NAFA, IAQA Announce Joint Conference, Exposition

USPS Biohazard Detection Systems Won't Find Ricin

Other States Can Learn from Texas Mold Regulations

On to Florida

Avoiding Mold Growth in Schools During Humidity

Word on the Street 

ASHRAE APPOINTS NEW EXEC. VP
ASHRAE's new executive vice president is Jeff Littleton, who had served as executive director for NACE International in Houston since 2001. In heading ASHRAE's 100-member staff in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., Littleton succeeded Frank M. Coda, who will continue to serve ASHRAE in a consulting capacity as executive vice president emeritus. At NACE, Littleton increased advertising revenues 45 percent over three years, added third-party titles to make NACE the international clearinghouse for corrosion literature, and built on a $500,000 capital budget to launch NACE.org, which now supports $18,000-35,000 in monthly online sales. 

COPS: IN FUNGI
Nearly two dozen employees of a police station in Sebastian, Fla., have been complaining of symptoms of mold exposure at work for the past seven years. Of 21 such claims filed with the Florida League of Cities since 1997, Workers' Compensation Claims Director Crosby Coleman told local media that only six lump settlements covered expenses including medical costs and that the other 15 cases were either dismissed or settled for as little as $25. Currently ongoing reconstruction at the police station involves upgrades to the HVAC system, which was said to be the cause of some problems before. Coleman said last month that he hasn't seen a workers' compensation claim mention sick buildings since 2001.

EFFICIENCY-WEARY PEOPLE
Consumers in the real estate market are apprehensive about buying energy-efficient homes, according to a survey from the National Association of Home Builders. In the survey, a small minority of respondents said they would dish out extra money to be more energy efficient in their new homes. The number is just 17 percent, reported Gopal Ahluwalia, NAHB vice president of research, at the International Builders' Show that was held Jan. 19-22 in Las Vegas.

National Energy Raters Association President Myron Katz said homeowners should not worry about whether energy efficiency improvements will pay for themselves. "They always do," he said. "The question is how quickly they will pay back," he said. "There are a large number of very costeffective, fast-payback energy efficiency improvements. The fastest is energy-efficient light bulbs. The next fastest thing, depending where you live, could be either radiant barriers or weather stripping. Those things pay for themselves very rapidly, in less than a year."

BOY, IT'S NOT A TOY!
A Nevada middle school was closed for eight days last month after a student brought in a poor choice for show and tell: mercury. Health experts say the child's decision to play with the liquid metal at Pau-Wa-Lu Middle School near Carson City, Nev., did not lead to any illnesses among the school's 852 students and 40 faculty members. But the exposure did amount to tons of costs for school officials, who had to oversee the decontamination of 60 students and the removal of some carpet, a gym floor and even a locker room train. The boy responsible for the mess was punished with 10 days of suspension while his schoolmates returned to the school - some without their backpacks, class notes and anything else that had to be confiscated due to contamination.

The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection and some other groups made a presentation to students to make them aware of the harmful effects of mercury vapors. While the vial of mercury in the case of a high school shut down in the nation's capital was obtained from within an unlocked school laboratory - which experts quoted in the front-page story of IE Connections last November said was too risky - the Pau-Wa-Lu student said he obtained the mercury from a ranch elsewhere in the county.

NOT UP TO CODE
Ventilation rates in some Northwest schools may not be up to code, according to a new Lawrence Berkeley National Lab study used for an article in the fall 2003 newsletter of the Washington State University's cooperative extension energy program. The study, "Associations Between Classroom Carbon Dioxide Concentrations and Student Attendance in Elementary Schools in Washington and Idaho," involves CO2 measurements inside and outside the 436 classrooms of 22 schools. "In this study, 1,000 [parts-per-million] increases in the difference between indoor and outdoor CO2 concentration were associated with 10 percent to 20 percent relative increases in student absence, and the associations were statistically significant," write the main authors, LBNL's Derek G. Shendell and the university's Richard Prill. "This study confirms previous findings of high CO2 concentrations in classrooms, which indicated classroom ventilation rates were often below the minimum rates specified in codes." The LBNL report was submitted for publication in the journal Indoor Air.

