Dr. Marguerite Oyelaran
Building physicist, formerly with a national laboratory's envelope group. Leads the ratio-rule revision and chairs the technical committee.
Home / About & governance
An institute with instruments, not opinions.
Ofivoll exists because the Canadian construction sector was designing cold-climate envelopes on assumptions borrowed from milder places. We put sensors in real buildings, wait several winters, and report what actually happened.
Mission and remit
To improve the durability and energy performance of building envelopes in Canadian climate zones 6, 7 and 8 through long-term field measurement, open publication and practitioner training.
That remit sets three boundaries we hold to. We do not certify products or issue approvals. We do not accept research funding that comes with a right of review over findings. And we publish results that contradict our own earlier guidance as readily as results that confirm it — four of the forty-one reports in the catalogue exist to correct something we previously got wrong.
Everything we do is aimed at one audience: the architects, engineers, building officials, envelope consultants, contractors and building owners who have to make a decision about an assembly this month and want evidence gathered somewhere with real winters.
How the Institute is funded
2025 operating revenue
| Training and field schools | 34 % |
|---|---|
| Advisory and testing contracts | 27 % |
| Memberships | 18 % |
| Provincial and federal research grants | 15 % |
| Symposium and event fees | 6 % |
Total operating revenue was $3.42 million CAD. No single sponsor may fund more than 10 % of the research budget, and manufacturer members hold no seats on the technical committee. Audited statements are posted each May in the technical library.
How we got here
2012
Founded around one wall yard
Six practitioners and a university lab technician build twelve test walls on a leased lot in Winnipeg's Point Douglas, wire them for temperature and moisture, and agree to publish whatever the loggers say.
2013–2016
The network goes north
Stations open at Thompson, Whitehorse and Yellowknife with housing authority partners, extending the dataset into zones 7B and 8 where almost no in-service monitoring existed.
2017
First field school
Twenty-two practitioners spend three January days on blower-door and thermography practice. The course has run every winter since and now funds a third of the measurement program.
2019
The catalogue opens
All reports and cleaned datasets move to a Creative Commons Attribution licence after a members' vote. Downloads rise elevenfold in the first year.
2021
Retrofit becomes the priority
The Retrofit Moisture Risk program begins instrumenting interior-insulated solid masonry, the assembly our advisory group was being asked about more often than any other.
2024
Envelope Diagnostics Technician launched
A designation with a written examination, a witnessed field test and a three-year renewal cycle. Two hundred and six practitioners hold it today.
2026
Ratio-rule guidance in draft
Fourteen years of interface temperatures are being assembled into revised exterior-insulation ratio guidance for zones 7A, 7B and 8. Open for comment at the September symposium.
Who runs it
Terrance Boulet, P.Eng.
Runs the station network and the instrumentation standard. Twenty-one winters of northern housing diagnostics before joining the Institute.
Priya Raghunathan, M.Arch.
Designed the field school and the certificate curriculum. Practising envelope consultant on Part 3 buildings for a decade prior.
Alexandre Cormier
Maintains the open datasets, the cleaning pipeline and the quality flags that accompany every published sensor series.
Dawn Ironstand
Coordinates the Thompson, Whitehorse and Yellowknife stations with housing authorities and community construction crews.
Henrik Valle, CPA
Finance, grant compliance and the annual audit. Author of the funding-transparency policy adopted in 2023.
Governance
A nine-member volunteer board is elected by the membership for three-year staggered terms: four seats for individual practitioners, two for public-sector or academic members, two for firm members and one seat reserved for a northern housing authority. Manufacturer members may attend and speak at the annual general meeting but do not vote on technical matters.
Board minutes and the conflict-of-interest register are posted quarterly in the technical library.
Partners and collaborators
The network operates with the Manitoba Housing Renewal Corporation, the Yukon Housing Corporation, the Northwest Territories Housing Authority, three Canadian university building-science laboratories, and the envelope consulting firms who host instrumented walls on their own projects.
Hosting a monitored assembly is free; in exchange we publish the results. Ask about hosting.