Laboratory Fume Hoods - The New Technology

Karl G. Aveard, Earl Walls Associates

Abstract:

Depending on the scientific discipline, fume hoods can be the largest contributor to heating & cooling loads in science buildings. As such, their redesign has been the focus of a number of manufacturers over the last couple years. Each of the manufacturers has taken a dramatically different approach to reducing the face velocity (fpm) and/or the resulting air volume (cfm) exhausted by his equipment.

All of the different approaches aim to reduce ventilation loads in the lab by minimizing the amount of conditioned air exhausted from the laboratory space. The results their efforts has been a plethora of new features with an even greater number of questions regarding the benefit of the added costs of these features. The decision to use or not to use one variety or another of the "low-flow" or "high efficiency" fume hoods requires a modest understanding of the various options and hefty helping of common sense. Energy benefits are not directly proportional to the higher price tags associated with the different technologies. When does it make sense to consider the newly designed fume hoods and when would it be the wrong decision?

Biography:

Not available at this time.