Part of customer service is being there when your customers need you.
As the world looks to bring students back to school in a safe manner, Design West Engineering has become a valued partner in guiding our educational clients through the best path to keeping students and staff as safe as possible, given our current climate.
ASHRAE released guidance specific to the operation of HVAC systems for K-12 and higher education through the ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force. You can read it more about it here, but in summary the presentation recommends:
- Filtration at the highest level the HVAC equipment can handle – consult your favorite mechanical engineer at Design West for this
- Consider needlepoint bipolar ionization or other air cleaning systems
- Conduct preventative maintenance to ensure the HVAC system is functioning optimally
While this plan offers a great framework, it is not a one size fits all. It takes considerable knowledge of what an individual district, and even more importantly, each school’s HVAC technology can currently handle to understand what can be implemented along with the ramifications of doing so. That is where Design West can help.
For example, the guideline recommends MERV-13, at a minimum. If the school’s equipment is 1) less than 5 years old (give or take), or 2) the school was ever LEED-certified, it can probably handle this; however, a higher MERV filtration could cause issues like freezing of the cooling coil and potential failure of the compressors if proper assessment of the equipment is not performed ahead of implementation. A variety of issues could result from these conditions happening. There are ways of mitigating this potential risk, which is where Design West has helped our K-12 clients sort through the best options by first assessing the type of equipment of a given school. If they choose to go with higher filtration, Design West provides the short- and long-term ramifications and potential issues to keep an eye on.
Much of what we are recommending to school districts are the same measures and technology we have already implemented in our own new building. From higher filtration to needlepoint bipolar ionization, we are doing the same here at home to increase the safety from airborne viruses for our own team.
