The National Air Filtration Association (NAFA) announced recipients of its Clean Air Awards for 2007 at the group’s annual convention in Indianapolis. The award is presented each year to building owners and managers who have taken steps to significantly improve the quality of their indoor air by increasing the level of air filter efficiency and improving protocols involving IAQ components of their HVAC system in 10 categories.

Candidates are nominated by NAFA members and members of the facility management community, who must submit detailed and specific steps taken towards cleaning their indoor environment. A NAFA Certified Air Filter Specialist qualifies the submissions. Awards are judged by the NAFA Clean Air Award Committee, and each recipient receives a trophy and recognition.

The 2007 recipients from the Northeast that apply “best air filtration practices” in their buildings are Millipore Corp., with two plants in Bedford, Mass., and Jaffrey, N.H.; and SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, N.Y.

Millipore’s plants produce products and services to help improve the productivity in biopharmaceutical manufacturing and in clinical, analytical, and research laboratories. Working with Air Filter Sales, Haverhill, Mass., Millipore-Bedford replaced all of its high-loft rigid-cell filters with minipleat V-cell filters to reduce energy and labor costs. In addition, it repaired and replaced gasketing and spacer plates in all of the units to eliminate bypass. Electronic filter records are kept and all filters are changed out based on pressure gauge readouts. Millipore-Jaffrey upgraded its pleated filter to MERV 11 and replaced all HEPA filters with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) ULPA filters for the highest efficiency with the lowest pressure drop.

SUNY Upstate Medical University is an academic medical center devoted to cancer, neuroscience, pediatrics, cardiovascular, and orthopedic research and care. The facility has 27 NAFA-Certified Technicians (NCTs) that replaced all of their MERV 13-14 lofted media filters (50-58 square feet of media) to MERV 15 minipleat V-cell type filters (200 square feet of media) over the past year. This resulted in lower pressure drop readings and longer life in-service, which has resulted in lower labor replacement costs. All high-efficiency filters have MERV-6 prefilters.

According to NAFA, several of the facility’s air handlers required moisture-eliminator filters, which were installed downstream of the coils. These filter upgrades were recommended by Edco Filter Sales of Syracuse, which also supervised the installation.

For more information, visit www.nafahq.org.

Publication date:11/26/2007