HVAC Manufacturers Offer Key, Innovative Support in Their Partner Industries
Innovations and attention to the commercial HVAC industry have never increased as rapidly as in the past ten years. Commercial HVAC is often the unsung hero for helping businesses operate in an industry that provides essential services to nearly every modern building.
Importantly, though, the commercial HVAC industry’s innovations have brought its products and technologies to the forefront of how its partner industries succeed in their endeavors. Because these partners are the lifeblood of our society—for example, the medical sector and schools—commercial HVAC today plays a significant role in ensuring the livelihood of several key sectors like never before.
Commercial HVAC in Schools
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools began investigating air quality in their buildings to mitigate the presence of coronavirus. The commercial HVAC industry was invited to step into the limelight and discuss its innovations for protecting young people’s health, ensuring that students could get an education despite this global catastrophe. The industry was eager to discuss its commercial HVAC systems with politicians, school board members, taxpayers, and concerned parents so that key stakeholders could understand how MERV ratings, films, and other typically overlooked industry jargon could provide safety for children.
Increased Understanding of Air Quality’s Effects
Outside of the pandemic, scientists who study indoor air quality have grown their audience in other ways. Regulations based on scientific research have raised the bar for what is considered acceptable air quality. To return to education, scientists who study indoor air quality have concluded that air quality directly affects our physical health and learning ability. With asthma, allergies, and allergens from the natural and built environment rising, commercial HVAC systems are being called upon as partners in crucial public health measures.
Cleanrooms
Cleanrooms, essentially, are controlled spaces where unwanted particles (dust, microbes, aerosols, etc.) are filtered out. These rooms are especially necessary for industries where scientifically precise conditions are needed, such as in the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals.
Cleanrooms are also essential in health care facilities such as operating rooms and patient-recovery wards.
If immunocompromised patients were integrated into a less-regulated space in a hospital, they could risk exposure to any contaminants. There is no room for error in areas where the potential danger of infection is present; therefore, the commercial HVAC industry’s new technologies are saving lives. Take, for instance, a special ward for patients receiving chemotherapy treatment.
New manufacturing technologies for operating rooms include HVAC systems with lighting, so surgeons have more space and control over their meticulous practices. Additionally, providing “laminar flow” is a lesson in physics that ensures even, direct, consistent airflow into an operating room so that the consequences of infection are profoundly reduced. Commercial HVAC systems play a significant role through their innovations that protect people. This industry is not just serving businesses with effective temperature control.
Cybersecurity and HVAC
Most medical businesses invest in automated control systems that prevent their facilities from experiencing a sudden power outage, loss of function of key machinery, or a cyberattack in today’s world. Commercial HVAC was left out of that equation recently, making the aforementioned critical environments vulnerable to cyberattacks, such as operating rooms or patient treatment wards.
However, options are now available for fully integrating HVAC into a building’s larger automated control system so that HVAC isn’t left exposed. Because of this integration, medical facilities where patient health is crucial can be spared from losing functions due to a cyberattack. In this way, commercial HVAC has been positioned as an essential part of a building’s functioning, not just for obvious reasons.
Innovations in Commercial HVAC Continue
The increasing number of vital functions and the public awareness of commercial HVAC technologies have positioned this industry as a strong voice in its partners’ interests. We expect the retail HVAC to continue leading in sectors essential to our well-being and a thriving economy.