The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has published some guidance on safely maintaining building operations during the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.
Peter Basso Associates, would like to share these important tips with our clients and partners to ensure that your building and staff are safely and effectively navigating through this crisis.
Some of the article's suggested HVAC considerations include:
Increase outdoor air ventilation (use caution in highly polluted areas); with a lower population in the building, this increases the effective dilution ventilation per person.
Disable demand-controlled ventilation (DCV).
Further open minimum outdoor air dampers, as high as 100%, thus eliminating recirculation (in the mild weather season, this need not affect thermal comfort or humidity, but clearly becomes more difficult in extreme weather).
Improve central10 air filtration to the MERV-1311 or the highest compatible with the filter rack, and seal edges of the filter12 to limit bypass.
Keep systems running longer hours, if possible 24/7, to enhance the two actions above.
Consider portable room air cleaners with HEPA filters.
Consider UVGI (ultraviolet germicidal irradiation), protecting occupants from radiation,13 particularly in high-risk spaces such as waiting rooms, prisons and shelters. (Shoen, L. Excerpt taken from ASHRAE Journal Newsletter, March 24, 2020)
Please reach out to us if this information or anything else in the ASHRAE article raises questions for you about your own MEP building systems. We are all in this together and are here to help during this unprecedented time.
For additional considerations, please check out the full article from ASHRAE here: https://www.ashrae.org/news/ashraejournal/guidance-for-building-operations-during-the-covid-19-pandemic
