Ventilation and IAQ

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Once upon a time, humans lived outdoors in harmony with vast and diverse populations of bacteria, fungi, and viruses, largely unaware of the presence of these microbes.

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) on downtown Los Angeles’ Grand Avenue required extensive mechanical upgrades to preserve its collection, maintain visitor comfort, and gain tighter control of humidification levels.

Today’s school facility directors are being asked to do more with less. With limited budgets, they are pressured to reduce operating expenses while maintaining healthy and comfortable learning environments for students.

One big difference between building systems and the human body is the immediacy of an “alarm” when something goes wrong. If we lose a mitten while skiing, we know immediately that there has been a breach in our insulation.

What are engineers making time to read? Here is the five-item punch list of the most popular news articles, features, and columns at ESmagazine.com.

The new Fork n’ Pint restaurant in Lake Orion, Michigan, installed front doorway air curtains in an effort to keep patrons and employees comfortable, resulting in more than $500 in annual energy savings and the elimination of $15,000 in potential vestibule construction costs.

Miki Minic knew immediately how to solve IAQ issues at a 227,000-square-foot Miami Class A office complex. The building engineer was in his first week with real estate company Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) when he told supervisors he could significantly slash HVACR energy use at the 12-story Harbour Centre complex.

Design often creates the sensation of being in a box with the sides moving in and no means of escape.

Restaurants and commercial kitchens are notoriously one of the largest consumers of energy per unit of floor area. Moreover, the kitchen ventilation system is often the largest energy-consuming component in a food service facility.

Most of us have experienced one of our best solutions backfiring and unintentionally creating a bigger problem in the future. One historical example of an unintended consequence occurred in the early 1900s in Hanoi, Vietnam. Under French Colonial rule, the city was proud of the sanitation benefits of its indoor toilets supported by a vast sewer system.