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.
When I got started in the HVAC business half a century ago, I was very fortunate to work for a small firm where I learned a lot about design engineering from some really knowledgeable and practical HVAC engineers. The business we were in was designing HVAC for hospitals, colleges, universities, research facilities, and museums. All of these facilities required very sophisticated central air systems, heating systems, and chilled water systems.
What better time to talk about integrity than in a presidential election year. Certainly the perception of integrity within the building industry is much, much more low-key than the integrity of politicians, but it is the political environment that sets the bar for bad behavior.
In last November’s Back2Basics, I created a test for the readers based on the idea that the patient room design was similar to a pharmaceutical cleanroom, with an air lock for people to enter and leave the room.