ASHRAE Journal - December 2022 - 22

COLUMN IEQ APPLICATIONS
Specific to ventilation systems, ANSI/ASHRAE Standard
62.16 includes requirements for construction and startup
in Section 7 and operations and maintenance in
Section 8. An addendum in 2016 added an informative
appendix to include checklists for enforcement agencies
and users to ensure compliance with the standard
in both new and existing buildings. Furthermore, in
2019, Standard 62.1 added an informative appendix to
assist with assessment of ventilation in existing buildings.
Sections 5 and 10 of ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 1707
were also recently updated and cover operations and
construction requirements specific to health-care
facilities and Section 8 of ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 62.28
has operations and maintenance requirements for
residential buildings. As evidenced by its standards,
ASHRAE is strongly committed to ensuring buildings
operate with adequate ventilation and has made continuous
improvements to its standards, even before the
COVID-19 pandemic, to support the commissioning process.
Industry adoption of commissioning practices has
regrettably been placed in the sustainability sandbox
and not adopted as standard practice, as it should be.
Maximizing Outdoor Air Ventilation
Maintaining sufficient ventilation is another of the core
recommendations of ASHRAE's Epidemic Task Force.5
Both ASHRAE and the Lancet report recognize that
there are practical limits to the extent to which existing
equipment can handle large quantities of outdoor
air. ASHRAE's recommendations include the use of air
cleaners with evidence-based effectiveness, stand-alone
air filters, and HVAC operations to achieve infection risk
mitigation goals while minimizing energy impacts.5 The
study published in JAMA referenced by the Lancet report
indicates that the increased ventilation rates can be from
outdoor air or recirculated air filtered by a MERV 13 or
HEPA filter.9 This is a very important distinction from an
energy savings perspective, since even modest increases
to outdoor air ventilation rates could result in significant
energy expenditures in many climates, even with
improvements in equipment efficiencies and controls.
The important takeaway from the underlying work is
that although increasing outdoor airflow rates is implied,
the evidence suggests the use of less energy intensive
solutions.
Summit panelists across all panels cited studies that
tied increased ventilation to reduced absenteeism and
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improved performance.10 Carbon dioxide was also
cited by multiple speakers and panelists as a metric for
indoor air quality. In February 2022, ASHRAE published
the ASHRAE Position Document on Indoor Carbon
Dioxide,11 which seeks to correct years of misconception
on the role of carbon dioxide as an indoor air quality
metric and provide guidance on its appropriate use.
Other efforts of ASHRAE on this topic include the elimination
of the frequently cited Informative Appendix in
Standard 62.1 in 2016, and the proposed Addendum ab
to Standard 62.1, which seeks to provide modern guidance
on using carbon dioxide for demand control ventilation.
The process of building consensus through suggesting
language, soliciting public feedback and revising
and repeating until all comments are resolved can be
frustrating, but it ensures that changes will be broadly
accepted by the industry.
Another topic discussed by multiple panelists was
the benefit of clean air. The first question we should be
asking as designers is what constitutes clean air? The
World Health Organization (WHO) Global Air Quality
Guidelines12 were updated in 2021 with lower targets
for several pollutants. The WHO regularly states that
99% of the world's population lives in regions where
the listed pollutants exceed these new guidelines. This
means the HVAC design community needs to assess the
validity of treating outdoor air as " clean air. " Section 4
of ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 62.1 already addresses this
issue by requiring the designer to assess the regional
outdoor air quality.6 When the pollutants exceed the air
quality standards for " clean air, " the standard requires
increased filtration for the ventilation systems. These
requirements were last increased in 2016, and they
could be increased again through the continuous maintenance
process. This process can be initiated by any
member of the public who presents a committee with a
proposed change to their standard and supporting evidence.
ASHRAE has made this process accessible online
at https://osr.ashrae.org/.
Upgrading Building Filtration to MERV 13
Upgrading building filtration is yet another core recommendation
of the ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force.5
Increasing building filtration was cited as an action
taken by panelists representing school districts, sports
facilities, government facilities, and private building
owners. However, one panelist reported their
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ASHRAE Journal - December 2022

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