We were recently in “The Cities,” as Minneapolis and proximal St.Paul are known locally, so we did what any self respecting building science buff does before heading to the pub; take a tour of The Energy Conservatory’s facility! Paul Morin, a guy we’ve been dealing with for nearly 15 years, gave us the tour.
The link on the logo above brings you to TEC’s new web site – which is under construction – and the about section wasn’t up at the time of publishing.
Nestled in a light industrial area of Minneapolis, TEC shares a large building covered in solar panels with a coffee roaster and many other small businesses. The wafting smells of freshly roasted coffee along with the patented “new blower door smell” were enough to send us over the top! But Paul kept us focused and showed us the myriad cavernous rooms that included an office, a calibration room, a creative R&D space, shipping and receiving/storage room, training facility and a product assembly room.
We were particularly impressed with the R&D room. Having just come from training in South Dakota on fenestration water and air testing, we were particularly interested in measuring really low air flows precisely and as luck would have it, TEC were developing a product for the French market. Thanks for the tour Paul!
L-R: Paul Morin gives a tour of the Minneapolis facility’s calibration lab to BGG’s Shervin Akhavi and Haligonians Jordan MacDonald and Tom Kendall of ThermalWise. Tom is holding the control fixed by Paul’s mere touch! It was a miracle to behold, we all witnessed it and perhaps one for the canonization of St. Paul Morin of Minneapolis…
Wow, a picture where we’re together – thanks Jordan! Shervin and I checking out the R&D lab. This place would be my dream job; a creative lab where all manner of testing equipment is designed, prototyped and refined. In the background you can see a large fan used to produce steady air flows. Shervin recalls from his days at engineering school in Darmstadt using “Minneapolis” equipment, a brand widely revered throughout the EU.