As Bay Area audiences return to their beloved venues, they’ll be hearing a lot about upgrades to HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning). Many venue managers tout their use of 100% outside air, for instance, to assure visitors’ COVID fears.

But all that air pumping comes with complications that homes and office buildings don’t have to deal with.

“Performance areas are really tough, because you blow more air and it’s louder. Curtains can ripple,” said Matt Suidan, a senior product manager at Enpowered Solutions, who has consulted with War Memorial Opera House, Davies Symphony Hall and American Conservatory Theater. Or any theater haze, used for a special effect, could get blown away.

Or, in the case of Davies Symphony Hall, at a certain fan speed, the acoustic dishes that hang from the ceiling can start moving and eventually bang into each other.

Matt Suidan, the senior project manager at Enpowered Solutions, stands on the roof of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco before inspecting an HVAC system. Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

More outside air also means less control over temperature, and the Opera House doesn’t have air conditioning, which isn’t just a patron comfort issue.

“When it comes to the dancers in the ballet and the members of the orchestra, they have stipulations in their collective bargaining agreements about what the temperature can be,” said John Caldon, who manages the War Memorial Opera House, Davies Symphony Hall and the Veterans Building, three San Francisco venues each the size of a city block.

Performing is physical, and if the temperature in the War Memorial’s pit exceeds a certain range, for instance, orchestra members are allowed to take their jackets off so they don’t overheat. (It hasn’t come to that so far this season.)

In the old days, whenever Caldon thought about a space’s HVAC, his primary concern was energy efficiency—how much indoor air he could recycle. More outside air meant more heating and cooling, which would mean more energy and higher costs for the city-owned venues.

“The overnight switch — once the CDC figured out that (the coronavirus) was an airborne infectious disease — was to run everything at 100% outside air,” he recalled, noting that the directive meant environmental concerns became secondary. “The concern is how many times can you turn that air over in a room?”

Individual HVAC ventilation fan systems that lead to various spaces inside American Conservatory Theater’s Geary Theater are seen from the roof of the San Francisco venue. Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

For Caldon and other venue managers, the pandemic has meant an immersion into HVAC. In May 2020, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, a nonprofit organization, issued its first pandemic guidance for all indoor spaces in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They were later modified, as many buildings in extreme climates found their machinery couldn’t handle 100% outside air. Despite the Bay Area’s milder climate, more outside air poses a risk here, too. For instance, the San Francisco fog can make equipment more vulnerable to corrosion.

Still, many of ASHRAE’s initial core recommendations remain, including:

• Using air filters with an efficiency of at least MERV-13, which means they can catch not just pollen, dust and pet dander but also smaller particles such as those from wildfire smoke as well as airborne bacteria and some viruses.
• In between a room’s occupied periods, flushing its air supply three times, which should eliminate 95% of contaminants.

Craig Lichtle of Legacy Mechanical and Energy Services checks the filters of a HVAC system leading to the auditorium of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

For local venues — some of which were built a century ago — these guidelines first meant finding out if their existing systems could meet the new standards. After months of assessing equipment produced an affirmative, Caldon recruited a stagehand to use a laser distance measure in all his buildings’ rooms to calculate volume, so he’d know how much air he’d have to move.

Venue managers who wished to exceed minimum requirements, perhaps so that they could prove to timid audiences that they were going above and beyond, quickly learned that only specially built facilities such as labs and hospitals can filter air much more finely and efficiently.

“Some of the ideas that have been suggested from different sources ask for things the building systems literally cannot do without completely ripping out an HVAC system and effectively almost tearing down the building,” said Suidan. “Your ducts can only handle a certain amount of airflow.”

Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the San Francisco Symphony during the symphony’s Re-Opening Night at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. Photo: Laura Morton / Special to The Chronicle

and a capital campaign for an entirely new HVAC system would be an unlikely fundraising scheme during a pandemic, especially when staff may have been laid off or furloughed.

Perhaps for related reasons, Alyse Falconer, who is a board member of ASHRAE’s Golden Gate Chapter as well as an associate principal at San Francisco engineering firm Point Energy Innovations, hasn’t seen a surge of HVAC business since the pandemic hit.

“The problem is that nobody’s going into offices,” she said, which means some clients figure they can delay improvements. Still, Falconer said of the pandemic, “everybody instantly became an indoor air quality specialist, which is kind of funny. It’s interesting to explain what a MERV filter is to someone like my mother.”

Craig Lichtle of Legacy Mechanical and Energy Services adjusts and repairs various elements of an HVAC system on the roof of ACT’s Geary Theater. Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

With many entertainment venues, high ceilings can be a virtue, but the tight seating of theaters, auditoriums and stadiums means that HVAC interventions can only help so much to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Vaccinations and masking are still key.

“You can have amazing airflow, and somebody right next to you coughs in your face,” Suidan posited. “(The HVAC) doesn’t matter. You’re not going to be able to engineer that away.”

That doesn’t mean that HVAC can’t help reduce the risk of airborne transmission during a pandemic, but it’s difficult to quantify its role in practice, according to William P. Bahnfleth, a professor of architectural engineering at Penn State and chair of ASHRAE’s pandemic task force.

