Today, we are lucky to have Christa Brown, P.Eng. as our guest blogger. Please see her complete bio at the end of this blog post.
The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) is “a global society advancing human well-being through sustainable technology for the built environment. The Society and its members focus on building systems, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and sustainability within the industry. Through research, standards writing, publishing, and continuing education, ASHRAE shapes tomorrow’s built environment today” (source: ashrae.org)
In more practical terms, or why you should care – ASHRAE (pronounced ash●ray) is the ultimate source of truth when it comes to best practices for all indoor built environments in North America. The standards and guidelines created by this organization span the construction, operation, and maintenance of buildings, adhere to local building code regulations, as well as outline proven, industry-recognized best practices from an economic, safety, and environmental perspective. These standards and guidelines are created by committees of subject matter experts through a rigorous peer-review process.
At the onset of COVID-19, ASHRAE formed an Epidemic Task Force and quickly began adding new resources to its website. Visit ashrae.org/covid19 if you want to dig in and learn more. I highly recommend their PDF infographic guide as a start. You can click on any of the icons in this infographic to access the publicly available resource page. One resource that is of particular relevance for concerned parents, teachers, caretakers, and voters as we inch closer to September, is their building readiness and reopening guide for schools and universities. This guide provides “practical information and checklists to school district and university campus environmental health managers, facility managers, administrators, technicians, and service providers to prepare educational buildings to resume occupancy. This information describes how the HVAC systems should be operating to help minimize the chance of spreading SARS-Cov-2 and how to practically check/verify that operation.”
The main takeaway – the science is clear, and industry standards and guidelines already exist to make our schools safer. To make this happen, adequate provincial funding is obviously needed in order to follow the recommendations of HVAC experts.
"It would take over $1 million to retrofit an older secondary school w/a partial air conditioning system…much more than whatever the board will get from the $50 million province-wide to address ventilation concerns in schools.” -Halton Trustees @TorontoStar #safeseptember pic.twitter.com/0YKI8vvmoz
— Fix Our Schools (@Fix_Our_Schools) August 25, 2020
Furthermore, there is also a gap when it comes to existing low-price purchasing practices preventing schools from partnering with reputable service providers and evaluating the cost of solutions with a longer-term, value-based mindset. We’re all spending our own money when investing in public infrastructure. So let’s do that wisely. Similar to how we make investment decisions for our own homes, investments in school infrastructure should be evaluated on 20-30 year payback cycles, not four-year election cycles. In the maintenance world, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Author: Christa Brown, P.Eng.
Bio: Christa is a professional engineer with 15 years experience in HVAC water treatment and maintenance best practices. Her experience has inspired an advocacy for value-based procurement in the public sector. Christa currently works for Fiix Software, a certified B-Corp that believes better maintenance builds better economical, social and environmental outcomes.