IS THAT YOUR BEST SHOT?
A group of Colorado healthcare workers might be wondering whether they got the raw end of the needle after the results of an initial mid-flu season study released last month "showed that the 2003-2004 influenza vaccine was not effective or had very low effectiveness against 'influenza-like illness'..." The CDC says influenza-like illnesses include colds and respiratory illnesses not caused by influenza. As to whether the flu vaccine was effective toward treating influenza, the study was limited and inconclusive, the CDC said, and that additional studies are underway with results expected in late spring or early summer.

NAFA, IAQA Announce Joint Conference, Exposition

The National Air Filtration Association and the Indoor Air Quality Association will have a combined conference and exposition in 2004, in lieu of holding separate annual meetings. The joint event will take place Sept. 26-29 at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. Organizers anticipate more than 800 people and 100 exhibitors will participate.

“Many people belong to both IAQA and NAFA,” said NAFA President Phil Maybee. “By combining our meeting with that of IAQA,attendees gain the advantage of learning from a much more diverse group of industry professionals while reducing travel costs and time away from their offices.”

The conference and exposition will feature a keynote address, dozens of technical sessions, social events and product exhibits. NAFA and IAQA will conduct independently organized technical session tracks, but members of the respective organizations will have the opportunity to attend either group’s tracks.

“This meeting merger essentially increases the amount of information delivered to our membership by 50 percent,” said IAQA President Thomas Yacobellis. “It will also greatly expand our exhibit hall, adding a strong presence by the filtration industry to an exposition that already featured the industry’s top laboratories, equipment and instrument manufacturers, and training providers.”

The associations have issued a call for papers for the conference. Persons interested in giving technical presentations must submit a 300-word abstract with the presentation title and a brief description. Submittals must also include the speaker’s biography and must distinguish whether the presentation will be 45, 60 or 90 minutes. Submittals are due by March 1 either to IAQA Technical Director Kristy Lee at kristymlee@ev1.net or (301) 231-8388 or NAFA Executive Assistant Terry Driscoll at nafa@nafahq.org or (757) 313-7400.

The ricin scare making headlines earlier this month contained good news in that there were apparently no illnesses from exposure to the deadly poison. However, a more frightening side to the story emerged as it was reported that new systems being installed in U.S. post offices to detect biohazards are not designed to pick up ricin.

With the new systems, post offices will be equipped to detect anthrax, a prominent matter given the five deaths and 17 illnesses stemming from the anthrax attacks of 2001. However, with their current configuration, the systems would not be able to detect ricin or other biological agents without costly upgrades to the software that could be thwarted by budgetary concerns.

Northrop Grumman Corp. designed the Postal Service's new biohazard detection systems, which are being implemented throughout the United States in 282 mail facilities. Set up to look for anthrax, the systems 'two-hour letter-scanning process involves DNA breakdown and analysis and a backup ventilation system to prevent the spread of any leaking substances. Finally, an alert cautions workers inside the building of the potential for anthrax exposure and also summons emergency response teams.

In Washington, D.C., the quick and appropriate actions following the Feb. 2 discovery of ricin in a Senate mailroom provided some assurance in abilities to keep such mailroom attacks from worsening. The employee who found an unknown powdery substance in the mailroom of Senate majority leader Bill Frist reported the find immediately, which allowed for it to be tested and for other precautions to take place. More than a dozen staff members were quarantined, and ventilation throughout the Senate buildings was shut off. In addition, ventilation filters were eyed for containing ricin.

News reports indicate that ricin attacks did not begin this month and that two separate pieces of mail found last year were said to contain ricin. Those letters, according to unnamed sources, were both signed by "Fallen Angel," an author claiming to own a tanker company, the Washington Post reported Feb. 4. October's letter was apparently addressed to the U.S. Department of Transportation, and November's was targeted toward the White House, its existence revealed only this month by unidentified sources.

The case involving Frist's office was not immediately connected to the two ricin letters last year, or to the anthrax attacks of 2001. The first ricin letter was found Oct. 15 in a post office in Greenville, S.C., while details of the second letter's discovery were withheld for security purposes. In 2001, the anthrax attacks included a letter to the Senate majority leader, who was then Tom Daschle.

Ricin is so deadly that an adult could be killed in days by just a 500-microgram dose - the size of a pin's head, according to a fact sheet available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Inhaling the toxin may result in difficulties with breathing, tightness of the chest, excess fluid in the lungs, respiratory failure and death.

