The Leaf

The Leaf at Canada's Diversity Gardens is a $130-million horticultural attraction with four biomes and a six-storey indoor waterfall under a glazed shell — a building that has to hold tropical conditions through a Winnipeg January. BPL Sales supplied the hydronic plant that makes that possible, across five separate loops. The most striking piece of it is the earth ducts: preheat coils that take outdoor air entering at −40 °C and deliver it at +15 °C before it ever reaches an air handler. Each biome is then held at its own climate, with radiant panels and wall fin holding the perimeter against the glass. Twenty pumps, seven heat exchangers, two condensing boilers and a geothermal heat pump run underneath it all.

Equipment supplied by BPL Sales:
- 2 × Stainless condensing boilers — 800 to 4,200 MBH modulating, up to 98% thermal efficiency, with a custom flue venting package
- 7 × Plate and frame heat exchangers
- 20 × Pumps, plus boiler pumps with multi-purpose valves and suction diffusers
- Air and dirt separators, expansion tanks, balancing valves, industrial flow switches
- Hydronic coils
- Linear radiant ceiling panels, radiant wall fin, unit heater, force flow heaters
- 62-Ton Geothermal water source heat pump

Closing note:
BPL's factory-trained and certified technicians started the plant up and continue to support it. In a building where the mechanical system keeps living collections alive, a heating loop is not a comfort item — which is why the commissioning went to people the manufacturers had trained and certified on this equipment rather than whoever was free that week. Facilities staff learned the plant from the same team.