“We know that poorly ventilated facilities and ones that don’t have other ways of cleaning the air have been the places where there have been clusters of infections, super-spreading events,” he said. “We know more what doesn’t work than how well things actually work, and that’s a hard concept to get across to the public.”

The Warriors’ Stephen Curry lobs a pass to a teammate in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Chase Center in San Francisco. Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

Venues still have other industry-specific concerns.

Chase Center, which marked its opening in September 2019 with a sold-out concert by Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony, has much greater HVAC capacity than many older performing arts venues. The facility has 16 air handlers that regulate and circulate air; 12 smaller ones about the size and shape of a truck’s box trailer, approximately 20 feet in depth; and four larger ones, for the bowl, that could fit multiple San Francisco apartments. By contrast, ACT’s Geary Theater has six air handlers, and its largest is about the size of one of Chase Center’s smaller ones.

But the home of the Golden State Warriors still has its limitations.

“I’m sure Steph Curry doesn’t want to be shooting into headwinds,” said Ian McDoom, Chase’s director of engineering. Not only must the center keep the temperature between 65 and 72 degrees for guest and talent comfort, it must also maintain relative humidity below 55% or the basketball court’s wooden floorboards might start to warp.

Chase Center is seen ahead of a game between the Warriors and the Pelicans in November. Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle

McDoom’s task has been to flush the air in the facility, which occupies a little more than 1 million square feet, with 100% outside air at least four times per hour. Accomplishing that, he estimates, has meant the arena’s electricity bills have increased by 10%, though pre-pandemic comparisons for the young facility are hard to come by.

For Bahnfleth, pandemic-era upgrades might have the virtue of furthering industry experts’ longer-term HVAC goals. He’s part of a group of advocates who have been pushing for better indoor air standards for decades.

“We’ve known for a long time that buildings that have higher ventilation rates, which means lower contaminant levels indoors, generally tend to have fewer sick building syndrome symptom complaints,” he said, referring to the well-documented phenomenon by which poor ventilation in offices and schools causes a variety of health problems, including headaches, fatigue and respiratory, skin and gastrointestinal problems. Well-ventilated buildings, he said, “have a positive effect on the learning of schoolchildren, higher worker productivity. The economic impact of that is hundreds of billions of dollars per year in the US, but it’s fallen on deaf ears for a long time.”

Craig Lichtle of Legacy Mechanical and Energy Services adjusts and repairs various elements of an HVAC system on the roof of ACT’s Geary Theater in San Francisco. Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

His hope, he said, is that “the desire to do something about diseases like the COVID epidemic or the seasonal influenza” can spur action to “step up the standards for indoor air quality.” Pre-pandemic standards, he noted, were focused on disease and odor.

“That’s a different approach than saying we’d like to have indoor air quality that promotes the best levels of productivity and cognitive function and reduces other types of illnesses.”

The post How the pandemic is altering HVAC requirements in Bay Space leisure venues and past appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — The historic Castro Theater in San Francisco’s Castro District announced Wednesday that it is partnering with Another Planet Entertainment and transforming into a live music venue.

APE has plans to significantly improve the sound, lighting, production, HVAC and the theatre’s trademark mark.

RELATED: Keanu Reeves shares SF highlights during ‘Matrix Resurrections’ film premiere at Castro Theatre

Bay Properties Inc. is the owner of the Castro Theatre.

“After operating the Castro Theater for nearly a hundred years, we have chosen to partner with Another Planet Entertainment for the next evolution of our historic theatre,” said Chris Nasser Padian, Bay Properties vice president. “Another Planet is an ideal partner, as they have a rich history with the City and in rehabilitating historic venues. Bay Properties is excited that the partnership with APE will continue the legacy of the Castro Theater and Castro neighborhood.”

The grand reopening is set for 2023, according to the SF Chronicle.

Copyright © 2022 KGO-TV. All rights reserved.

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For more than 50 years, shards of colorful glass, preserved in 25 carefully labeled envelopes, had been stored in an old Italian shoe box under Fred McDonald’s bed. The broken bits, taken from bombed and bullet-riddled churches throughout Europe during World War II, represented more than just shattered dreams and lives. To McDonald, a Seattle native who died in San Francisco in 2002, they were tangible links that fused history to the present, as well as the future.

Now that glass is the showpiece of an exhibit at the War Memorial Veterans Building in San Francisco’s Civic Center. “Remembered Light” includes the works of 13 artists who used those fragments, along with McDonald’s memories, to fashion new stained glass windows, sculptures and 3D pieces.

At the end of its run — the exhibit will be open Wednesday-Sunday through Nov. 20 — the works are destined for a more permanent installation in the Presidio Chapel.

Armelle Le Roux, a celebrated stained glass artist who has worked with teams restoring stained glass at San Francisco City Hall and managed prominent projects for Grace Cathedral and for New York City’s St. Thomas Church, learned of the hidden gems through an acquaintance and was the first artist to realize the potential of McDonald’s treasure trove.

She met with McDonald to discuss ways to bring the glass back into the light.

