Something in the air?
Building owners looking for HVAC upgrades in pandemic’s wake
As coronavirus cases and deaths soared in early April, Farmington-based United Technologies completed a merger two years in the making with aerospace rival Raytheon, while spinning off its Carrier division as an independent company along with Otis Elevator.
As commercial building owners across the globe turn their attention to the air that fills their office spaces, it is Carrier that may possess the best long-term profile of any of the former UTC businesses.
Companies that install and maintain heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems say they are seeing a surge in queries for upgrades, which can range from putting better filters in existing units to installing the latest products — like those that ionize air with molecules that act as magnets for any free-floating viruses.
As of Friday, shares in Carrier
Global Corp. were up nearly 40 percent, a gain bested by just four other publicly traded corporations with headquarters or major operations in Connecticut. (Carrier established its main office in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., after its UTC departure.)
Manufacturers like Carrier, Lennox, Rheem and Trane have been stepping up their development of new models, in anticipation of new air ventilation requirements, in schools, offices, hotels — any place looking to pluck harmful microbes out of the air.
“In the past two weeks I’ve
talked to some builders, and everything’s been going to HEPA (highefficiency particulate arrestance) filtration ... something that will — 100 percent — be eliminating any contaminants in the air,” said Jeremy Coffin, a product manager with New York-based Day & Nite Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Service. “The problem is, it is very expensive to add on to your air conditioning systems.”
‘Sick buildings’
Emcor Group, with its headquarters in Norwalk, is one of the largest HVAC installation and maintenance companies in the United States. While the company instituted furloughs as commercial buildings closed nationally, Emcor CEO Tony Guzzi indicated the firm is bracing for a big bounce as customers reassess their ventilation systems.
“People will continue to upgrade their HVAC systems, and you not only get better airflow — especially with some of the new control technology — but you also get a substantial energy savings,” Guzzi said in a late-April conference call with investment analysts. “You’re going to be bringing more outside air; and … then you have to treat it.”
Commercial property owners in Connecticut like R.D. Scinto, with a large portfolio in the Shelton area where it is based, and Empire State Realty Trust, which has complexes in Stamford and Norwalk, have already been upgrading to filters capable of trapping up to 75 percent of particles that measure less than one micron — in other words the MERV (minimum efficiency reporting value) 13 level on a scale developed by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioner Engineers.
Coffin noted that beyond filters, property owners are exploring other technologies such as ionizers that create static charges to trap particles and whisk them away, and ultraviolet light systems in air coils to kill off harmful microbes prior to circulation. A system configured for multiple technologies can be very effective, he said, increasing the chances, coupled with surface sanitizing, that a room can stay free of microbes.
“You’ll see it — if you open up doors and 500 people walk in, that particulate level jumps — but really fast, it comes back down as [particles] are being attacked,” Coffin said. “Whether it’s Lennox, Carrier, Trane, Rheem — everyone across the board that I have dealt with — they all are in the engineering process of developing systems that can ... have more air changes through the system, so you are bringing in outside air and you are releasing stale air from the space.”
Carrier CEO Dave Gitlin confirmed last month that landlords are attacking the problem.
“There are a shockingly high number of ‘sick buildings’ out there, and one of the characteristics of a sick building is the ventilation system,” Gitlin said, sneaking a glance up at the duct feeding into the room where he was leading a conference call. “You look at the room I’m in right now [and] you would expect a certain number of air changes per hour, say in the 10-to-15 range. Many buildings around the world ... don’t have that number of changes per hour.”