This month, a consultant and NFPA committee chairman looks at the major items involved in a hospital’s life safety design. Like the fire risks themselves, the assorted relevant codes are evolving with regard to specifics like smoke dampers. HVAC wall penetrations, alarm zoning, and response plans are just three other aspects to consider in this demanding design environment.
We’ve made some progress, but the fight against hospital-acquired infection (HAI) remains long and uphill. Here, we look at various risks and strategies, putting some thoughts on a wise approach to humidification in the context of the HAI battle.
Simple versus oversimple, Matchmaker versus Master, innovation versus inertia … our veteran data center expert looks back on time spent with an industry leader and looks forward with some lessons in mind.
The Museum of the Bible’s project team was already up against the extremes of Washington weather and the high demands of IAQ for artifact preservation. A system that harnessed adequate cooling, heating, humidification, and ventilation capabilities would still have one more hurdle: a physical footprint of hardly Biblical proportion. Get a first look at this testament to design acumen and true collaboration.
In today’s complex web of regulations, equipment and fuel options, and traditional threats to facility operations, it only makes sense to get up to speed on CHP.
Natural gas or diesel? Parallel or multiple standalone design? The authors look at facility types, code-related load categories, and more to inform your own decisions in the world of standby power.
Are we headed for a scenario reminiscent of big-budget disaster films? Maybe not. But when it comes to water usage, it’s time for engineers to put down the popcorn and embrace a new role: designer of more responsible data centers. Optimizing cooling towers, boosting the CoC, and considering your WUE are just three steps for maintaining the flow of information while minimizing the flow of H2O.
When a community-based hospital adds a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) so its most fragile patients can be cared for in-house rather than at a regional center 50 miles away, a family places enormous trust in the hospital’s ability to meet its baby’s health care needs.