🧵The search for ventilation.
Hotel & COVID-19 Edition.
I stayed yesterday at brand name hotel. Here are some observations about shared air, outdoor air, and maintenance issues.
The room I stayed in does not have shared air. This is typical for hotel rooms. Air in your room gets recirculated and conditioned within your room only - by design.
Pic for unit in my room: window unit with fan and cooling/heating coil.
Indoor air gets recirculated on the side, conditioned and then blown from the top - as shown by my infrared camera. Blue = cold air. orange = "hot" air.
Hint: to know the intake of air on the unit, look where there is dust.
This unit only provides recirculated indoor air - NO outdoor air. I double checked with the brand name manufacturer.
Ok. Where is outdoor air coming from?
Typically, you will see a supply air in the corridor like the picture here.
In the hotel I stayed in, no outdoor air unit is found on the hotel premises and no sign of any supply of outdoor air in the room.
Other method to get outside air is to supply it to the corridor and then get outside air from the door to the room. However, the door is this room was sealed shut and I verified (three different methods) there was no air coming from the corridor.
The only other way is outside air brought in from the windows. However, I could not open them as there were sealed shut. I called the operator and asked her "how do I open these lovely windows", she said she worked at the hotel for a long time and never got asked this question.
In the bathroom, there was exhaust fan (fan taking air from bathroom and room and exhausting to the outside) continuously.
(it does not look pretty as it is never cleaned).
Because of the exhaust fan, taking air from room to outside, room pressure is <0. Meaning that air is being sucked in from corridor or adjacent room. For this room, there was air (small quantity) coming from an ill-sealed door from adjacent room.
My go-to-solution is duct tape.
(unrelated to this thread, if you ever watched forensic files, you would know to always check that this door between two rooms to be always closed)...
I noticed that the air conditioning system in my room has back mold. Unfortunately this is typical as the model is "design and forget".
I took bio-sampling and will be sending the sample to a lab to get the results of what I was breathing. (will share the results).
I also took CO2 data and particulate matter samples from 0.3 um to 10 um in size (will share the results when i graph the data and compare to other environment).
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🧵A brave and courageous high-level sales executive at GPS (company suing me) provided explosive, truly extraordinary information detailing astoundingly poor conduct on behalf of the highest levels of GPS’s exec team.
This week, I stayed at an hotel and this time I came prepared.
Here are some observations about shared air, system type, filtration, and outside air rates.
Air conditioning system type = fan coil unit = fan + filter + cooling and heating coil.
➡️This system does not introduce any outside air. It only filter the air in the room by recirculating it through a filter then a coil then supplying back to the room.
@JudahWorldChamp@kprather88@CorsIAQ@jljcolorado@HuffmanLabDU@Poppendieck Hotels do not have shared air by design with 1 caveat.
- In your room, you will have a unit that circulates and conditions only your room air (not shared).
- This unit might be under a window, next to a window, or in corridor of your room next to the bathroom.
📢📢New! Air Cleaners Comparison: 1- Selection graph: 1.a. all + 1.b. only HEPA 2- Data download link 3- Request data link 4- Where to place air cleaner? 5- Calculate reqs 6- CADR and noise 7- Letter about unproven tech.
1a - Selection Graph - All (includes ionizers = unproven tech)
- X axis first cost + first year filter replacement cost in USD
- Y axis: Clean Air Delivery rate = volume of clean air in CFM (cubic feet per min) = ~efficiency x airflow
1b - Selection Graph - only includes HEPA
- X axis first cost + first year filter replacement cost in USD
- Y axis: Clean Air Delivery rate = volume of clean air in CFM (cubic feet per min) = ~efficiency x airflow
Fun Fact:
On average, for each 1 cfm of clean air you pay $1.8
🧵 Answers to what the different strategies will result in term of air change rate
Example used throughout the thread:
👉Classroom: 960 ft2: 30' x 32’
👉Number of occupants: 30 (this is the design number, taking into account average classroom density).
Ventilation by code, this classroom should have 415 CFM airflow of outside air or 14 CFM/person.
👉This airflow is being forced through the HVAC system (unit in classroom or mechanical room).
When we check ventilation, the answer is not “yes” or “no”, the answer should be how much?