At Accurate Mechanical Services (AMS), our clients’ health and safety is our top priority. With the continued easing of lockdown restrictions, vaccine rollout and more of the world coping with – and slowing the spread of – COVID-19, more of our clients will begin welcoming their employees back to their offices.
We remain committed to delivering reliable, flexible air conditioning repair, maintenance, inspections, and installations for our clients to constantly ensure their offices and workspaces benefit from high-quality indoor air. Our air conditioning, ventilation and heating services have helped our commercial clients reap the advantages of premium air quality for years.
As we continue to learn more about coronavirus and how it affects people, we’re continually looking for ways to help our clients stay safe. To help, we’ve created a short guide on improving and maintaining good air quality as you return to the office amidst this pandemic.
Can HVAC Prevent COVID-19?
One of the most prominent questions is whether air conditioning makes you sick, or gives you a cough, cold, etc.
Those illnesses are caused by viruses and bacteria, not the air conditioning unit or ventilation equipment itself.
We’ve all arguably made more conscious efforts to protect ourselves from viruses and bacteria in the last couple of years. It’s arguably more important than ever in our fight against coronavirus.
HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) systems are also not enough to protect people against COVID-19 or other viruses, but taking steps to improve indoor air quality can help reduce airborne virus exposure.
How to Improve Indoor Air Quality
Indoor air quality is often substantially more polluted than outdoor air. COVID-19 is spread through respiratory droplets from sneezing, coughing or even talking. Therefore to reduce the chances of transmission in the office, you should improve your air quality indoors. That may involve looking at your commercial air conditioning or ventilation unit itself, assessing its heating efficiency, cleaning it or even booking an HVAC engineer from AMS to take a look.
We will stress again, improving indoor air quality will not protect you from contracting the virus, but it will reduce your exposure.
The steps you can take are as follows:
- Increase your ventilation – open windows and screened doors, keep any air vents running to keep the air circulating inside and less contaminated.
- Run your HVAC unit continuously – while there isn’t an explicit requirement to keep HVAC systems on when rooms aren’t being used, the air filters operate as the system stays on. The air filters should also be changed regularly and upgraded for higher-quality options if they start to struggle. Modern HVAC units don’t take long to get the room in question to the optimum temperature when they are off, but of course, the indoor air will feel quite musty if left off for too long.
- Use air purifiers – these are great solutions for reducing airborne contaminants and viruses within a domestic or commercial environment.
- Keep your environment clean – regularly sweeping, mopping and vacuuming floors in the office, washing fabrics, spraying surfaces and de-cluttering all significantly reduce the spread of infections.
Relative HVAC Humidity and Ventilation
As part of our air conditioning services, Accurate Mechanical Services can provide you with a carbon dioxide, temperature, and relative humidity monitoring system. This USB or mains-powered device helps you establish whether further ventilation is required by giving clear insights into your air quality.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, ventilation is one of the most important factors in reducing airborne transmission. CO2 monitors have been recommended to assess poor ventilation, and many buildings rely on simply opening windows or using air recirculation units. To find out more, please get in touch with us.
Importance of Air Conditioning Inspections
Commercial building owners and managers must have their HVAC systems inspected regularly, provided the equipment has a cooling capacity of 12kW or more. These air conditioning unit inspections must take place every five years, with the assessments following Guidance TM44, ensuring compliance with the EPBD (European Performance of Buildings Directive).
AMS are a team of accredited, independent assessors who are authorised to carry out these TM44 inspections. These inspections will identify ways to:
- Reduce energy consumption
- Lower operational costs
- Improve efficiency
- Reduce carbon emissions
Domestic and Commercial Air Conditioning Engineers
If what you’ve read has helped, our dedicated air conditioning engineers can help provide you with the long-lasting indoor air quality services you need, leaving your office with fresher, cleaner air.
We also provide mechanical contracting, commercial ventilation, commercial heating and refrigeration solutions, and we can also take care of any ongoing maintenance needs you have. Our dedicated callout service ensures your new equipment runs without issues for years.
Book a call with AMS today.