Indoor air quality, also known as IAQ, has a documented impact on student and teacher performance in schools. Kyle Gargaro, editorial director and associate publisher of The ACHR NEWS, chatted with Tony Kocurek, the president of SMACNA, about concerns surrounded IAQ in schools. The following is an excerpt of that podcast interview.

ACHR NEWS: CAN YOU FILL US IN ON THE FINDINGS OF WHAT’SGOING ON WITH INDOOR AIR QUALITY IN SCHOOLS?

Kocurek: Indoor air quality has been a concern for people at SMACNA and SMART for years — looking at different problems that were resulting from failed fire dampers. Investigations were being done and they started looking at the fact that not only were some fire dampers failing, but there were also lots of instances where the air handling units didn’t seem to be performing as they were designed to. It was because maintenance just hadn’t kept up with it, and they might not have been set up properly to begin with.

ASHRAE had been doing a lot of work on indoor air quality, specifically looking at CO2 levels, and started noticing a correlation with students feeling kind of tired and lackadaisical after lunch with higher-than-recommended levels of CO2. They started putting monitors in different areas, and they were finding in a lot of areas in school, especially that were 700-900 parts per million were allowed as a threshold level, they were up over 1,000 to 2,000. Some of these systems were never set up correctly to begin with. In some cases, there were things that failed during the setup process that never got corrected.

ACHR NEWS: WITH THE COVID RELIEF, THERE WAS SOME FUNDING FOR SCHOOLS TO DO ITEMS LIKE THIS — HVAC BEING ONE OF THEM. IS THAT STILL OUT THERE? AND SOME CONTRACTORS SHOULD BE GOING FORWARD?

Kocurek: There is funding out there. In fact, there’s probably two or three sources out there that can be used in the form of grants. It isn’t something that the contractor himself can actually go get, but it is something that he can make the school board aware of, and they can go after that kind of funding. A lot of times, and it depends on the school and how the funding sources to those schools get there.

ACHR NEWS: YOU MIGHT BE INTRODUCED TO THE SCHOOL DISTRICT AND IT OPENS UP THE HIGH SCHOOL, A COUPLE OF MIDDLE SCHOOLS, ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. THAT COULD BE REALLY BE PROFITABLE FOR CONTRACTORS.

Kocurek: Oh, yeah. I’m nervous talking about profitability and stuff like that, because it makes it seem like you’re taking advantage of a situation. If he’s a good contractor, they’re going to see improvement in their indoor air quality by their students’ performance, but they’re also going to see maintenance issues that they’ve had before go down. Overall, I think you end up seeing better systems, and I think when administrators have a handle on it, they’re more apt to keep a handle on it.

ACHR NEWS: IT’S NOT ONLY THE HEALTH PART OF IT, RIGHT? IT’S SAVING THEM MONEY EVERY MONTH. THOSE SCHOOLS AREN’T GOING ANYWHERE, SO THEY CAN KIND OF WAIT OUT THE RETURN ON INVESTMENT. IT’LL BE ADVANTAGEOUS FOR THEM.

Kocurek: I think that’s right. It’s kind of funny when you talk to people, especially school administrators, when you talk of savings, they kind of think of savings as, “I’m good now and a savings is just a bonus.” But if you talk in terms of wasted — you’ve wasted some money here that you really didn’t have to — it gets their attention, and it’s a play on words, but it also brings to attention in their mind exactly how critical it is to have these systems working correctly.

ACHR NEWS: DO YOU WANT TO TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHERE PEOPLE SHOULD GO IF THEY WANT TO LEARN MORE JUST ABOUT SMACNA? I KNOW YOU GUYS HAVE A BIG EVENT COMING UP IN IN PHOENIX IN A COUPLE MONTHS. DO WANT YOU TO TALK UP SMACNA IN A LITTLE BIT?

Kocurek: SMACNA is an organization of contractors across the country that that have gotten together to try to make our industry better. We work together, we look at different things going on across the country, mega projects, all these things that are using manpower. When we collectively can put all our minds together, we can come up with a lot of great answers to that and help our industry. We have a convention that’s coming up in October — a fantastic event that we have where all the contractors can get together. We have educational pieces. We have manufacturers that come in and show their wares and things that are new and exciting in the industry. And it’s a great place for everybody to network, but also to keep up to the new standards and up-and-coming things.