Wednesday, July 6, 2022 —
We are grateful to FedDev Ontario for investing $600,000 in the Diefenbunker to support tourism relief and revitalization. These funds will go towards upgrading our facilities and exhibitions, allowing us to expand our inclusion of underrepresented narratives and to provide new accessible and immersive visitor offerings.
Wednesday, October 26, 2022 —
We are pleased to announce the completion of our Green Infrastructure Lighting Retrofit Project! With $187,500 received through the Canada Community Revitalization Fund (CCRF), we have successfully upgraded the Diefenbunker’s decades-old lighting infrastructure. This has improved energy efficiency within the bunker, as well as accessibility for those with low vision or visual impairments.
The purpose of this project was to update the bunker’s aging lighting infrastructure by installing energy-efficient controls and by replacing current fixtures with energy-efficient fixtures and bulbs. These were the efficiency measures recommended to us by our Engineering Firm Morrison Hershfield, who conducted an American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Level 2 Energy Audit in February of 2022. Contractors have been working diligently over the last several months to implement the proposed changes.
Priorities included:
– Upgrading a total of 274 fixtures in hallways and stairwells, where the original light fixtures were removed and replaced with a similar, but modern, LED light fixture.
– Installing exhibition-quality track lighting in 8 exhibition spaces, totalling 128 lights.
– Installing 12 wall and 6 ceiling occupancy sensors in all staff offices and in the museum’s paper archives.
– Re-lamping existing lighting, where a total of 418 fixtures were retrofitted to LED to increase lighting efficiencies.
A crucial consideration in this project was to decrease our environmental impact. We ensured that the removal of existing fixtures, ballasts, and fluorescent bulbs was done in an environmentally-safe way. The removal of the original ballasts was done in a safe and responsible manner as they are now considered hazardous materials given that they contain polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
Thank you to everyone who worked on this project, and to the federal government for the investment in our museum’s growth. We can now guarantee that your next visit underground will be an illuminating experience!
We acknowledge the support of the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario).
Learn more about our recent projects:
Ojibwe as a new language in our Audio Guide
Virtual reality experience of an emergency preparedness scenario