Ventilation systems in SD 60 schools receive improvements

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. – Ventilations systems across School District 60 have received upgrades and maintenance in line with the Province’s K-12 health and safety guidelines.

Schools in the district have received filter upgrades, increased fan speeds, doubled airflow amount, lowered CO2 setpoint, expanded HVAC hours and disabled occupancy sensors.

SD 60 Superintendent Stephen Petrucci says improvements are based on environmental measures Public Health has identified as the most effective measures to deal with COVID- 19.

“The school district has put a fair bit of effort in, of course, which has been supported by the government, in terms of improving its environmental measures, the ventilation systems, the filtration systems,” says Petrucci.

The Province has doled out $87.5 million since the start of the pandemic to improve school ventilation in B.C. schools.

Public Health had recommended all schools in the province upgrade to MERV-13 air filters, which SD 60 has done. The filters are supposed to capture floating contaminated particles.

Eight changes of clean — filtered and fresh —every hour to double the amount of outside air entering district facilities,  and CO2 sensors have had their setpoint lowered to ensure a higher concentration of outside air.

Fan speeds have been changed to increase the number of air changes in schools, and HVAC operating hours have been expanded to ensure schools have clean air before students arrive and after students leave.

Petrucci says there was also work completed to the HVAC systems that were to be carried out before the pandemic.

SD 60 wants to thank its Facilities team for their work on the HVAC systems before and during the pandemic.