Despite the endless challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, many organizations and institutions are taking whatever means necessary to return to some meaningful sense of normalcy. For some universities, this means resuming classes for the fall semester while remaining in accordance with regulations and suggestions from government authorities. One Massachusetts university specifically wanted to resume in-person classes for the fall. Unfortunately, they found that some parts of their campus had insufficient ventilation. In order to provide a safe environment for its students, the university called on Mobile Air & Power Rentals to provide a temporary cooling and ventilation solution to some of its facilities.
The university specifically sought a ventilation solution for its gymnasium as well as its dining hall. Adequate Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) for these spaces would require about 13 air changes per hour in the dining hall and 6 air changes per hour in the gym. This would require an additional 40,000 CFM in the dining hall and 20,000 CFM in gym. Since the gym didn’t have any cooling, however, they also desired the ventilation to be provided by rental cooling equipment.
Soon after the turnkey solution was ordered by the director of facilities, a team of four technicians arrived onsite to install the equipment. For the gymnasium, the team spent six hours installing four 25-ton air conditioners just outside the facility. The install went smoothly, but not without challenges: since the units could only be placed on top of a parking garage connected to the gym, the team needed to use multiple smaller units and a low mast forklift to carry each air conditioner to the top level.
Eventually it was time to work on the dining hall. Since the dining hall already had cooling, it only needed two 20,000 CFM air handling units to supplement the existing ventilation. Polyduct ran across the hall’s ceiling joists to better distribute the airflow, although a raised platform in the facility meant that technicians needed to use a single man lift to secure the ducting. After an additional eight hours, the ventilation solution was finally complete.
Each unit was tied into the campus’ power. The director of facilities wanted to use their own power disconnect, but the ordered disconnect was on backorder for quite a while. Instead, we provided our own rental disconnect for the time being. The university is providing their own MERV 13 filters for every unit and will replace them while the equipment is in place for the entire fall semester. With the help of a ventilation and cooling solution from Mobile Air & Power Rentals, this university was able to successfully provide as safe of an environment as possible for its students in the face of a pandemic.
