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SunTerra Homes Inc. spent more than two years building and obtaining a patent for its Energy Block wall system. But there’s another step the Bend-based builder plans to take before the product actually finds a place in energy-efficient homes.

The wall system is headed to Oregon State University in Corvallis, where it will spend some time in a first-of-its-kind, three-chambered climate system.

The Multi-Chamber Modular Environment (MCMEC) system was created with the hope that it will produce data that can be used to develop better, longer-lasting products for the building industry, OSU researchers said.

Oregon State University hired Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Envirotronics Inc. to custom-design and build the $850,000 testing system, which launched in January. Each of the system’s 8-foot-by-8-foot-by-8-foot chambers can be combined into a single chamber. The system has two walls on either end that can be slid aside, allowing larger products to be tested.

Users also can build walls out of different materials and drop them into a two-foot gap between the chambers. Data drawn from the research could lead to better and longer-lasting products for the building industry, OSU researchers say.

For SunTerra, the multi-chamber tests will allow the company to see how its wall system holds up in different physical environments.

“We’re actually duplicating a wall similar to a wall that would be used in a normal building,” said Jim Chauncey, owner and president of SunTerra said. “This is about the only way that you can accomplish true performance for the wall structure.”

During a test, temperatures in the chambers can be set from -30 degrees Celsius to 40 degrees Celsius. Humidity can be adjusted from 10 percent to 95 percent, while solar rays can be varied from 400 solar watts per square meter to 1,200 watts per square meter, researchers say.

Those ranges mean SunTerra Homes could subject its wall system to the conditions of a Wisconsin winter on one side of the wall and a normal living room environment on the other, said Fred Kamke, a professor of wood-based composite science and researcher at OSU’s Green Building Materials Laboratory, where MCMEC is stationed.

“That’s the beauty of it being modular,” Kamke said. “If we want to run all three chambers independently with different tests going on, we can separate the chambers with the insulated wall,” he said. “That’s what makes this system unique. Nobody else has this.”

SunTerra plans to use the results of the test to validate the wall system’s thermal storage capability, which is defined as the amount of heat it can absorb and release of the wall. That test would be difficult to run efficiently without the OSU chamber system, said Jason Ideker, an OSU assistant professor of infrastructure materials.

“A lot of times, testing is done in an environment that is not as tight or snug as what this is,” Ideker said. “They can use the chamber to determine the thermal properties of the wall and how well it is providing insulation.”

The MCMEC system was built using money from several sources, including Oregon BEST, which saw the potential for doing performance research in a controlled physical environment.

“We were interested in supporting both companies that are designing buildings and companies that are designing products to build those buildings, said Joanna Brickman, director of collaboration innovation at Oregon BEST. “The modeling of performance could only tell you so much. Doing physical testing gives so much more confidence.”

Ultimately, the tests done with the MCMEC system will provide evidence of thermal performance and longevity of materials that could replace existing materials with more durable ones, Brickman said.

SunTerra estimates the tests, including one to certify the wall system is water tight, will take eight weeks and cost about $14,500. But OSU’s Ideker said the rates have not been finalized and are still subject to approval by the University.