5 Things to do today to get your building open

As everyone grapples with where to start hardening their building and making it ready for re-opening, there are some simple things to do. I won't cover the basics like sanitizers or limiting occupancy in elevators but will focus on how to slow the transmission of voruses in your building.

Step 1: Maximize your outdoor air from your building air handler. Simplest way is to run your air handler longer, 2 hours before and after occupancy. Yes you will have more energy costs, but no capital costs.

If you have no air handler fresh air capabilities, try to open windows. Avoid mold and introducing poor air quality in your space.

Step 2: Change your filters on the main air handlers to MERV 13 that see the most occupants. If your space starts to feel a lack of cooling or heating because the filters are blocking air flow at peak conditions, then go back to your previous filter. Don't go down the path of costly motor changes till you start to see performance degradation in real time.

Step 3: All maintenance staff should where PPE when working on air handlers, changing filters and in mechanical rooms. Last thing we want is to have distribution of the virus propagated when changing filters.

Step 4: Install sanitizing mats at the entrances. It is very difficult to sanitize and disinfect floors so let's do disinfect shoes and slow transmission.

Step 5: Do a Test and Balance of your system. We have the theoretical numbers of how much fresh air the unit can bring in, now let's get the real number with a TAB. All equipment degrades and goes out of adjustment with run time hours. Time to get it re-tuned.