How to Upgrade Your HVAC System for Coronavirus and Beyond

As COVID-19 is an airborne disease, ensuring that office buildings have optimal ventilation and airflow is a key step in reducing transmission in the workplace and keeping occupants healthier. In addition, establishing trust in a property’s safety features will make employees feel more confident about coming back to work in person.

According to a survey of 1,000 consumers conducted by Carbon Lighthouse — an energy savings-as-a-service company for commercial real estate that uses artificial intelligence software to reduce energy waste — 91% of respondents consider indoor air quality important in the prevention of COVID-19, and 74% said knowing a building’s indoor air quality (IAQ) rating would make them feel more comfortable about returning to the office.

“Some building owners are going to think they don’t need to respond [to this pandemic]. But I think tenants are going to detect who is phoning it in, and who is really trying to do something about [building safety],” said Matt Ganser, executive vice president of engineering and technology at Carbon Lighthouse. “If businesses and offices want to remain relevant and attract and retain tenants, they are going to have to demonstrate that their spaces are safe and valuable. A lot of CRE [owners] haven’t had to think in these terms before, but it’s certainly what is being demanded [by tenants] now.”

Now is the time for owners to make sure buildings are adhering to COVID-19 measures, and for tenants to get more vocal about the important features they’re looking for in their workspace. Luckily, making the necessary upgrades to ensure sure your heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system mitigates the risk of virus transmission isn’t as daunting, or expensive, as you might assume.

Additionally, Ganser told LoopNet, investing in HVAC upgrades will not only be beneficial for the COVID-19 era, but will save on energy costs in the long run as well. (It’s important to note here that who pays for some or all of these upgrades will depend on what kind of lease has been executed. Learn more about different types of lease structures here.)

To ensure that a building’s HVAC system is optimized to reduce virus transmission, Ganser recommends working with an industry professional to do the following:

• Ensure economizers are working properly.
• Upgrade filters to a minimum MERV-13 rating or higher.
• Make sure there are more than three air changes per hour.

In addition to Ganser’s suggestions, guidance from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), which informs the measures dictated by the Centers for Disease Control and the Environmental Protection Agency, also advises:

• Running the HVAC system at maximum outside airflow for two hours before and after occupied times.
• Disabling demand-control ventilation (DCV) controls that reduce air supply based on temperature or occupancy.
• Generate clean-to-less-clean air movements by re-evaluating the positioning of supply and exhaust air diffusers and/or dampers and adjusting zone supply and exhaust flow rates to establish measurable pressure differentials. Have staff work in “clean” ventilation zones that do not include higher-risk areas, such as visitor reception or exercise facilities (if open).

While some guidance suggests considering high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) fan/filtration systems, which are usually used in hospitals and other high-risk environments, Ganser said this can be pricey when it comes to both upfront and ongoing operating costs, with only negligible benefits.

“More conservative measures, like HEPA filters, 100% outdoor airflow and 24/7 operation of systems don’t really increase the safety of the building from our perspective,” he said.

Upgrades to building HVAC systems are not only important for keeping occupants healthier during the pandemic, but increase the overall efficiency of the systems and building profitability along with it, said Ganser.

Most of the upgrades that align with COVID-19 protocols are ones that should be implemented anyway, Ganser said.

“Even before COVID, buildings were rife with opportunity to improve operating expenses and make them healthier spaces to begin with. I think this moment has just shined a light on those inadequacies, and the things that clients can do or a way a building can be controlled [for better efficiency],” he said. “When you’re working on the COVID measures, you are basically just addressing the energy systems of the building and so you may as well kill two birds with one stone.”

In addition to the COVID-19 best practices mentioned above, building users or owners should work with an HVAC professional to evaluate the following:

• Reset schedules in major set points and make sure hours are tailored properly to building occupancy.
• Evaluate how pumps are controlled. (Are they using differential pressure or reset schedules?)
• Ensure optimal tradeoff between cooling power and chiller power.
• Check how fan speed for an air handler is controlled.
• Ensure optimal supplier temperature strategy for zone levels.
• Determine how these elements change with occupancy.
• Evaluate VAV (variable air volume) boxes and set points. Ganser said the average VAV box is not set up correctly for the loads that it actually serves, so you can lower those VAV set points in a lot of spaces.

Ganser observed that building owners are usually wary of making upgrades, assuming they’ll have to front a lot of money for major overhauls in order to glean energy-saving benefits, which is oftentimes not actually the case.

“I think the knee jerk reaction is, ‘I need to replace my whole chiller and therefore I shouldn’t make any upgrades because of the cost'. New equipment is always going to be a little bit more efficient, but the return on that investment can be really low. Before we recommend replacing a chiller, cooling tower or control system, we see if a client can maximize what’s in place,” said Ganser. This normally comes down to a combination of some basic building management software changes, new sensors and simple control upgrades.

Carbon Lighthouse said that in the buildings where it implements its control software, there is usually an average energy savings between 10% and 20% (but are sometimes anywhere from 5% to 50%).

“Not only can this be a great time to implement COVID measures that make your building safer, but it can also be time just to do all the other upgrades that not only offset the cost of the COVID measures, but make the building more resilient and modernized for the long haul,” said Ganser.

In a case study conducted by the company of a standard, 115,000-square-foot office building, implementing COVID-19 measures in the HVAC system actually saved on energy costs, but Ganser said the key here is implementing the measures in a strategic and controlled way.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, the stock building with central air handlers had a baseline energy spend of $230,000 per year. So, we said, ‘what if a user were to bluntly implement COVID measures?’ We found that the building’s energy spend ballooned to $370,000, about 60%-70% higher,” Ganser explained. “Then, we figured out that if you actually implement those COVID measures in a smarter way — using a management software, controlling operating schedules, etc. — and then you combine that with the actual efficiency overhauls that a building should be doing anyway, you could get the energy spend to about the same or even lower than pre-COVID spending levels.”

As employees return to work amid the pandemic and begin to operate with new health and safety needs moving forward, buildings that respond to tenant demand will not only be more desirable, but more resilient in the long run.

“I think we have a chronic problem of deferred maintenance when it comes to our buildings, and a lot of normal building codes and routine maintenance practices are a huge part of the answer to a safely-run building,” said Ganser. He likens it to changing the oil in your car — you don’t do it because you necessarily need new oil in the moment; you do it to keep your engine running smoothly and get more miles (and years) out of the life of a car.

“Investments don’t always make sense in the moment, but pushing [back] capital upgrades and continually deferred maintenance are really catching up to people right now,” he added. “Building operators and owners should take note of that and realize that if they’re keeping up to date with routine maintenance procedures, then they’re going to be better positioned to weather this storm and attract tenants.”