ASHRAE has put together a guide to help schools and universities reopen their facilities safely in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
The 41-page document from ASHRAE—the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers—provides facility managers with steps to carry out to prepare for students and staff returning to campuses for the 2020-21 school year.
“As schools prepare to reopen for the fall academic semester, it's important to keep children and school staff safe,” says ASHRAE President Charles E. Gulledge III. “ASHRAE’s school reopening guide will serve as a resource to school leaders as they work in lockstep with health experts to finalize plans to keep everyone safe.""
ASHRAE says its position is that transmission of Covid-19 through the air is sufficiently likely that airborne exposure to the virus should be controlled.
"Changes to building operations, including the operation of heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, can reduce airborne exposures,” the guide says.
[View the entire ASHRAE guidance document]
The guide covers several topics:
- Determining building readiness
- Equipment & system-specific checks & verifications during the academic year
- New/modified facility design recommendations
- Filtration upgrades
- Operations of occupied facilities
- Controlling infection outbreak in school facilities
- Higher education facilities recommendations
ASHRAE says the facility design recommendations have been formulated to help designers retrofit and plan for improving indoor air quality and slowing the transmission of viruses via HVAC systems.
"The underlying effort of the designer should be to increase outside air to the spaces, treat return air and/or supply air to spaces via mechanical filtration and maintain indoor comfort as defined by the design temperature and relative humidity," the guide says.
