HVAC Ventilation - A step against coronavirus
How You Can Use Ventilation to Prevent Coronavirus Spread Indoors
Majority of coronavirus transmission occurs indoors, most of it from the inhalation of airborne particles that contain the coronavirus.
The best way to prevent the virus from spreading in a surrounding space where we smell would be to simply keep infected people away.
But is it possible?
This is hard to do when an estimated per cent of cases are asymptomatic and asymptomatic people can still spread the coronavirus to others.
Masks to greater extent keep the virus away from spreading into the environment, but if the infected person is present in the space so there would be chances that virus may come in contact with the air.
so it is quite necessary to control the transmission of airborne infectious diseases in the space where we smell or inhale the oxygen content
But the simple and direct question rises how to make indoor spaces safe during this pandemic.
well according to my opinion Once the virus escapes into the air inside a building, you have two options:
so removing the virus is quite difficult so better to bring fresh oxygen-enriched outside air in the space which is to be conditioned.
so from different medical cases, one thing is clear that patient is facing issue related to breathing and breathing issues occurs due to less oxygen content or improper natural ventilation.
It's all about fresh, outside air
The safest indoor space is one that constantly has lots of outside air replacing the foul air inside.
In commercial buildings, outside air is usually pumped in through heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems.
In homes, outside air gets in through open windows and doors, in addition to seeping in through various cracks.
outside air is which is getting into a building called the air exchange rate This number quantifies the number of times the air inside a building gets replaced with air from outside in an hour.
While the exact rate depends on the number of people and size of the room, most experts consider roughly six air changes an hour to be good for a 10 x 10-foot room with three to four people in it.
In a pandemic, this should be higher than the normal rate at the most nine air changes per hour depending on the space to be conditioned.
Keeping windows and doors open is a good start. Putting an exhaust ventilation fan in a window blowing out can greatly increase air exchange too. In buildings that don't have operable windows, you can change the mechanical ventilation system to increase how much air it is pumping.
But in any room, the more people inside, the faster the air should be replaced.
Using CO2 to measure air circulation
So how do you know if the room you're in has enough air exchange? It's actually a pretty hard number to calculate.
Every time you exhale, you release CO2 into the air. Since the coronavirus is most often spread by breathing, coughing or talking, you can use CO2 levels to see if the room is filling up with potentially infectious exhalations. The CO2 level lets you estimate if enough fresh outside air is getting in.
Outdoors, CO2 levels are just above 400 parts per million (ppm). A well-ventilated room will have around 800 ppm of CO2. Any higher than that and it is a sign the room might need more ventilation.
According to the research, the increase in ventilation was responsible for 97 per cent of the decrease in transmission.
Since the coronavirus is spread through the air, higher CO2 levels in a room likely mean there is a higher chance of transmission if an infected person is inside. Based on the study above, I recommend trying to keep the CO2 levels below 600 ppm.
Air cleaners
If you are in a room that can't get enough outside air for dilution, consider an air cleaner, also commonly called air purifiers. These machines remove particles from the air, usually using a filter made of tightly woven fibres. They can capture particles containing bacteria and viruses and can help reduce disease transmission.
The first thing to consider is how effective an air cleaner's filter is. Your best option is a cleaner that uses a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter, as these remove more than 99.97 per cent of all particle sizes.
The second thing to consider is how powerful the cleaner is. The bigger the room – or the more people in it – the more air needs to be cleaned.
Keep the air fresh or get outside
The World Health Organization say that poor ventilation increases the risk of transmitting the coronavirus.
If you are in control of your indoor environment, make sure you are getting enough fresh air from outside circulating into the building. A CO2 monitor can help give you a clue if there is enough ventilation, and if CO2 levels start going up, open some windows and take a break outside.
If you can't get enough fresh air into a room, an air cleaner might be a good idea. If you do get an air cleaner, be aware that they don't remove CO2, so even though the air might be safer, CO2 levels could still be high in the room.
This all I have experienced after facing this disease and this is the way one can overcome or make self oxygen-enriched overcoming the viruses. This is not only for coronavirus but also for other viruses which can be avoided by this simple trick of ventilation.
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