By: Nick Neiley

INTRO: Horizon Engineering Associates, LLP (HEA) provided building commissioning services for a large, higher education, laboratory facility. HEA was able to identify a major deficiency regarding the operation of the teaching laboratories.

PROBLEM: There are 23 teaching labs in the project scope that were outfitted with keyed occupancy switches. The intent was that the end user would turn the key switch for the fume hoods to unoccupied mode manually when the labs were not in use. During testing, HEA found that the key switches were not being used and had been locked in occupied mode. This resulted in the labs operating at full occupied airflow 24/7.