Indoor Air Quality Assessment & Solutions
Clean Air During the Covid-19 Pandemic
At Unify Energy Solutions, we design, build and deploy BACnet (Building Automation and Control Networks) and IoT (Internet of Things) solutions for lighting, HVAC, refrigeration, and access control.
As an authorized dealer of Reliable Controls, we provide our customers with simple, flexible, and sustainable tools that make their facilities efficient, comfortable, and healthy. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the need for energy-efficient clean indoor air is more important than ever. All of our clean air solutions focus on reducing airborne particles within your building while saving on energy.
In the age of easily transmitted dangerous viruses like Covid-19 and contagious bacteria, indoor air quality is becoming much more than just inducing outside air. Having the minimum required outside air will help the IAQ, but the filtration of the air within the building has become more important.
What Contributes to Indoor Air Quality
Occupied buildings are full of people and chemicals that could be harmful to human health. This “dirty”, unhealthy air comes from fabric off-gassing, cleaning supplies, human metabolism, perfumes, colognes, and more. Less than desirable air can also be exhausted directly from bathrooms, kitchens, equipment rooms, and the central ventilation system.
In contrast, clean, fresh air is brought into the building to replace the old air and improve the indoor air quality (IAQ). However, outdoor air is not always ideal for the indoor environment either. It should be filtered, and often needs to be tempered (warmed up or cooled down) to be comfortable for the inhabitants.
Understanding Your Clean Air Needs
At Unify, we rely on our industry-leading, data-driven analysis to ensure your building’s indoor air quality adheres to the latest industry recommendations and ever-evolving ASHRAE guidelines.
While sharing an immediate focus on mitigating COVID-19 risks, we are also focused on the long term effects of clean air for your building, such as:
Bipolar Ionization
We spend 90% of our time indoors. Indoor pollutant concentration can be 2-5x higher. 98% of these pollutants are less than 1 micron and often are missed by traditional filtration systems. As operators are taking steps to develop a multi-tiered approach to assure a safe and healthy return back to work.
Increased Air Quality
We analyze your current energy use, equipment, and systems to collaboratively determine the best way to increase clean air delivery rates in your building.
Increased Productivity
Our expert staff stays up to speed on evolving guidelines, offering ongoing service agreements that help you monitor & maintain clean air strategies. This not only reduces the risk of infection within your facility but allows your team to continue to be productive and available.
Our expert team even provides training for our customers free of charge, so you’re equipped to handle regular maintenance independently and save time and costs.
Reduced Cost
Our proactive solutions allow for prolonged life spans on your equipment and facility as a whole, while also capitalizing on significant energy efficiency savings over time.
We don’t expect you to fit into our predetermined service options. We will create a dependable maintenance and service plan that meets your specific criteria, and do it at a reasonable price.
How Needlepoint Bipolar Ionization Works
NPBI produces a high concentration of positive and negative ions, delivering them into space via the building’s EXISTING HVAC systems. Positive Ions flow through the vents and attach to particles like dust, dander, pollen, smoke, odors, and even pathogens, including mold, viruses, and bacteria. These Ions combine with these particles and increase their mass, allowing for existing filters to capture them. In addition to increasing the effectiveness of existing filters, these ions also disrupt any pathogens’ surface proteins rendering them inactive.
Clean Air Solutions – HEPA Filters, HVAC, BAS, and UV
Increased filtration with High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters will help clean the air being circulated by the HVAC systems. A HEPA air filter can potentially remove at least 99.97% of dust, pollen, mold, bacteria, and any airborne particles. HEPA filters are used in commercial airplanes, operating rooms, clean rooms and in the near future may be used in most commercial locations.
Using HEPA filters along with Ultraviolet (UV) Lights within the HVAC systems can help clean the air even further. UV lights have been used for a long time to sterilize objects and rooms. They have been used for many years in HVAC systems to prevent biological growth on HVAC cooling coils.
New UV lights that utilize a particular wavelength of ultraviolet light called far-UVC can potentially kill viruses and bacteria without harming humans. Therefore, they may be used soon at entryways and common areas of buildings or on mobile robots to help kill viruses and bacteria on occupants and their clothing.
Commercial buildings can utilize a Building Automation System (BAS) to monitor air quality sensors throughout the building and regulate increased outside air to an area. This is a response to the air becoming more contaminated with VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds) and can maintain the optimum amount of outside air being induced into a building.
A BAS utilizing air quality sensors and controlling the HVAC system can improve a building’s IAQ while utilizing the least amount of energy necessary to do so.
What Does This Mean for the Future?
Although this technology can get costly, the price of this improved indoor air quality could be offset by the potential financial loss that comes from lost employee productivity or business closure due to illness. Another benefit is giving the occupants of a building some added peace of mind knowing that the latest technology is being used to help clean the air they breathe.
If you are interested in our energy-efficient clean air technology, please reach out to the team at Unify Energy Solutions.
We pride ourselves on creating customers for life.
Unify Energy Solutions has the experience and technology to tailor solutions for each facility use case; our focus is to efficiently optimize your assets for today and be the lifelong partner for tomorrow.
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