The ricin scare making headlines earlier this month contained good news in that there were apparently no illnesses from exposure to the deadly poison. However, a more frightening side to the story emerged as it was reported that new systems being installed in U.S. post offices to detect biohazards are not designed to pick up ricin. 

With the new systems, post offices will be equipped to detect anthrax, a prominent matter given the five deaths and 17 illnesses stemming from the anthrax attacks of 2001. However, with their current configuration, the systems would not be able to detect ricin or other biological agents without costly upgrades to the software that could
be thwarted by budgetary concerns.

Northrop Grumman Corp. designed the Postal Service’s new biohazard detection systems, which are being implemented throughout the United States in 282 mail facilities. Set up to look for anthrax, the systems’two-hour letter-scanning process involves DNA breakdown and analysis and a backup ventilation system to prevent the spread of any leaking substances. Finally, an alert cautions workers inside the building of the potential for anthrax exposure and also summons emergency response teams.

In Washington, D.C., the quick and appropriate actions following the Feb. 2 discovery of ricin in a Senate mailroom provided some assurance in abilities to keep such mailroom attacks from worsening. The employee who found an unknown powdery substance in the mailroom of Senate majority leader Bill Frist reported the find immediately, which allowed for it to be tested and for other precautions to take place. More than a dozen staff members were quarantined, and ventilation throughout the Senate buildings was shut off. In addition, ventilation filters were eyed for containing ricin. 

News reports indicate that ricin attacks did not begin this month and that two separate pieces of mail found last year were said to contain ricin. Those letters, according to unnamed sources, were both signed by “Fallen Angel,” an author claiming to own a tanker company, the Washington Post reported Feb. 4. October’s letter was apparently addressed to the U.S. Department of Transportation, and November’s was targeted toward the White House, its existence revealed only this month by unidentified sources.

The case involving Frist’s office was not immediately connected to the two ricin letters last year, or to the anthrax attacks of 2001. The first ricin letter was found Oct. 15 in a post office in Greenville, S.C., while details of the second letter’s discovery were withheld for security purposes. In 2001, the anthrax attacks included a letter to the Senate majority leader, who was then Tom Daschle.

Ricin is so deadly that an adult could be killed in days by just a 500-microgram dose – the size of a pin’s head, according to a fact sheet available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Inhaling the toxin may result in difficulties with breathing, tightness of the chest, excess fluid in the lungs, respiratory failure
and death.

In Florida, Sen. Mike Bennett's 2003 mold licensing bill passed the Senate only in the final days of the legislative session, which meant there was little time for a companion bill to be considered in the House.

Bennett pre-filed the same bill on Jan. 5 to be well ahead of the game before the state legislature reconvenes March 2. This year, there is considerable staff and other support for moving this ahead quickly.

The present bill was written quickly last year, and staff is already working on re-writes of the bill. Otherwise, there appears to be wide support for the bill both within and outside government.

Florida has a reputation for launching some reasonable yet effective business regulation statutes that have served as models for many other states. If this bill continues on its present course and retains its present wide support, it could well become a prototype of legislation that many states will draw from in drafting their regulations.

Ironically, much of the Florida bill is taken from a Texas bill that was significantly modified on the way to passage last summer. There seems little desire for the type of modifications that have led to problems in Texas.

The bill presently requires licenses for mold remediators, mold assessors and providers of mold-related training. Staff members are considering the addition of a license category that would regulate mold prevention consultants, or professionals trained and experienced in advising property owners and managers on how to operate and maintain their properties so the possibility of excessive mold growth is minimized.

This is consistent with Bennett's stated purpose of preventing abuses that might bring harm to the financial welfare or property of Florida residents. In addition, Bennett has expressed the desire to reduce mold-related litigation or prevent it where possible.

"The Legislature finds it necessary in the interest of the public safety and welfare, in order to prevent damage to the real and personal property of the residents of this state and to avert economic injury to the residents of this state, to regulate individuals and companies that hold themselves out to the public as qualified to perform moldrelated
activities," states the bill's purpose.

Builders, HVAC contractors and some other professionals are exempted from the proposed law as long as they are "acting within the scope of their respective licenses." The bill requires that the person licensed must complete training and have other qualifications to be defined by the licensing board, establishes a maximum fee, sets minimum qualifications including conforming to industry standards and requires continuing education in order to retain the license.

There are also provisions on reprimand and discipline procedures and other administrative matters. These provisions would likely change if a companion bill is filed in the Florida House of Representatives.

