As COVID-19 vaccinations roll out across the country, many companies, building owners, and managers now face stricter building re-entry and occupancy guidelines. Their charge is to ensure safe and clean indoor environments. Let's take a look at how the opportunity and responsibility to fulfill this need lies squarely on the HVAC industry's shoulders.
Responsibility and Liability
There's no doubt we will feel COVID's influence in our lives for years to come. It raised awareness of safe and clean indoor air, a perception that's here to stay. Perhaps the air filters we wear on our faces will leave positive and permanent impressions on each of us.
Most building owners and facility managers are not only aware of their responsibility to provide a safe indoor environment, but they are also conscious of their liability if they fail to comply with regulations. These requirements are no longer an afterthought to pay lip service.
Building codes establish primary solutions to basic indoor air cleanliness. The requirement to introduce fresh outside air into buildings helps replace contaminated indoor air with fresh outside air.
ASHRAE Standard 62.1 recommends buildings and facilities meet the required Air Changes per Hour (ACH) - the foundation for acceptable indoor air.
ASHRAE standards and resources establish specific indoor air guidelines to fulfill a building owner's responsibility and reduce liability. The HVAC industry is prepared and able to get this work done. However, it requires a whole lot more than flipping a switch on a control system, as some would have you think
One School District's Re-Entry Story
When responding to the need to assure safe and healthy indoor air, a large metropolitan school district recently launched a new project to ensure more than 100 buildings meet current fresh air and building ventilation requirements.
They set a budget to secure a test and balance (TAB) contractor's services to assess each building's ventilation system performance. The work included adjusting the mechanical systems and documenting in a certified TAB report how they met the requirements.
The school district assumed the TAB company could adjust the systems, provide the documentation, and all would be well. Then the school bells would ring, and the halls would fill with happy teachers and students.
Unfortunately, in addition to the test and adjustment documentation for each system, the balancing reports included a punch list of repairs that more than 70% of the HVAC systems needed. Without these repairs, the systems could not be balanced and would fail to meet ventilation guidelines.
The original agreement called only for testing and adjusting the HVAC systems. The contractors could not include the repairs in the original work scope because these defects hadn't been discovered yet.
Building owners are becoming increasingly aware that inadequate ventilation may cause tenants to terminate leases due to insufficient indoor air safety.
Bottom line: The budget was exhausted, and much of the work needed to assure indoor air safety and compliance with regulations remained incomplete. The school system would need to issue a new project to make system repairs and rebalance the upgraded systems.
Lessons Learned
While this experience is playing out in a school district, the same scenario occurs worldwide with building owners and managers of health care facilities, institutions, offices, restaurants, churches, and retail facilities.
This issue is much bigger than it appears in building re-entry programs. Current awareness is also driving similar HVAC upgrades in many smaller buildings that remained occupied throughout the pandemic. Building owners are becoming increasingly aware that inadequate ventilation may cause tenants to terminate leases due to insufficient indoor air safety.
With the sheer volume of related correspondence across my desk, I believe we're only beginning to see the tip of the iceberg.
Opportunities to Provide Solutions
Changes bring a downfall for some and advancement for others. Today, the demand for improved ventilation because of Covid is swelling, and it's not over yet. Its effects will shift policy long into the future.
Building owners and managers are counting the cost of inadequate and non-compliant mechanical ventilation systems. The moral price to provide adequate air quality is a sufficient call-to-action for some. Fear of losing tenants motivates others. However, protecting themselves from legal liability may be the only factor driving others to spring into action and upgrade their ventilation systems.
Whatever motivates them, the solutions will come from the HVAC industry. TAB professionals hold the key to ventilation assessment because airflow is invisible. When diagnostics make system defects visible, the solutions become apparent. HVAC contractors work with balancers, designers, and vendors to get the job done.
Typical System Modification Steps
Here are some typical actions that can help assure clean, healthy air in buildings.
System assessment – Ventilation issues require more than inspection to identify solutions. You need live system measurement and diagnostics to find and identify the answers. Remember, old or new equipment, control, and distribution systems require testing, adjusting, and balancing to assure results.
Scope of work - Develop a scope of work from system assessment reports to provide specific details about needed repairs before adjusting the system to achieve the desired outcome.
Filtration improvements – Current recommendations include air filter upgrades to the MERV-13. Installing high-efficiency filters is not a standalone solution. All too often, when you increase filter efficiency, the system responds with decreased airflow. Now an entirely new set of issues begins to surface. When you increase filter efficiency, include adjusting system airflows to assure ventilation, values remain unaffected.
Ventilation – Calculate, measure, and adjust building Air Changes per Hour and room Air Exchanges per Hour. Learn how to do this HERE.
Building Control System - Verify sensor calibration, then modify control system settings to increase ventilation, if appropriate. You may disable demand-controlled ventilation (DCV) and increase system run time to provide pre- and post-occupancy building air flush with outdoor air.
Duct System Modifications - System assessments may reveal duct system deficiencies and or excessive blower motor watt draw. Permanent solutions often require duct system modifications. Always accompany duct upgrades with pressure and airflow measurement verification.
Energy savings – Some ventilation system upgrades may negatively impact building energy consumption. Often, added energy costs are well worth it. If desired, many additional energy-saving options are available. Be sure to verify savings estimates after installing the system. Many bogus energy savings projects are modeled but rarely realized.
Verification - Once system modifications are complete, verify the results with a certified balancing report. This report assures promised results are delivered.
System Maintenance – Maintain the system, not just the equipment. Moving forward, test and record operating system air pressures, temperatures, and airflows. Then compare maintenance test results to the results from when the system was commissioned.
Outside-the-box maintenance detects and corrects system changes over time. This assures building ventilation standards, and guidelines are maintained in the years ahead.
Rob "Doc" Falke serves the industry as president of National Comfort Institute, Inc., an HVAC-based training company and membership organization. If you're an HVAC professional interested in a free procedure to measured building outside airflow, contact Doc at ncilink.com/ContactMe or call him at 800-633-7058. Go to NCI's website at nationalcomfortinstitute.com for free information, articles, downloads, and current training opportunities.