University of Wisconsin-River Falls
OP-5: Indoor Air Quality

All campus buildings utilize the MetaSys energy management system. The MetaSys system has been upgraded to now allow technicians to monitor the system remotely also. It has allowed staff to keep even better control of the buildings during evenings and weekends as well as to be more responsive in making changes in the field. They can now be done from a smart phone versus at a central desktop computer. In addition, lighting controls in some instances (Davee Library for example) have been added to the system.

The campus is also mindful of ASHRAE standards and sets building HVAC systems accordingly. The Division of Facilities Development (DFD) sets forth the policies for state owned facilities.

Heating, cooling, and general ventilation maintenance (HVAC): We use a computer software system called TMA to handle our daily work order request, assignment and record keeping. It also has a branch that generates, records and prints preventive maintenance assignments on a weekly basis which then are distributed to our technicians for completion. They sign, date and turn these PM's back into our office upon completion where they are recorded into the data base. The frequency of the PM is determined by equipment history, technician suggestions, manufacturer recommendations and the perceived critical necessity of the equipment to the operation of our campus. They can be scheduled for weekly, monthly, quarterly, semiannual and annual inspection/maintenance and be rated by priority from 1-9 for completion. Typically we schedule new buildings to have the filters and belts checked once a month, then reduce the frequency as we develop a history on each piece of equipment. The actual contamination of the filters depend on several factors including intake louver height above the ground, surrounding exterior material and/or plant life, prevailing wind direction, velocity of the air at the intake louver, proximity of adjacent walls or buildings, scheduled hours of operation per week, etc. The majority of our air handlers on campus employ two levels of filtration, a 2 inch thick filter to catch the larger particles above merv 8 particle size, then a secondary, thicker filter to catch the finer particles down to a merv 13 size. The first filter is changed on average between 3 and 6 months, the secondary filters at 1 to 2 years depending on the characteristics of the location. Heating and cooling coils are vacuumed and cleaned as necessary when the filters are removed. Air intake housings are vacuumed out when the filters are changed and intake grills are washed once to twice per year to remove any built up plant material and/or dirt. Belts are changed on an annual basis due to a second PM automatically assigned just for that purpose.

Additional responsible party: Mark Gillis re: preventative maintenance of HVAC.