Once again, here’s another edition of “One Engineer’s Opinion”, written by our own Lead Engineer, Bruce Longino.  Bruce can be reached at blongino@mingledorffs.com.

ASHRAE Standard 62 is the Ventilation standard that mandates what is required in a commercial building to ensure good Indoor Air Quality [IAQ] for the occupants. Part of what is required by the standard is acceptable Outside Air or Ventilation Air Cubic Feet per Minute[CFM].

There are two ways to determine this Ventilation CFM. The first is Ventilation Rate Procedure [VRP]. The second is IAQ Procedure. The VRP is straight forward.  ASHRAE 62 has tables with CFM per square foot and CFM per person for various applications. For example in an average size classroom the resulting  CFM per student is 15. If the Engineer uses the IAQ Procedure, he/she must prove a method is provided that will sufficiently clean the air of Contaminates of Concern [COC] to allow a ventilation air rate as low as 5 CFM per student.

Concentrating on IAQ Procedure for classrooms, the COC is body odor. This is where the bi-polar ionization- also called Cold Plasma- comes in.  There are devices called Bi-Polar ionization Generators that split water molecules in the air into positive and negative ions. These ions attach the components of body odor and break them down into harmless odor free compounds. This allows the Engineer to reduce the ventilation air while being assured that there will not be a body odor build-up.

There are huge other benefits to this technology. The ions that are generated also attack and kill many of the viruses, bacteria, allergens and mold spores in the building. This will help reduce illnesses that harm productivity.

Bi-polar ionization also helps remove particles from the air. The ions cause the small particles to amalgamate. This means they clump together into large particles that fall to the floor or are picked up in the HVAC filters.

To re-cap the benefits of bi-polar ionization:

[1]Reduces odors by turning an odiferous compound- such as ammonia- into its base elements that do not smell. Therefore OA CFM can be reduced to 5 CFM / person

[2]May kill viruses such as H1N1 swine flu (documentation pending).

[3]Attacks bacteria such as E coli.

[4]Reduces the number of active mold colonies.

[5]Attacks and eliminates some allergens.

[6]Reduces the indoor dust count by causing small dust particles to amalgamate into large particles so  they can be filtered out of the air.

I- for one- think this is an amazing technology to do all these things and save the building Owner first cost as well as operating costs. This is possible because the ventilation air can be reduced by 2/3. This reduces the HVAC tonnage up front and operating cost for the life of the building.

The potential to reduce illnesses being transmitted between occupants reduces absenteeism. For a school system, this increases government funding bases on daily average attendance. For a business owner this increases productivity.

There are two basic technologies used to generate ions. The oldest technology uses glass tubes with stainless steel mesh. The newest technology employs stainless steel needles. The needlepoint method eliminates the need for expensive tube replacements. Another benefit of the needle technology is that it can be mounted in the return air duct before the filter. This way the positive and negative ions sanitize the filter and keep the cooling coil clean. This is especially important with MERV 13+ filters, because 46% of the circulating viruses are captured by the filter.  Otherwise, the person changing filter can get sick when doing his job.

Bi-polar ionization has been around since the 1960s. However it is just started in conventional HVAC systems. This Engineer’s opinion is that it is one of the best technologies to come along in many years.

Got more questions about bi-polar ionization?  Contact me at blongino@mingledorffs.com!

Last week, I made an introduction to the social media platform, Twitter.  Twitter (in my mind, and hopefully yours) has made a paradigm shift from time-waster to powerful marketing tool.  In the next few posts, I want to elaborate on a few of the basic functions of Twitter, and how you can use them to your advantage:

Creating conversation:  many will simply go out on Twitter and write what’s going on.  “I’m writing a post about Twitter” might be my tweet.  However, sometimes information grabs you, or someone who you’re following may ask a question or solicit a response.  In order to respond to someone, just start your tweet with @[twitter name].  For example, let’s say I see this in my feed:

CleanAirGA Fast Fact: In #Atlanta, HALF of all smog-forming emissions come from the tailpipes of cars. Clean your commute, clean the air

I think it’s something interesting, so I would write this:

mingledorffs @CleanAirGA makes me curious how much tele-commuting is on the rise…

It’s nothing profound, but I’m making an attempt to interact with someone else on Twitter.  I would hope to get a response, so a conversation has been created.  I can check to see all tweets mentioning me by clicking on the “@mingledorffs” menu selection, as circled below:

Once clicked, a list of only the tweets mentioning me appears.  No, I haven’t gotten a response yet, but I can keep checking:

So, I hope this example takes the first step in showing how Twitter is more than just a place to send texts about yourself.  It’s an (almost) infinite online community where you can interact with anyone…including potential customers.

Check back soon, as I’ll be digging into more ways to interact on Twitter.  These posts should (hopefully) unfold to create a vision of how these social medium can benefit you.

No doubt you’ve heard of it.  Thrown out in the news and other popular media along with overused terms like “going green”, “healthcare reform”, and “another Tiger Woods mistress has stepped forward”…

I’m talking about Twitter.  It’s the brutally simple social media tool that features users communicating in short, 140 character messages, or “tweets”.  Originally very popular among the Hollywood set, Twitter has hit the mainstream, now with around 100 million users.

When I first saw Twitter, I wrote it off as “a bunch of self-absorbed jerks sending text messages out to the world in the hopes of fishing for a response to feed their egos.”  Yes, that does exist, but the more I used Twitter, I was fascinated by the relationship and business-building power of this free social media platform.

Essentially, the concept is based on following people and companies, and having individuals and companies follow you.  You read all the updates of the people you follow, and all of your followers see your updates.  Let’s say, for example, that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is on Twitter (which they are: @ajc).  When I follow the AJC, then every update that they put out (referred to as “tweets”), I will see on my homepage feed (along with anyone else I’m following).

On the surface, the easiest advantage to identify is a quickness and brevity of information.  When folks are put into a 140-character box, they are forced to get to the point quickly (unlike some HVAC distribution bloggers).  This allows the reader to pick and choose the bits of info that are most relevant or interesting.  Furthermore, many tweeters will write a teaser, then have a link to a full article.  To fit the link in, they’ll often employ a free link-compression services (more on that in another post).  Now, businesses and individuals are not only forced by Twitter to be brief, but also to be interesting.  And interesting is how you get noticed.

I’ll be covering some of the more in-depth aspects of Twitter in a future post.  For now, go to http://twitter.com, set your user up, and start interacting.  And don’t forget to follow us at http://twitter.com/mingledorffs.