Modern Building Services

INDOOR AIR QUALITY FEATURE INDOOR AIR QUALITY F rom staff comfort to patients’ care, the right temperature, humidity, and air quality are essential to ensure comfortable and healthy conditions all day and night. Sanitary hot water is just as vital for cleaning and hygiene in a hospital environment, and a scarce or low-quality supply is simply not acceptable. Hospitals and healthcare facilities, same as any other building or process, or even more so due to its role in society, should strive to have the best, most efficient and sustainable cooling, and heating systems to fulfil that demand. What is important for the facility managers is to do it while achieving the best efficiencies and maximising the potential of their building. Innovation in heating and cooling allows hospitals to choose fromawide variety of products and solutions. These include, but are not limited to, large chillers for building temperature control; close temperature control chillers for medical equipment and hospital server rooms; as well as a fleet of electric, diesel and gas-fired hire boilers for emergency hot water provision and additional capacity needs. The best way for the facility manager to navigate successfully amongst all the options the market has to offer is to partner and work with industry experts that can bring in extensive experience specifically in the healthcare sector. Such a partner should be able to provide themwith a meaningful advice and offer full spectrum of services and solutions, from the cooling and heating systems’ design and equipment through both short and long-term turnkey hire solutions – all bundled together through support by an in-house team of technical applications experts. In all cases, whether it’s establishing contingency plans or discussing replacement strategies for ageing equipment, facilities managers should be aware of the innovation and existing technologies that can help them meet their temperature control requirements. Don’t waste - repurpose the heat Repurposing energy by integrating cooling and heating systems is an opportunity often overlooked. Hospitals require all-year round cooling in surgery rooms, to keep vital IT equipment such as MRI scanners running or to maintain the right temperature and humidity levels in cold storage for multiple purposes. If we equip the building with a heat recovery chiller, it will generate hot water as a by-product of the chilled water system. The system can provide heating when there is a demand, whilst using, or when not simultaneously required, storing the cooling energy through use of ice banks. This helps connect the heating and cooling demands within a 24-hour span. Modern installations can reduce or eliminate the need to run boilers by using heat pump technology that can produce hot water up to 80°C at a fraction of the cost – and when cooling is required at the same time - even for free. When emergency strikes It goes without saying that there are a significant number of critical healthcare applications that rely on precise temperature control, and any failure or disruption has consequences for the comfort and wellbeing of patients and staff. If disaster strikes and a temperature control system fails, being able to rely on a pre-arranged contingency plan for both cooling and heating systems can be the difference between hours and weeks of downtime. The right expert partner can help evaluate the heating and cooling systems to identify potential sources of failure; develop a blueprint to show where the equipment goes and how to get it there; and, of course have temporary equipment just a phone call away, 24/7. Temporary heating needs As temperatures fluctuate with the change of seasons, so do the demands on healthcare facilities. For supplemental heat in the autumn or winter months, temporary, hire equipment is the most cost-effective solution. Additional temporary healthcare structures may also be needed during extension works or unexpected events caused by fire, system failure, or a pandemic. A hire unit is also the ideal back-up for a broken or low performing unit, without any long-term engagement. With a hire option, facility managers can buy time and peace of mind while delivering the heating they need to keep the healthcare operations running. ➜ By Dave Palmer , General Manager for the UK and Ireland at ICS Cool Energy. Efficient Heating in Hospital and Healthcare Applications 27 MODERN BUILDING SERVICES NOVEMBER 2021