Celebrating World Ventil8day
Coltraco Ultrasonics is hugely indebted to Professor Catherine Noakes OBE for her initiative in establishing 8 November as World Ventil8day. We are privileged to join her, and all others, in celebrating this vital aspect of building performance annually.
“Breathe Better, Live Better; World Ventil8 Day”
As Covid-19 settles into its fate as an infectious endemic disease like the ‘flu’ or the common cold, we must all recognise the importance of improved ventilation in buildings.
Professor Catherine Noakes OBE paved the way for our understanding of Covid-19 as an airborne virus. When the virus is exhaled in small respiratory droplets (aerosols) in indoor environments, the water content quickly evaporates because of the lower relative humidity indoors than outdoors, leaving viral particles suspended in the air. That insight in turn led to the knowledge that replacing the stale, contaminated, and infected indoor air with fresh or filtered outdoor air (air exchange) is vital. It will help dissipate viral particles that would otherwise linger for hours and contribute to super spreading the virus.
The Covid-19 pandemic will eventually fade as a result of effective vaccines and infection induced herd immunity. The bad news is that, like seasonal influenza, Covid-19 variants may be with us for many years to come, and this will certainly not be the last respiratory virus pandemic. We must think clearly and scientifically about how better we can reduce the spread of viruses in hospitals, especially when and where masks and PPE might no longer be in common use.
Covid-19 and the prevalence of other seasonal airborne viruses is essentially an indoor air crisis. Society wide improvements to ventilation can prevent the spread of Covid-19, and end up stopping most other airborne ailments. Should this be taken seriously, buildings, in particular hospital buildings, will need to increase “air changes per hour,” to continuously replace contaminated and infected stale air, with pure fresh filtered air.
The Solution: Portascanner® COVID-19
As part of the UK Government’s Emergency Response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Coltraco Ultrasonics won an InnovateUK/UKRI award to research how micro air leaks could be detected and located in NHS Hospital Wards. Particular focus was placed on ensuring that this technology could be used in buildings where negative and positive air pressure ventilation techniques are employed to control internal airflows. This research was designed to help prevent infection contagion throughout the hospital building.
Ventilation, natural or mechanical, with an increased air change per hour, is the main way that the risk of airborne infections in buildings is reduced. To achieve this level of human air hygiene hospital buildings must be airtight, to ensure that there is no unwanted air infiltration through gaps and cracks in the building envelope and in the compartments within the building.
During our long history in watertight integrity monitoring for the Royal Navy we had learned that it was one thing to be able to identify large and microscopic leak sites, it is quite another to quantify them. The ability to determine the waterflow rates throughout the structure concerned is critical when determining overall damage control risk in a ships’ watertight compartment, watertight door, or watertight multiple cable transit area between bulkheads.
Consequently, we applied this understanding of fluid dynamics at sea, to air flow dynamics on land, in order to develop a method to measure and quantify individual air leaks in a building. Our research was independently rated by InnovateUK/UKRI as outstanding, and we successfully invented an instrument which could generate the air flow rate and air permeability factor of individual air leak sites. This Portascanner®COVID-19 was able to identify and precisely predict the air flow rate through a leak site in a manner that can be done frequently and non-invasively, whilst the building is still occupied.
From these humble origins and the development of the Portascanner®COVID-19 we then continued with our own research and development at our own commercial risk, to develop the Portascanner® AIRTIGHT.
Portascanner® AIRTIGHT
In all buildings, new and old, there will always be joints cracks or gaps in the walls and floors, windows and doors, or openings to allow for service penetrations to pass through, including pipes, cables, and ventilation systems. Where these spaces are not sealed, fire and smoke, as well as airborne diseases, will spread throughout the building. In addition to this, acoustic insulation and thermal comfort will be degraded. Thus, mechanical ventilation will be less efficient and air filtration might not be effective.
Once leaks have been detected, located, and quantified, fixing and sealing is relatively simple. This involves installing tested products to achieve compartmentation, such as pipe collars, intumescent seals, and many other low-cost closures. The challenge is to have the capability with which to detect and quantify each individual air leak site. Thus, the ability to detect, locate, measure, and quantify micro air leaks makes the Portascanner® AIRTIGHT unique.
The Portascanner® AIRTIGHT is a British manufactured lightweight and handheld analytical ultrasonic instrument designed to complement the existing mandatory methods of testing for airtightness. It will enable you to monitor and analyse the airtightness of buildings, and deliver Safesite™ on land.
We celebrate World Ventil8day with a brilliant example of UK Government successfully supporting UK Companies to invent, and to develop innovation, which in turn becomes high-exporting. Our technology also helps to identify the points of energy loss in the Built Environment, in our capacity as part of His Majesty’s Government Net Zero Heat Cohort.
