Acute Care Hospital
LSS Life Safety Services was contracted to perform complete HVAC System Cleaning for this hospital located in Western Missouri. A commercial HVAC system cleaning can help make the air you breathe fresh and clean. Since the ductwork is above the ceiling and typically out of sight, it’s easy to not think about having it cleaned. But dirty ductwork is the perfect breeding ground for mites, mold, bacteria, viruses, and other poisons that are toxic to the environment. Regardless of whether you work in an Industrial facility, commercial, healthcare, or educational campus, the only way to completely remove these pollutants is through routine HVAC System Cleaning.
This particular job consisted of five (5) systems. The systems serviced Surgery, the Emergency Room, and Same Day / Outpatient Surgery Unit (overall 75,000 square feet of conditioned space). The client had two primary concerns that initiated the work; (1) The overall indoor air quality and infection control risk, especially given the area’s services by the five systems, and the risk of Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs), and (2) The client had seen fluctuations with positive and negative pressure differentials outside the norm required by ASHRAE and The Joint Commission and attributed some of that to airflow blockages in the HVAC System’s terminal boxes (e.g Reheats, VAVs).
How LSS Helped the Client:
- Post cleaning the hospital contract with a Test and Balancing (TAB) Company, to address the positive and negative airflow issues. The cleaning process played an integral part in allowing the hospital to recalibrate the positive and negative pressure differentials to meet ASHRAE and Joint Commission standards.
- HVAC System Cleaning improved the airflow, especially from the VAVs and the Coils in the Air Handler Units, additionally, the filters were not loading as quickly. Thus energy efficiency improved, and filter cost was lessened, both factors saved the client money.
- Cleaner HVAC Systems, with source removal of contaminants, and application of an EPA microbicide helped remove contaminants from ductwork supplying air to patients in surgery and ER beds who are immunocompromised and highly susceptible to a hospital-acquired infection (HAI).
Industries We Serve
Healthcare Project Highlights
- Given the critical nature of where the work was being performed, and to protect the patients from any contaminants, LSS service technicians had cordon off the areas and utilize HEPA Filtered air scrubbers, and HEPA Filtered Negative Air Machines to collect all contaminants in the HVAC System.
- Utilized pneumatic agitation devices to dislodge the contaminants which were collected by the HEPA filtered negative air machine, and then sanitized the ductwork with an EPA registered microbicide, BBJ, specifically designed for use in HVAC Systems.
- The inline terminal boxes (e.g. reheats and VAV’s) were individually cleaned, which included cleaning the coils with HEPA vacuums and applying alkaline coil cleaning. The VAVs were internally lined and had insulation fibers breaking free, so an EPA registered encapsulate, IAQ 8500, was applied to the insulation. This product will retard future mold growth and rebind the insulation fibers, to stop the fibers from breaking free and dispersing into the ambient air.
- All components of the Air Handler Unit(s) were cleaned (Blower Wheel, Mixed Air Chamber, Coils, Filter Bank, etc.). After completion of the cleaning, new filters were installed.
Services Performed
- Commercial HVAC Cleaning