Lessons ended a few weeks ago and, while most students are already on holiday, renovation work has begun in several school buildings as well as preparation of the classrooms for September, when school starts again.
In addition to repairs and painting, the summer months can be useful for assessing solutions that improve classroom ventilation. While ensuring optimal air quality in classrooms is very important in itself even when there are no emergency situations, it is even more so at this time with COVID-19. Small classrooms and old school buildings are unfortunately the norm in Italy, but it is possible to take some actions to optimise one of the aspects that most affect the well-being and health of students, the exchange of air, thus guaranteeing the right of students to carry out school activities under comfortable environmental conditions.
With the pandemic, the issue of school building aeration has entered the mainstream, as have controlled mechanical ventilation solutions (CMV). Indeed, studies have also been carried out on the benefits of CMV in the fight against the spread of Covid-19.
SIMA (Italian Environmental Medicine Society) has scientifically supervised a study carried out by the specialists of Rome’s Bambino Gesù Paediatric Hospital on indoor virus spread. We quote verbatim a paragraph from an article published on orizzontescuola.it:
“(…) Based on real physical parameters – such as the velocity
of the air emitted by coughing, the room
temperature and the size of saliva droplet –
the spread of droplets and
aerosol was reproduced in 3D. The results confirmed that air exchange
systems play a crucial role in controlling the
dispersion of droplets and aerosol produced by breathing: for the
first time it was documented that doubling the
inlet air flow by means of controlled
mechanical ventilation systems (CMV), calculated in hourly cubic metres
inside a closed room, reduces the concentration
of infectious particles by 99.6%.”
The ventilation of classrooms and school spaces is essential to mitigating dangers caused by airborne virus transmission. Using natural ventilation, in other words, simply opening the windows, however, is not enough: in regular-size classrooms it takes several hours for the air to be completely renewed. And also increasing ventilation by opening the windows for 20 minutes every 40 minutes is a difficult solution to implement, especially in the winter months: this is where controlled mechanical ventilation can help.
Controlled Mechanical Ventilation enters the classroom
CMV is a fan system with dual flow and heat recovery that assures constant air exchange in the premises, limiting energy expenditure to a minimum. This solution allows the outgoing stale air to transfer heat to the fresh and clean incoming air, without mixing, guaranteeing indoor air renewal even with closed windows. Fantini Cosmi, with the Aspira brand, offers a wide and comprehensive range of CMV solutions to fulfil all needs, from small rooms to large areas.
Aspircomfort Class 620H
Precisely for buildings such as schools, Fantini Cosmi has designed and produced Aspircomfort Class, a ventilation and recovery unit that is especially indicated for individual rooms where ducted systems cannot be installed.
Horizontal installation means it can be installed also on a false ceiling, without affecting the aesthetics of the premises.
Thanks to its construction features and components, Aspircomfort Class 620H is able to reach recovery efficiency of more than 90%.
In the winter and summer seasons there is considerable energy recovery of the renewal air that enters the room. The extracted air can be used to limit energy consumption. For example, thanks to the Free Cooling functions, in summer – when the external temperature is lower than the internal one – the function helps to ensure greater thermal comfort while recovering efficiency.
The product can be controlled with CH193VMC, the remote LCD panel for advanced control of ventilation systems through CMV, with ultra-flat negative LCD touch screen with white backlighting.
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