we'll, we'll cover here, just worth mentioning is just, you know, in terms of the financial side. We talked a little bit about the installation being, being seamless and great for retrofits.
PCM ceilings are also covered under the 48 E federal tax credit with, with you know, either 40 or 50% depending on, you know, your space and, and those types of things. So, you know, Ian, how much, how much do in- incentives like this, you know, whether it's PCM or, or other, types of building materials, how much do these types of in- incentives influence your decision-making, you know, maybe compared to other energy savings or comfort improvements that, that you'd be considering for a space?
Ian Gumbert: Quite a bit. You know, if [00:23:00] you can improve your payback by uh, getting a tax credit especially if it's a ceiling that you were already going to replace, it really becomes a bit of a no-brainer if you can install a ceiling that's going to, you know, save you money, save you energy every month, every year and you're getting that tax credit back to improve the payback of that project that's fantastic.
The other nice thing that that really helps with is when you look at building envelope improvements that can save energy, you know, windows, doors, roofing, walls, all those are pretty invasive. Whereas replacing a ceiling is relatively low impact to the occupants. So now getting a tax credit on top of that really becomes beneficial.
Bryant Hughes: Yeah, I mean, I think that's a great point. So we'll just kind of wrap up here. Maybe what's one misconception about energy efficiency in buildings and that, that you'd like, you know, folks to know as it relates to PCM ceilings?
And if there's anything else that you'd like to add to the conversation, either of you guys.
Mick Dunn: I think I would probably say probably the biggest [00:24:00] misconception is people just don't realize a ceiling could help with thermal comfort and energy. That's a lot on us and the education to the industry to let people know there's more to be done and more benefit there, and probably the fact that it qualifies for a tax credit.
And so simply said, if you're familiar with the solar and wind type tax credits that have been around for the last 15, 20 years, we're talking about the same thing here. So it's, it's 30, 40, in our case currently, 40% to 50% tax credit on a project that applies to both a for-profit and nonprofit.
Those two are the big ones, just like letting people know you could do more with your ceiling, and then the other part is that the ceiling could cost less than a regular one when you're actively doing a renovation, then that tax credit more than makes up for the difference because it's applying to the panels, the grid, the labor.
It's, it's a huge win on that side of things on an active budgeted projects.
Ian Gumbert: Yeah, I'll add to that and just say my friends in sustainability say that the best way to save energy is to not need it in the first [00:25:00] place. And so being able to achieve that with a ceiling that's relatively easy to install, no maintenance once it's installed, and can improve occupant comfort once it's in place is really a win all around.
Bryant Hughes: Great. Great. Well, I appreciate both your guys' time and jumping on, Ian and Mick. So, yeah, appreciate your guys' time.
Mick Dunn: Excellent. Thanks everybody. Thanks all. Thanks Bryant.
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