Commercial offices have long lists of best practices to ensure the safety of everyone who walks through their doors, but what if your facility could leverage software to ensure a healthy building and predict a healthier environment?
By the second quarter of 2020, our Automation & Controls team, deep in the trenches of COVID, was certain that our customers had new priorities: air quality and ventilation in their spaces.
The overwhelming opinion was these two factors had an overwhelming impact on how safe a workplace was deemed; and while, at the time, many organizations were opting to work remotely, many people knew it was only a matter of time before the conversation pivoted to ensuring a safe re-entry for building occupants.
Many will be familiar with the CDC, but in our line of work there’s another acronym we follow closely- ASHRAE – short for the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers. They have become an industry north star for developing standards that ensure safe and healthy workplaces.
Since the HVAC systems McKenney’s designs, installs and services play a key role in air quality, we felt responsible for developing an additional layer of verification to what are often confusing and disconnected data points. This toolbox, called buildingHEALTH, is one of the software products McKenney’s provides our customers, but this one uniquely speaks to COVID-related air quality concerns.
In short, it’s a fully customizable dashboard that gives feedback & insights on:
- Building Filters
- Floor Filtration Rates
- Air Changes
- Indoor Humidity Levels
- Fresh Air Entering the Building
Data points like these speak to limiting the movement of aerosols through a building, and have a tremendous impact on a space’s air quality.
A final feature of buildingHEALTH that we are particularly proud of: We’ve seen the crucial role communication plays throughout this season. Leveraging this dashboard, facility managers can share real-time air quality data quickly. Some of our customers have opted to put displays like this up throughout their facility to reassure tenants that every effort is being made to ensure their safety, day after day.
While “Building Health”, “Tenant Safety” and Air Quality are revisited goals in many organizations, these standards need data points to be actionable. At McKenney’s, we are convinced that both today’s and tomorrow’s properties will be judged and chosen by potential tenants and investors based on efforts to shore up these concerns.
McKenney’s Automation & Control Systems team is always here to help you communicate your healthy building initiatives to your occupants, tenants, and financial stakeholders.
