By Contributor, Mary Ryan
For Gen Z, Millennials and even the youngest Generation Xers, the concept of smoking in the workplace, restaurants, gyms, malls, movie theaters, airplanes or any public place is almost inconceivable. As recently as the 1990s, however, nearly all businesses still allowed smoking indoors despite evidence that both first and secondhand smoke cause cancer, emphysema, asthma and numerous other illnesses. Smoke also played a huge role in poor indoor air quality in commercial buildings, which has been linked to employee dissatisfaction, reduced productivity, and lost revenue from excessive employee sick days. Today, laws banning smoking have made cigarette smoke less of an issue in many states, and most properties have made strides in improving indoor air quality by instituting best practices, installing technologies and investing in equipment that intercept pollutants.
Throwing a Wrench into the System: COVID-19
Controlling carbon monoxide, radon, nitrogen dioxide, lead, asbestos, mold, off-gasses from building materials and furnishings, outside smoke and other bad actors in commercial buildings remains a constant challenge for property owners and managers, however. And now, just when most of us thought we had achieved healthy environments, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced a re-examination of both the art and science of indoor air quality. Can the mechanical systems and operating procedures currently in place for known contaminants also manage this new threat? Or do they have the potential to act as conductors for the spread of the virus? Clearly, the ability of the virus to travel through the air is critical to determining its impact on the indoor air quality of any commercial building. The Center for Disease Control has stated that “Coronaviruses are generally thought to be spread from person to person through respiratory droplets.” People who get those droplets in their mouths, noses or eyes when a nearby sick person coughs, sneezes or talks are at risk. Given this, a transmission of the virus through one of these three ways could project it onto surfaces where it could live for several hours or, more concerning, into a building’s HVAC system — theoretically. Taking indoor air quality to the next level of diligence is therefore of major importance in preventing your building from becoming a hotspot as people return to their workplaces over the next few months.
Is the Status Quo Sufficient?
Current methods incorporated into building management for countering indoor pollutants include eliminating moisture, minimizing and capturing byproducts of the mechanical infrastructure, limiting infiltration from outdoor contaminants, venting and filtering to reduce concentrations, use of less toxic furnishings and materials, and design and construction that meets the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating & Air-Conditioning Engineers’ (ASHRAE) Standard 62.1 and other requirements. These actions must definitely remain in place to ensure the more common contaminants are addressed, but property owners and managers must undertake additional tactics and investments to counter more virulent actors — of which the novel coronavirus may be just the first. As ASHRAE leadership states on the organization’s website, “Changes to building operations, including the operation of heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning systems, can reduce airborne exposures.”
Confronting the Beast
OK, so what should you do? According to Rob Tanner of Johnson Controls, reducing the spread of COVID-19 comes down to “trapping, diluting and/or inactivating the virus.” (ACHR News, 5/31/20). He and other experts from the HVAC, architecture, engineering, commercial real estate, property/facilities management, and related sectors agree that ventilation, filtration, dilution and air cleaning are the keys to maintaining indoor air quality in the presence of an aggressive, contagious agent. The first step, however, is to do your homework. Familiarize yourself and other stakeholders with the most recent standards and guidance provided by expert organizations and companies such as ASHRAE, WHO, the CDC, state public health agencies, BOMA, Johnson Controls, Trane Technologies and others. Evaluate your current HVAC system and operating and maintenance procedures against those guidelines to understand capabilities and opportunities for improvements. While doing this analysis, consider assessing your property against green/LEED and well-building standards, and potentially implement healthy-building changes to obtain new certifications. Making the effort to learn about both your property and the experts’ recommendations will save significant time and money, and ensure the safety of your tenants and staff.
Solutions to Protect Today and Tomorrow
The following are a few actions most experts recommend for preventing the spread of COVID-19 and maintaining good indoor air quality:
- Increase ventilation as much as possible to continuously flush the building with outside air. Open outdoor air dampers to 100%. Disable tenant-controlled ventilation. For buildings without the infrastructure to treat large volumes of outside air, open the windows. All of these initiatives will expand the percentage of outside air brought into the property, minimize re-circulation and dilute the concentration of particles per person.
- Change the sequences and programming of the HVAC, exhaust fans, dampers, etc. so they run for two additional hours on either side of normal hours of operation. This enables further flushing of the system at a time when fewer people — and their germs — are in the building.
- Upgrade central air filtration effectiveness by switching to filters with the highest MERV (minimum efficiency reporting values) rating compatible with your system. Filters with a 13 or 14 rating will provide the most protection against particles measuring less than five microns like those of the coronavirus. Seal the edges of the filters to limit particle escape. Utilize portable room air cleaners with HEPA air filters in mechanical rooms, and consider recommending to tenants for another layer of protection in their space.
- Inactivate the virus as it moves through your HVAC system by installing UVGI (ultraviolent germicidal irradiation) and/or bipolar ionization in air handling units. Both are highly effective, especially in high risk areas. UVGI uses high intensity ultraviolent light, while bipolar ionization produces ions with positive and negative charges that disable the virus.
Remember to tailor your solutions to your particular building as incompatible or poorly conceived upgrades could result in operational and mechanical problems. Be sure your building personnel are observing and implementing accepted personal protective measures to avoid contaminating both the equipment and themselves. And recognize that we are in an evolving situation, so regular check-ins with the experts will ensure continued compliance with the most current standards and recommendations. Need more information? Interested in how we can help make your building as safe as possible? Call us today and we can help prep your building to welcome back employees.