Retrofitting Laboratory Ventilation for Energy Savings and Safety
Cathy King, Yale University
Anthony Kosior, Yale University
Rob Klein, Yale University
While lowering laboratory room ventilation rates has become a standard approach to saving energy in many research institutions, those savings must be balanced against potential indoor air quality, safety, and HVAC design efficiency issues. This is especially important for retrofit projects where compromises in spatial use, original installed components, and equipment placement are inevitable. Applied studies performed over the past several years on the relationship between laboratory room air quality and ventilation rates, coupled with CFD modeling, have reinforced the caveat that no single ventilation rate is appropriate to all laboratories. It is important to ensure that energy conservation efforts to reduce the air turnover in a laboratory do not lead to reducing air changes to a point where the comfort and safety of the occupants may be compromised. This work has been helpful in identifying several practical considerations for the planning of laboratory energy conservation initiatives. This presentation will briefly review previous applied work in this area and then focus on the design and construction considerations critical to a modern laboratory renovation for energy conservation.