Building Efficiency Technology Access Centre (BETAC)

Red River College Polytechnic (Red River College of Applied Arts Science and Technology), Winnipeg, Manitoba
What the facility does

Addresses the challenges of designing and constructing durable, energy-efficient building envelopes.

Areas of expertise

The Building Efficiency Technology Access Centre (BETAC) supports the building industry by helping clients address the challenges of designing and constructing durable, energy-efficient building envelopes, components and assembly in an environment with extreme conditions. Our core purpose is to support the needs of those involved in the design, construction, renovation, commissioning and maintenance of a building’s envelope.

BETAC can assist you by reducing the risk and uncertainty of new building envelope designs and by implementing our expertise in new and innovative products, materials, and testing methods. We also recognize the need to consider the intended use of buildings and the associated potential impacts on the building envelope.

Research services
  • 3D design and rapid prototyping
  • Automation
  • Concept ideation, validation and design review
  • Consumer focus groups
  • Corporate on-site and in-house training
  • Cost avoidance
  • Customized technology demonstrations
  • Design services
  • Field trials/simulation
  • Interactive workshops
  • Literature reviews
  • Manufacturing process design and development
  • Open houses-facility and personnel
  • Process optimization
  • Product design and development
  • Project management
  • Regulatory guidance
  • Rental of space and equipment
  • Retail product label and packaging review
  • Reverse engineering
  • Sample analysis and testing
  • Workflow consultation
  • Technology validation and transfer
Sectors of application
  • Clean technology
  • Construction (including building, civil engineering, specialty trades)
  • Education
  • Environmental technologies and related services
  • Utilities

Specialized lab

Equipment

Function

Centre for Applied Research in Sustainable Infrastructure (CARSI)

Building envelope sensors

Measures temperature, moisture, relative humidity, heat flux

CARSI

Environmental chambers

One medium-scale set of two side-by-side chambers and another large-scale chamber. Evaluates thermal performance of windows, doors and mock-up wall systems.

CARSI

Air, water and structural chamber

Air, water and structural (AWS) testing takes what can be costly guesswork out of the process of enhancing the building envelope components and assemblies

CARSI

Heat flow meter

Measures thermal conductivity and resistance of construction materials, insulation products and assemblies

Mobile resource

Whole building airtightness testing

Increases building durability while lowering operating costs

Mobile resource

CAN-BEST Smart-Lab

Portable research and testing apparatus for air, water and structural testing of windows and doors

Mobile resource

Flexible, multi-channel data acquisition system

Meeting special requirements of mobile testing, this system contains programmable amplifiers and anti-aliasing filters for sensors. It contains flexible interfaces for a variety of analog and digital signals.

Mobile resource

Infrared camera

Thermographic camera that forms a heat zone image used for thermal analysis of buildings

  • Structure Monitoring Technology (SMT) Research
  • Manitoba Hydro
  • Manitoba Housing
  • York Factory First Nation
  • Saskatoon Provincial Correctional Centre
  • National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP)
  • Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)
  • Crosier Kilgour & Partners
  • Proskiw Engineering