Event Information
Location: Holiday Inn by the Bay, Portland, Maine
Date: October 30, 2023 @ 10:00-11:00am
Improving Classroom Air Quality and Decarbonizing Classroom Comfort Conditioning
Ty Newell, Emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Illinois & Vice President Build Equinox, Urbana, IL
About this program:
Many classroom environments are unhealthy and uncomfortable, creating poor learning environments with high absenteeism. ASHRAE's recently developed 241P standard ("Control of Infectious Aerosols") requires 50cfm per person ventilation in classroom environments, or more than double today's ASHRAE 62.1 minimum ventilation requirements. The new ventilation standard significantly reduces transmission of airborne disease and improves student classroom performance. The presentation will cover expected benefits of improved classroom IAQ.
Older, unventilated classrooms can be economically decarbonized while improving air quality and comfort. Before and after IAQ and comfort data from conversion of classrooms in an Illinois junior high school and a Montessori school in Maine are presented. Health, energy and cost information for the projects are presented.
Learning Goals:
- • Discuss how students and teaching staff generate pollutants (carbon dioxide, VOCs and particulates) in classrooms environments.
- • Describe how much fresh air must be supplied and how much indoor air must be recirculated through filters in order to maintain a healthy, productive learning environment.
- • Describe reduction in sick days and absenteeism in classrooms with improved IAQ.
- • Discuss energy and energy cost during occupied and unoccupied periods in classrooms with healthy ventilation and efficient, low temperature heat pump technologies.
- • Describe installation and equipment cost for decarbonizing and improving IAQ in older classrooms.
About the Presenter:
Ty is an emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Illinois and Vice President of Build Equinox, a company devoted to inventing technologies for healthy, comfortable and sustainable living. He has lectured around the world on indoor air quality, comfort, solar energy, building energy efficiency, and resource conservation including keynote addresses at the Solar Energy Society of India's 25th Silver Jubilee in Hyderabad and at the TTMD Conference (Turkish ASHRAE) in Istanbul, Turkey. Ty lives in a 100% solar powered home in Urbana Illinois that features smart fresh air control, two Electric Vehicles, and is the first home within an Illinois municipality to be permitted for rainwater harvesting use. Build Equinox is located in a 4500sqft Morton building in Urbana IL that is also 100% solar powered.
Program Level:
Basic
Content Area(s):
- • Balancing ventilation and energy efficiency
- • Air filtration
- • IAQ monitoring
- • School air quality
- • The future of building energy
- • Indoor chemistry
- • Indoor biome
- • The business benefits of IAQ
- • Electrification of buildings and IAQ
- • The future of the ASHRAE ventilation standards
- • General IAQ/energy design and construction
