As we wrap up the recent peek into ongoing “thermostat wars” of indoor workplace comfort, I wanted to pass along a quick anecdote.

Last month, this column acknowledged the fact that some projects do not have written Owner’s Project Requirements (OPR) documents for the commissioning professional to reference.

The Atlantic Club, a health club in Red Bank, NJ, faced the decision of paying ongoing maintenance costs for an aging 15-year-old indoor pool dehumidifier or prematurely replacing it with newer HVAC technology.

The Royal University Hospital (RUH) provides acute-care services for the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan region, serving as the main trauma center for the entire region and housing many maternal and child, neurosurgery, and cardiovascular surgery services.

HVAC systems provide comfort and quality air for patients, staff, and visitors in hospitals. Comfort is generally determined by temperature, humidity, and air speed.

Within a hospital facility, there is the environment health and safety (EH&S) department, medical equipment management department, custodial department, and O&M department, to mention just a few — each with their own infection control (IC) responsibilities.

As we wrap up the recent peek into ongoing “thermostat wars” of indoor workplace comfort, I wanted to pass along a quick anecdote.

After reading my September column about using the heart as a guide for energy efficient HVAC design, a forward-thinking ES reader asked about using the respiratory system to think about air handling strategies.

Chillers have always been a popular choice to air condition large commercial buildings that are, by their nature, energy intensive.

Dedicated outdoor air systems (DOAS) have been available for over 20 years, with the primary benefit being the ability to decouple outdoor air tempering from conditioned space thermal loads that can be handled by separate, secondary systems.