Blanket of Warmth: Regina Chapter Wins ASHRAE Presidential Initiative Challenge
The Regina ASHRAE Chapter is proud to announce that we’ve won the 2025-2026 ASHRAE Presidential Initiative Challenge, announced at the 2026 ASHRAE Winter Conference held January 31–February 4, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada! In partnership with GF Flow Solutions, the Chapter will receive $5,500 USD to extend our Blanket of Warmth project — bringing safe, comfortable, mold-free homes to First Nations communities in Saskatchewan.
The Problem
On Star Blanket Cree Nation, more than 60% of homes struggle with mold, cold basements, and dampness that fall short of ASHRAE Standard 55 comfort guidelines. Homeowners had turned to makeshift fixes — silica bags over pails, portable electric heaters — that were ineffective and sometimes unsafe. It’s a problem the community itself has called “wicked”: complex, persistent, and without an easy answer.
The Solution
Regina Chapter member MacPherson Engineering has spent over a decade developing an answer. Starting in 2018, the Blanket of Warmth project brought together engineers, academics, and Indigenous Knowledge Keepers to rethink home heating — drawing inspiration from the warmth of a tipi fire.
The result is an elegant retrofit: PEX piping is run along the lower half of basement walls and tied into the home’s existing high-efficiency furnace through a coil heat exchanger, turning a standard forced-air system into a hybrid forced-air/hydronic radiant system. Whenever the furnace calls for heat, the basement walls warm too — and the concrete’s thermal mass holds that heat between cycles, keeping wall surfaces above the dew point so mold can’t take hold.
Proven Results
Work with University of Regina Capstone students has already demonstrated real impact:
- Basement temperatures rising from an average of 18°C to 21°C, meeting ASHRAE Standard 55
- Mold prevention by keeping wall surfaces above the dew point
- Average household energy savings of $780
- New, comfortable, livable basement space
- 12.9 hours of passive heat retention during power outages
- Elimination of electric space heaters — responsible for 79% of deadly home heating fires, according to the NFPA
What’s Next
With funding already secured from the Georg Fischer Water Foundation to renovate 10 homes across four First Nations, the Presidential Initiative Challenge award lets us extend the project to an 11th home. Key milestones ahead:
- September 2025 — Pipe Ceremony
- October 2025 — Letters of Consent with the Three Chiefs and Councils (Star Blanket Cree Nation, Muscowpetung, and Standing Buffalo)
- November 2025 — Home selection with the Nations
- December 2025 — Local and global project launch on social media
- January–May 2026 — Installation of the Blanket of Warmth system in all 11 homes (three days per install)
- May 2025–May 2026 — Energy performance data collected with SaskPower and SaskEnergy
More Than an HVAC Fix
What sets this project apart is that it didn’t start as an engineering exercise — it started with listening. When Star Blanket Cree Nation members found the courage to speak up about the mold affecting their families’ health, MacPherson Engineering’s team was invited in, and out of respect for the shame the community had long carried around the issue, chose not to photograph the mold they found.
That conversation became the seed of a design process grounded in the four pillars of sustainable development — economy, environment, culture, and social values — bringing together engineers, psychologists, Knowledge Keepers, and industry partners to build something genuinely collaborative.
The Regina Chapter sees this as a meaningful step toward Truth and Reconciliation: safer, healthier homes today, and a doorway to STEM engagement and scholarship opportunities for First Nations youth tomorrow.
Stay tuned for updates as installations will be complete in 2026 — follow the Regina ASHRAE Chapter on LinkedIn for the latest on Blanket of Warmth.
