Ready to Come back?
As your local mechanical contractor, we are offering building health reports to help building owners and managers come back to their buildings with confidence. MacDonald-Miller’s building health report will provide you with customized assessments of your equipment, indoor air quality checks, safety approved cleaning procedures and touchless solutions and recommendations.
While all building systems are unique, there are a few comprehensive recommendations applicable for all building owners during COVID-19. These are areas to address in preparation for buildings returning to higher occupancy conditions:
Ventilation
We recommend increasing the number of air changes per hour inside the building by opening outside air intakes. Check and clean outside air intake grills. Disable demand-controlled ventilation and keep system fans running longer hours to promote continuous circulation.
Humidity
Studies have shown that maintaining humidity levels in a building or space above 43% cuts the ability of a virus to spread. We recommend monitoring our indoor humidity levels and adding moisture to the air if needed.
Filtration
We recommend changing your air filters and consider upgrading your central air filtration to the MERV-13 or the highest compatible with the filter rack, and seal edges of the filter to limit bypass. This may require more filter changes as they will load up faster than less efficient filters.
Plumbing
We highly recommend not flushing disinfectant wet wipes as they clog sanitary waste lines. Educate your tenants and signage helps! Flush domestic water systems that have been sitting idle or have experience little use. Biofilm can build-up as well as the risk of Legionella. Ice machines should be cleaned as well for similar reasons if they have been sitting idle.
Disinfection
Disinfection of indoor coils with chemical disinfectant will remove any potential contaminants from getting into the airstream. If your system uses a cooling tower be consistent with chemical treatment to control Legionella. Deep cleaning of the inside of Air Handling Units with chemical disinfectant will remove any potential contaminants from getting into the airstream.
For more recommendations, please contact your service team!