Examples
What it looks like on a commercial building
Models of the six configurations we're selling — the arch in every one is the real section from the same engine that prices them, so what you see is what gets costed.
The same engineered arch we build for homes, scaled to commercial buildings — one over your roof to take heating, cooling and billed demand off the bill, one against a dead wall to add leasable square footage for about half the cost of a build-out. Run the payback on your own rates below.
Commercial buildings buy for one of two reasons: the bill is too high, or the square footage is worth more than the wall it's hiding behind. We build for both.
A glazed shell over your flat roof becomes a winter solar buffer and a warm plenum: the deck stops radiating to the sky, intake air arrives pre-heated, and in summer the whole thing shades the roof and stack-vents the heat out. Then the line that actually decides a commercial bill — a lower billed kW. And you end up with an enclosed rooftop floor you didn't have.
A half-arch bolted to an existing wall turns dead frontage into enclosed, rentable floor: four-season patios, vendor and market stalls, glazed arcades along a blank elevation, showroom bays. No land purchase, no new foundation walls, no rezoning a footprint — you're building on a wall and a strip of pavement you already own.
Ranges from the calculator below on typical New Brunswick buildings and rates. Your building decides the actual number — that's what the calculator is for.
Models of the six configurations we're selling — the arch in every one is the real section from the same engine that prices them, so what you see is what gets costed.
Pick your product, size the shell — the model shows exactly what you're sizing — and read the payback. Your own rates and rents go in behind Your utility rates; the itemised cost, the savings breakdown and every assumption are one click each, so nothing is hidden and nothing is in your way.
A glazed shell collects heat when the sun is up. Your billed demand is set on a dark January morning. Earth tubes close that gap — buried pipe delivers air at about +9 °C when it's −21 °C outside, so the ventilation pre-heat is there at 3 a.m., which is when the kW meter is watching.
Add a heat pump harvesting the plenum and more of the captured solar actually lands in the space below instead of venting off the crown. The calculator prices all three together, so you can see which combination earns its keep on your building.
Every shell comes off the same engine: change the length, run and rise and the geometry, the structure and the takeoff all follow. A second building is a re-run, not a redesign — which is why the second one is cheaper and faster than the first.
You get an engineer-ready set per building — structure, connections, load path to NBCC — because the local authority signs off per address. The system is standard; the sheets are site-specific. Your engineer reviews and seals them for permit.
The payback above is itemised down to the line: every assumption, rate and factor is written down and editable, so your engineer or your board can argue with it properly instead of taking a slogan on faith.
Send the address, the roof or wall dimensions and a recent utility bill. We model the shell, run the payback on your real rates and tell you plainly whether the building is a candidate. No charge, no obligation.
A structural look at what the roof or wall can carry, the mechanical tie-in, access for hoisting, and the code path. This is where a marginal building gets ruled out — better now than after a deposit.
Geometry, structure, connections, load path, glazing spec and the mechanical integration — worked up so your engineer reviews and seals it for permit rather than starting over.
We work with your general contractor, or line one up regionally. The arches are shop-built and repetitive, which is what keeps a curved building from pricing like a curved building.
One page per product: what it is, what it does to the bill or the rent roll, what it costs, and the payback maths — sized to email to an owner, a partner or a finance committee.
Want the Sophab Atrium one instead? It's on the Sophab Atrium page.
Address, rough roof or wall dimensions, and a recent utility bill if you have one. We'll model it and come back with a straight answer — including "not this building" when that's the answer.
Whatever the calculator last worked out comes along with your message, so we're both looking at the same numbers.
The calculator is a planning tool, not a savings guarantee or an income projection. Energy, demand and rent outcomes depend on your building, tariff, tenants and operation, and every commercial installation requires a structural review, sealed by your own engineer, of the actual building before anything is committed.