Airflow quality and humidity airflow exchange rate info is available in BMS but it is not often info people access. It can be critical to making buildings safer, to both benchmark current performance and can’t improve what don’t measure.

Vaccination triggers an immune response and helps protect against future issues or attacks. Similarly, measuring and adjusting the relevant settings of your building management system can help guard against disease transmission in buildings. Building operators and managers have been giving serious consideration to the different types of mitigation strategies, and have rightly so focused on various cleaning and physical hygiene strategies. However, fewer organizations are focusing on their HVAC settings.

These days a full analysis of a buildings health data is a measurable way to track potential disease transmission and occupant health. We hear a lot about the proper ventilation, but there are other metrics that the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) recommends looking at – namely humidity and air turnover rates. (Source: ASHRAE)

The PointGuard offerings include fault detection, advanced fault diagnostics, machine learning algorithms, energy analytics, workflow and work order tracking, and tenant comfort tools depending on what the facility team’s priorities are and their available resources.

As an add on service, created in response to COVID-19, we offer a Healthcheck Report for owners and operators concerned about building safety and, or with tenants concerned about their health. The Healthcheck report assesses your building’s compliance with ASHRAE’s guidelines for HVAC setpoints for mitigating airborne disease transmission and suggests remediation measures to correct any issues, for example increasing indoor humidity, or airflow ‘changes per hour.’

So how does it work:

  • The report is a monthly report that identifies compliance (or non-compliance) with ASHRAE targets for healthy buildings. The report features: KPIs for humidity, fresh air exchange, and air turnover rates, Airside economizer analysis, Energy impact analysis, Zone and floor level analysis, Integration with existing IAQ sensors
  • Humidity, air exchange, and turnover rate compliance with ASHRE targets. With ASHRAE targets, an organization sets certain standards for the proper operation of buildings in times of high probability of disease transmission.

The Healthcheck is most useful for facility teams with occupants wanting to re-enter their space but are concerned about air hygiene. Whether used as a short-term benchmarking report or long-term monitoring check-up, the Healthcheck results in a both understanding of building or portfolio level airflow hygiene and specific diagnosis to remediate any issues.

About PointGuard

PointGuard is a facility management software company that leverages existing building control systems to maximize the value and performance of mechanical equipment, increase occupant comfort and extend asset life. PointGuard’s platform, via monitoring based retrocommissioning, provides real time transparency to equipment performance in buildings for instantly better decision making for maintenance and capital budgets - so one facility engineer can manage up to 20MM sq ft strategically and effectively. The PointGuard Snapshot provides an overview of operational performance levels after just 30 days of data, revealing potential and permanent improvements available through PointGuard's analytics platform. Based out of Charlotte, North Carolina, please visit www.pointguardtech.com for more information or PointGuard at info@pointguardtech.com.