Hospitals/Health Care

Just months after opening the doors to its new Veterans House, the VA medical center of Indianapolis, Indiana discovered that the building’s Energy Recovery Ventilation (ERV) system wasn’t working properly. The diagnosis: intake and exhaust ductwork running throughout the building and through the ERV were full of leaks, making it impossible to balance and adjust airflow. Strict government standards require a leakage rate of 10% or less. Pretesting showed a leakage rate that exceeded 45% in some areas.

The multi-billion dollar Arzanah medical complex in Abu Dhabi was nearing completion and stood ready to take its place as yet another shining example of the global leadership emanating from the United Arab Emirates. So it was with deep concern that engineers reviewed traverse readings taken from several of the structure’s HVAC risers that indicated leaks were robbing the facilities of half of the air traveling through the ductwork.

Ranked as one of the top hospitals in the country, John Muir Medical Center is a showcase for excellence in everything they do – from medical care to building design and construction best practices. When they decided to turn existing space of the building’s 2nd floor into a new endoscopy surgery unit they decided to repurpose the existing mechanical system serving the space. Pretesting, however, indicated inadequate airflow, resulting in unacceptably low levels of exhaust throughout the unit.

The Mt. Zion Hospital Pharmacy’s two new ventilating hoods require sufficient exhaust or else a fail-safe system will register a malfunction and equipment will automatically shut off. This is where chemo chemicals are prepared so it is critical that all air borne particles be exhausted from inside the hoods via connecting ductwork that leads outside the building. Even after meticulous construction that included manual sealing of all 300 feet of twisting ductwork, the exhaust system was simply not providing enough pull to meet code or to keep the system running properly.

There had been so many retrofits and extensions added to the ventilation system at Nemours Children’s Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida that engineers weren’t sure where their airflow problems were coming from. What they did know was that negative pressure and inadequate ventilation throughout the 30+-year-old building could support the spread of nosocomial infections. Their first steps in taking control of the situation was to seal the leaks in the exhaust shafts located on each floor and then seal the main shaft running down the length of the 11-story building.

Among its buildings, Miami Valley Hospital South in Centerville, Ohio includes a 60,000 square foot medical office building, a state-of-the-art cancer center and a main hospital unit. During routine HVAC maintenance, the facility’s test and balancing experts found that leaks, common throughout many of the duct systems employed on campus, were leading to significant HVAC performance inefficiencies. With an ongoing mandate to reduce energy use, hospital administrators knew that by fixing the leaks, they could potentially save a substantial amount of energy.

UOHI turned to new duct sealing technology to solve one problem and wound up solving two. Hospital monitors detected that an isotope created in one of the institute’s laboratories had somehow migrated to an adjacent wing of the building. By using Aeroseal technology to seal possible leaks in one of the ventilation shafts, the hospital could ensure that the isotope wasn’t spreading from one shaft to the other. Once the shaft was Aerosealed, the hospital immediately noticed another significant benefit – dramatically improved ventilation efficiency and lower energy costs.