Managing Building Security — Beginning at the Design Phase
HVAC security and building safety considerations should begin at the start of the building program in the design-schematic phase and not be an afterthought later in this program.
ASHRAE has, for years, strived to keep a finger on the pulse of HVAC security through its Technical Committee TC 2.10, previously TG-2. The focus, directed toward HVAC design engineers, contractors, building owners and operators, and academia, suggests HVAC security begins in the building program’s design phase. At the same time, existing buildings can take advantage of the latest security thinking with a review of Chapter 61, “HVAC Security,” found in the 2019 ASHRAE Handbook - HVAC Applications. Chapter 61’s table of contents includes sections on owner’s project requirements, risk evaluation, HVAC system security, environmental health, and safety design, chemical incidents, biological incidents, radiological incidents, and explosive incidents.
This chapter serves as an introduction to HVAC security and is so stated on the first page, “… is intended to be a general overview and not used as design guidelines.” That said, at the beginning of the building program’s conceptual/schematic phase, the owner’s project requirements (OPR), along with a risk evaluation, should be included in the project’s basis of design (BoD) document. But, when it comes to actually drafting the safety/security section of the project’s BoD document, this should be left to the experts that include environmental health and security (EHS) consultants, government security agencies, and cybersecurity experts to ensure the building, its occupants, and the communication infrastructure will be safe and secure.