Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

University Restores HVAC System Performance

  • 03/01/18
HVAC

The University of Arkansas achieved better IAQ and less energy consumption in their buildings with the help of UV-C from UV Resources.

When your campus is home to 27,000 students, indoor air quality (IAQ) is of utmost importance. Located in Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas has 100 buildings served by approximately 150 air handling units (AHUs), each designed to condition and filter campus airstreams.

Rick Gragg, HVAC coordinator with the university’s Utility Operations Facility Operation department, has supervised a decade-long mission to improve IAQ by retrofitting campus AHUs with ultraviolet germicidal irradiation. The technology uses light in the ultraviolet-C (UV-C) spectrum to remove biological growth from HVAC/R equipment, ensuring safe and clean air for students and faculty.

Gragg’s experience with UV-C began in 2008, when facilities personnel alerted him to complaints about biological growth accumulation on the air distribution registers in the Health, Physical Education and Recreation Building.

Using this as a test case for UV-C, Gragg had his contractor retrofit the lights on two air handlers downstream of the coil that service the building. He chose the RLM Xtreme fixtureless UV-C lamp system, manufactured by Santa-Clarita, California-based UV Resources.

Over a three-month period of UV-C treatment, measurements revealed a coil pressure drop decrease from nearly 1.0 inch to less than 0.8-inch of static pressure. This 2/10th of an inch reduction meant that the AHU fan didn’t need to strain to draw air through the plenum, providing energy savings and disinfection.

“Once the coil was cleaned and returned to its original ‘as-built’ specification, the system did not need to consume as much energy. As a result, we could lower the brake horse power by 1.311 and save roughly $1,077 in annual energy costs,” reports Gragg.

Convinced of UV-C’s effectiveness, the university has continued to install the units ever since—48 to date—across campus as standard practice. The most recent application involved installing the technology in two air handling units in February 2018.

www.uvresources.com

This article originally appeared in the College Planning & Management March 2018 issue of Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • From Approval to Opening: Inside Travis Unified School District’s Fast Tracked Campus Expansion

    The Travis Unified School District (TUSD) in northern California includes several elementary and high schools serving over 5,400 students. In 2024, the TUSD Board approved the addition of sixth grade to the Golden West Middle School campus for the 2025–26 school year, setting in motion an accelerated effort to bring new facilities online in less than a year.

  • Myrtle Grove Elementary

    Phased Construction Keeps Students on Campus During Rebuild

    When Escambia County School District needed to replace most of Myrtle Grove Elementary School in Pensacola, Fla., it had three distinct challenges: honor the school's legacy in the community, bring state-of-the-art learning environments to the county, and be seamlessly built on the same site as the active school campus.

  • Indiana University Launches Capital Campus in D.C.

    Indiana University recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new IU Capital Campus in Washington, D.C., according to university news. The eight-story facility will provide a central hub for the university’s existing programs and business operations based in D.C., uniting them under one roof and providing the opportunity to expand.

  • Surging Demand for Student Housing Fuels Major Campus Investment Opportunities

    University leaders throughout the U.S. are accelerating plans to modernize and expand student housing as enrollment stabilizes and demand for on-campus living rebounds. Recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicates that total postsecondary enrollment is projected to grow through the end of the decade, with undergraduate enrollment alone expected to increase by more than 8 percent by 2030.