How often has an AHU or system been reused as part of a building renovation project and/or to expand the area served by the associated unit to provide additional air conditioning or heating?
In a sense, HVAC engineers are the physicians of the built environment because IAQ and water management determine the growth and transmission of microorganisms.
Historically used in smaller-load residential settings, electronically commutated mo-tor (ECM) technology is making the leap thanks to recent improvements and in-creased awareness among engineers. Start with the basics, proceed to advantages and caveats, and consider the ways ECM designs can streamline the economics of air movement.
According to the United States Department of Energy, motors in homes and commercial buildings consume more than one-third of all the electricity used in these buildings.
This past May I wrote in the Back2Basics column about the design intent of a small city school system that chose to invest in an annual contract for a temporary air-cooled chiller for special events and emergency crisis shelter center.
While travelling in Europe to the Indoor Air 2016 conference in Belgium, I had the opportunity to discuss a largely unspoken shift in the management of IAQ with a like-minded colleague, Dr. Walter Hugentobler from the University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Ultraviolet C (UV-C) technology has been used since the 1990s to eliminate microbial buildup on cooling coils, air filters, duct surfaces, and drain pans. But despite the technology’s history and track record, some facility engineers remain uncertain. On the other hand, some come around quickly.
Probably a year before 9/11, I was asked my thoughts along the lines of, “What else should we commission beyond the standard building systems?” My client was the project engineer at the Department of Defense in the Pentagon. I suggested “commission project record drawings.” I guess you could say I made up the task of commissioning record drawings, but I got my point across.
Spot exhaust is a unique design engineering challenge. The 2015 ASHRAE Handbook – HVAC Applicationscovers a broad spectrum of applications in just about all the comfort applications (chapters 1 through 13) and industrial applications (chapters 14 through 33) with personal safety an integral part of chapter 32. But spot return air doesn’t get much press in ASHRAE.
In our daily lives, we humans move through a sea of microbial life that is seldom perceived except in the context of potential disease and decay (L. Feazel 2009).