Avoiding Mold Growth in Schools During Humidity

William A. Turner, MS, PE
President
Turner Building Science LLC
Concord, N.H.

Steve M. Caulfield, PE, CIH
Vice President
Turner Building Science LLC
Concord, N.H.

Frederick McKnight
Senior Project Engineer / Chief IAQ Engineer
Turner Building Science LLC
Concord, N.

It is the middle of August, and although it has not been particularly hot but very humid, the weather folks have been talking about dewpoints of 65-75 degrees Fahrenheit continuously for over a week now.

Even with air conditioning, there may be some places with ground contact surfaces where it's already cool and you seldom need to run the air conditioners. Typical concerns are in spaces where the temperature does not tend to rise, where there are un-insulated surfaces such as basement walls or concrete floors or slabs.

During the past few weeks, you have been preparing schools for September occupancy. The buildings may be lightly occupied with summer school programs, so some windows have been opened by the occupants. In addition, the ventilation systems may have been operating in the occupied mode, which delivers the minimum outdoor air quantity necessary to meet a fully occupied building.

Unless the building is adequately dehumidified, a potentially big problem is brewing in all the localized cool spots. The problem is mold growth on any surface where moist outdoor air has condensed to form liquid water, because the surface temperature of the material is below the
dewpoint temperature of the air mass. You may not be aware of this problem until it is too late.

Recommendations in this article are most applicable to areas with cold winters - so basically, if you're in Arizona, where the earth is not so cool, you might want to skip to another article instead. Unless you have
experienced this type of problem in the past, then it is unlikely your school budget priorities have allowed you to invest in energy efficient,
high-capacity dehumidifiers.

What Not to Do
It's easy to make the situation worse by cleaning the tile floors with wet methods, or extracting conventional flow-through carpets with wet methods, or worse yet, bonnet cleaning (wet shampooing) the carpets. This will likely make the moisture situation worse because adding moisture to surfaces with a close proximity to cool surfaces without a
removal or drying mechanism increases the risk of mold growth.

You also don't want to open the windows at night or run the ventilation system at night to cool the facility down. Allowing more cool, saturated nighttime air to enter brings high moisture-content air into contact with
cool surfaces for longer periods of time, increasing the risk of mold growth. Also, if you get an oversized, new energy efficient air conditioner, then you shouldn't turn the temperature to lower than 70 degrees in the vacant facility to attempt to dry things out. Operating an air-conditioning system without a cooling load does not remove
much moisture from the air due to the inherent short-cycling of the cooling coil under low load conditions. It also sub-cools the building mass, allowing more of the surfaces to drop below the dewpoint temperature.

How to Help
The situation can be made less likely to promote mold growth, although it is easier to do so in an unoccupied facility than it is in one that needs to be comfortable and properly ventilated. In an unoccupied facility, the
easiest means of doing this include closing the windows, heating the space above dewpoint, and monitoring indoor conditions.

Keep the windows closed to avoid letting the humid air outside; unnecessary ventilation and exhaust systems should remain off. Heat
the space up to drive down the relative humidity, and keep the at-risk surfaces above the dewpoint temperature. Effective indoor monitoring can be done with an accurate relative humidity indicator ($40-100) and an automotive-type infrared thermometer (<$100) to measure surface temperatures and space humidity levels. To avoid surface condensation, all the surface temperatures inside the building should be kept a minimum of five degrees above the dewpoint temperature of the air inside.

In an occupied or partially occupied facility that needs to be ventilated and comfortable, more obvious choices include restricting cooling set point temperatures, avoiding over-ventilation, and monitoring the conditions. Restrict cooling set point temperatures to keep building surfaces from being cooled below the dewpoint temperature. Do not set thermostat temperatures outside the range of comfort - typically a maximum of 76 degrees. Don't over-ventilate; under very light occupancy, run a ventilation rate at 0.05 cubic feet per minute of
outside air per square foot, or keep carbon dioxide at 800-900 parts per million during normal occupancy with no cleaning chemicals in use. Provide local exhaust or supplemental ventilation where cleaning chemicals or paint fumes need to be diluted. Monitor the conditions to make sure that any cool surface temperatures are five degrees above
the dewpoint temperatures of the air inside. This should include keeping any chilled water line surface temperatures from hitting dewpoint.

