Pure Air Control Services Inc News
Hospital air quality affects the health of staff, patients, and visitors. Healthcare facilities managers looking to keep their buildings safe must focus on providing clean air. This helps reduce the spread of viruses and prevents the growth of mold and bacteria. Doing so requires a prescriptive strategy that includes monitoring as well as remediation. Hospital air quality is critical during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. It keeps patients safe and gives staff confidence that their he...
Poor building management has severe consequences for building occupants. This has always been true but in a post-pandemic world, business owners and facilities managers must respond to myriad challenges presented by chemical and biological contaminants. That is the conclusion of a bipolar ionization white paper recently published by the Continental Automated Building Association (CABA). The report also shows that bipolar ionization reduces airborne S. aureus concentrations by approximately 99.8...
For business owners and facility managers, the comfort and safety of building occupants are top priorities. That means ensuring proper indoor air quality. Improving IAQ requires the use of energy and materials, however. In many cases, this creates a linear economy where system components are replaced as they degrade. This results in unnecessary waste and increased carbon emissions. One way to break out of the linear economy and into an HVAC circular economy is through repair and restoration ins...
COVID-19 has caused major disruptions in the lives of millions of people across the US and the world. As the pandemic gets under control users are dealing with the ripple effects of the virus. A shortage of raw materials, copper and steel in particular, as well as a shortage of semiconductors, create headaches for HVAC contractors. COVID is not the only cause of shortages. Other factors include high tariffs on imports from China, high summer demand, a shortage of drivers, rising ocean freight r...
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed many weaknesses in school buildings across the country. According to a recent report from the American Society of Civil Engineers, 53 percent of the public schools in the United States have building systems in need of replacement or upgrades. Forty-one percent of these schools report problems with their HVAC system. Half of those schools report systems that are either in poor or fair condition. Until these issues are addressed, students and staff remain at risk. W...
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its variants put indoor air quality in the spotlight. However, facilities managers have long known about the importance of proper ventilation to the health and wellbeing of building occupants. For K-12 facilities, and college and university classrooms too, fixing school IAQ should be a top priority. Fixing School IAQ When high temperatures and humidity combine in the indoor environment, air quality worsens. Mold forms and dust, VOCs, bacteria, and other pathog...
Few would argue against the need for improving test scores in schoolchildren. It would also be beneficial to know what impact indoor air pollution has on students. However, no one would recommend testing the effects of air pollution on children directly. That said, one such experiment, conducted by accident in California several years ago, provides a takeaway that’s hard to ignore. The result of this unplanned experiment found IAQ benefits to schools in the form of hi...
Of the many benefits of improved building ventilation and filtration, cognitive functioning is among them. This is the finding of the COGfx Study 3: Global Buildings conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Global Health. The school’s research on how IAQ affects occupants’ cognitive performance spans a decade. The most recent study found that green buildings lead to the higher cognitive performance of occupants. The test, conducted on 302 office workers in the US, UK,...
When the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. in early 2020, forced schools across the country to shut down including K-12 classrooms as well as colleges and universities. As students adapted to virtual classrooms, schools developed plans for reopening once it was safe to do so. With new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerging, schools must again develop and put in place higher education IAQ strategies to keep students as well as faculty safe. Prepare for the Future Even as more people get vaccina...
The COVID-19 pandemic closed K-12 schools across the United States of America (USA). Students and teachers, as well as parents, had to adapt to remote learning. Educators did the best they could with the resources available, but there is no substitute for in-person learning. The COVID-19 pandemic is not over, however, schools have reopened. Some schools enforce social distancing and mask-wearing mandates. They have also increased cleaning and disinfecting efforts, and are making improvements to...
Many factors influence parents’ decisions about where to send their children to college. Concern about the quality of education and its cost weigh on their minds, but health and safety do as well. In fact, according to a recent survey conducted by real estate services company JLL, college air quality is one of the top three factors parents consider in their college selection. The pandemic hit higher education hard. The risks of in-class learning remain a concern, especially with the emerg...
Facilities managers may wonder how building occupants feel about the indoor environments where they spend most of their time. They may be interested to know that a majority of occupants may not feel their buildings have safe air quality. At least that was the findings of a recent survey conducted by the consulting agency Savanta. Safe Air Quality Survey Results The survey included 1,165 participants ages 18 and over from Canada and the United States. Survey respondents spend time in...
In June 2021, Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) conducted a review of the latest COVID-19 science, data, and guidance. After consulting with the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), OSHA issued an emergency temporary standard (ETS) for employers, working in healthcare and healthcare support services. However, despite the name ‘COVID-19 Healthcare ETS’, the rule applies to any organization that provides first aid services. This could include schools...
As children are going back to school and employees return to the workplace, indoor air quality has become a top priority. In order to prevent economic collapse, businesses must be able to safely reopen. Unfortunately, most building HVAC systems are not equipped to circulate clean air into occupied spaces fast enough to prevent the spread of viruses like COVID-19. Additional air purification systems and environmental upgrades are necessary to create safe working spaces as most Americans spend 90...
Pure Air Control Services has one of the few environmental laboratories that provides Coronavirus environmental testing of surface samples utilizing RT-qPCR technology. As businesses prepare to reopen and more importantly for essential businesses that remain open, ensuring a safe environment for occupants is the number one priority. Many organizations have been taking extra measures for cleaning during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to minimize the risk. Business where cases of COVID-19 are con...
Pure Air Control Services, Inc. announced that its Environmental Diagnostic Laboratory (EDLab) has been accredited by the American Association of Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) to perform biological tests (Certificate #5594.01) on environmental and pharmaceutical samples (including bulk, swabs, wipes, water and liquids). EDLab is equipped, staffed and ready to serve the environmental or RX needs no matter the project scope. “Since 1992 EDLab has provided a high degree of expertise and an...
Each year tens of thousands of HVAC, Plumbing and Energy professionals gather at the AHR Expo to learn about new products, services and standards being introduced to their respective trades. Pure Air Control Services, Inc. will be highlighting their indoor air quality expertise and propriety HVAC restoration services at the show in Booth 5671. AHR Expo 2020 will be held on February 3-5 at the Orange County Convention Center in sunny Orlando, Florida. Each division of Pure Air Control Services w...