Bay Bloorview Children’s Centre

Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Bay Bloorview Children’s’ Centre will become the first irrigation system in Canada to use only onsite rain water collected from the roof areas. The water will be stored in an 114,000 Lt. in ground cistern which will be equipped with a pumping system to pump the collected water to the 2” PVC irrigation mainline. In the unlikely event the cistern water level runs low, a low level switch will alert the building automation system which will automatically switch from using the pump(s) to opening up an electric master valve connected to the city supplied water. The mainline will be fitted with a check valve so the city water will not refill the cistern leaving it empty until rain water recharges it. Once recharged, if during a watering cycle (watering day for the site) the building automation system will recognize that the cistern is above the low water level point and will start up the pump leaving the master valve to the city water supply closed. If not during a water cycle, then the building automation system will begin the next watering cycle with the cistern water starting up the pump.

The “Water Wise Irrigation System” designed by WMS utilizes dripline low volume drip tube which will spread small amounts of water slowly throughout the narrow planters covered with mulch to conserve moisture. Soil moisture sensors will be installed in the 11 roof top gardens which will water on a moisture demand basis, not on a timer basis. The trees will be deep watered utilizing bubblers placed close to the trees. The main ground level irrigation system will utilize pressure compensating sprays for the medium sized areas and rotors for the larger field woodlot areas – just for the 2 year grow in period – and then they will be turned off. A central control satellite controller linked to our offsite main central controller computer will be used to control the irrigation schedule. The schedule will be automatically adjusted each day with current weather data retrieved from our ET (evapotranspiration) weather station. This allows the system to automatically replace the amount of water lost through evaporation and transpiration, supplying only the amount which the plant requires and no more. This reduces water consumption levels dramatically when compared to conventional irrigation systems. Indicated water savings from other site work range from a low of 25% to a documented high of 72%.

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