If you need drying potential or don't want to do all this temperature and dewpoint monitoring with conventional air-conditioning systems, the solution is pretty straightforward. As long as you do not have high ventilation air needs, you can invest in one or more stand-alone, high-capacity, very energy-efficient dehumidifiers. Wherever you have earth contact areas that stay cool, leave it plugged in, hooked up, ready to run and set at 65-percent relative humidity at normal room temperature. You should be able to get a unit that takes out over 100 pints
a day for less than 10 amps of power consumption at 120 volts. It should have the ability to plug into any outlet with at least a 15-amp breaker and have a built-in pump and settable dehumidistat. Always make sure the unit turns back on after a power failure.

Companies such as Thermastor make units that meet the above criteria. Equipment of this sort is essential for the drying and restoration industry. Expect to pay in the range of $1,000 for a good unit. Other
solutions include portable dehumidifiers and non-flowthrough impermeable carpet materials that will dry faster (Such carpets are available from Collins & Aikman Floorcoverings). If any porous materials get wet, it is essential to dry them within 24 hours, or else you will likely be growing mold.

Unoccupied spaces such as attics and crawlspaces should be kept as dry as possible. Keep the surface temperatures above the dewpoint temperatures to avoid growing mold. Most architects, building scientists
and engineers would now advise against building crawlspaces outside areas with very dry climates. If one must be built for structural and economic reasons, then insulate and condition it as part of the facility.
Building Science Corporation has some valuable advice and guidance documents regarding residential construction posted on its Web site, www.buildingscience.com. The principles apply to school and commercial
structures as well.

If you require an abundance of ventilation air for school occupants, here are a few basic approaches for an occupied building with a cooling load and properly sized central air conditioning with staged cooling equipment that will be running for extended periods of time in part load conditions. You can minimize dehumidification costs using enthalpy recovery air to air-heat exchanges on the exhaust air system. These will predry the incoming fresh air with the outgoing exhaust air that has been dried already. Renewaire and others make these types of units. You can often reduce your total cooling load if you use this type of device.

Adding a dedicated make-up air unit with dehumidification already built in can be useful in a number of situations. These situations include if an air-conditioning system cannot run for extended periods of time due to staging limitations, or if you already have existing air-conditioning systems that are not designed for dehumidification, or if you have no cooling load but need dehumidification. Trane Company and others manufacture these dedicated outdoor air units. They are often needed with water source heat pump systems, and they are designed to deliver dry air at 65-70 degrees to the facility.

There are also specialty units that output very dry air made for supermarkets with lots of cold surfaces. Munters manufactures these and also provides some great free software (PsyCalc) for calculating the dewpoint temperatures if you measure the temperature and relative humidity and do not find  the psychrometric chart fun to use.

Additionally, if your cooling and ventilation systems are decentralized, packaged units, then there are a number of individual, portable, high-capacity units - similar to the Thermastor unit described above - that will help to control moisture levels in the space. Ducted dedicated dehumidifiers are also available.

Our opinions are not intended to be all-inclusive but are made with the consideration of a specific climate where it rains more than 20 inches a year and the weather is very humid during three months of the year. While the focus of this article on avoiding mold growth in schools during highdewpoint weather is written specifically with areas with certain climates in mind, the principles outlined here may be applicable in other areas too. If you have any other ideas that we omitted, we would love to hear from you.

William A. Turner, MS, PE, is president of Turner Building Science LLC, a subsidiary of the H.L. Turner Group Inc. in Concord, N.H. He has more than 25 years of experience in IAQ/HVAC evaluation and development
of solutions for building system problems. Turner supervises a group of engineers, industrial hygienists, architects and building scientists who focus on developing solutions for existing facilities and the design of high-performance buildings. Turner can be reached by e-mail at bturner@turnerbuildingscience.com or by phone at (207) 583-4571 ext. 11.

Steve M. Caulfield, PE, CIH, is vice president of Turner Building Science. He has more than 15 years of experience in IAQ/HVAC evaluation and development of solutions for building system problems. Caulfield can be reached by e-mail at scaulfield@turnerbuildingscience.com or by phone at (207) 583-4571 ext. 14.

Frederick McKnight is senior project engineer and chief IAQ engineer at Turner Building Science. He has more than 25 years of experience in IAQ/HVAC evaluation and development of solutions for building
system problems. McKnight can be reached by e-mail at fmcknight@turnerbuildingscience.com or by phone at (802) 684-2134.