“At the time,” Le Roux says, “we talked about creating some sort of memorial piece. But because the glass had been saved as separate pieces, each with a name and history, everything had meaning, and I didn’t want to lose that.”

Le Roux began creating two stained glass pieces that incorporated two sets of shards, working them into designs based on their provenance and McDonald’s recollections. Eventually, she brought in other artists to create additional pieces.

Ariana Makau, an Oakland-based glass artist and conservator and founder of Nzilani Glass, says she was immediately struck by the project.

“It intrigued me on multiple levels,” Makau says. “It was like traveling through space and time, the way each piece of glass had been documented. That he had the foresight to do that appealed to me as a conservator.”

McDonald, an Episcopal minister, traveled to Germany in the early 1930s and witnessed the rise of Adolph Hitler, a man he first admired but came to despise. When was broke out, McDonald enlisted as a chaplain in the US Army, assigned first to San Francisco’s Fort Mason and later to the 12th Army, under the command of the legendary Gen. Omar Bradley. He soon found himself following the advancing troops through England, France, Belgium and, finally, Germany.

McDonald was tasked, says his great-nephew, San Francisco restaurateur Bruce McDonald, with finding suitable churches to hold services for all the non-Catholic soldiers. His travels included several places he’d visited during peace time, where he began picking up the broken remnants of stained glass windows.

“He was quite a packrat throughout his life,” Bruce says. “He collected menus from restaurants around the world. He loved to save things and always said that sometimes, it’s a small thing that brings back a memory.

As McDonald gathered the shards, he tucked them in envelopes and mailed them home to his mother. By war’s end, he had mailed 25 envelopes and collected more than just glass. He had documented the coordinates and the city where each piece was found and his observations of what remained after the battles. About one, he wrote:

“On or about Oct. 23rd, I entered the first German city to fall to our forces, the imperial but now roofless city of Aachen, a good thousand years old. A very new Church of the Holy Ghost on the outskirts had been the scene of a firefight and a wrecked tram stood by the forlorn and empty church. Down by the Cathedral, I saw an aged woman lugging two suitcases as she crawled over stone piles. Where was she going with her pitiful burden?”

“This church, obliterated during the Battle of Britain in August 1940, was a favorite of high church Episcopalians from the Pacific Northwest. In 1933, I had worshiped there many times, a special wrench to find this favorite ‘Fortress of the Faith’ gone.”

“I had just arrived in Normandy. There was an apple orchard where our Army headquarters was tented. In the evening, I walked into the flattened town spread out around a badly bombed church. A ghostly silence covered the deserted area except for the shoveling noise of a lone man trying to uncover his house. He saw me and glared. I represented the war, which had brought ruin to his house and home.

“I picked up some of the church glass and moved on.”

The shards might have remained hidden, their stories lost to time, if not for a chance meeting. McDonald, who continued to travel the world for many years after the war, had finally settled in San Francisco, a city he admired for its boldness and verve. After serving a congregation at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, he had eased into retirement when one day he struck up a far-reaching conversation with a fellow resident at his retirement home. The topic turned to stained glass, and McDonald mentioned his unique collection. The woman knew of Le Roux’s work and reached out to her.

The Remembered Light works were completed in 2007 and put on display, first in the Presidio, before eventually making it to New Orleans’ World War II Museum, where COVID held them captive for a year. Finding a place to exhibit was sometimes difficult, Bruce McDonald says, because some museums shy away from religious exhibitions. But Remembered Light is not about religion, he says. It’s about one man’s journey through war. McDonald wants people to learn and see the connections between war and peace, as the exhibit returns home to San Francisco.

“Fred was a very articulate and educated worldly person,” Le Roux says. “At the end, I want people to have a sense of humanity, not just of religion and war. I want them to think about the impact of destruction. I’m sure people will feel the sorrow, but I want them to also feel hope.”

The post Remembered Mild — damaged items of war-shattered home windows repurposed in San Francisco | Arts & leisure appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

APE has plans to significantly improve the theater’s sound, lighting, production, air conditioning and branding.

RELATED: Keanu Reeves shares SF highlights during ‘Matrix Resurrections’ movie premiere at Castro Theater

Bay Properties Inc. owns the Castro Theatre.

“Having operated the Castro Theater for almost a hundred years, we have decided to partner with Another Planet Entertainment for the next development of our historic theater,” said Chris Nasser Padian, vice president of Bay Properties. “Another Planet is an ideal partner as they have a rich history with the city and the restoration of historic venues. Bay Properties is delighted that the partnership with APE will continue the legacy of the Castro Theater and the Castro District.”

The grand reopening is scheduled for 2023, according to the SF Chronicle.

We’re excited to announce a new development – after operating the Castro Theater for nearly a hundred years, we’re teaming up with our friends at @apeconcerts to bring you world-class entertainment and the next evolution of our historic theatre.https: //t. co/3iqSWuTCvJ

— Castro Theater (@Castro_Theatre) January 19, 2022

Copyright © 2022 KGO-TV. All rights reserved.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — Bay Area concert promoter Another Planet Entertainment announced Wednesday that it is working with the owners of San Francisco’s Castro Theater to renovate the landmark and present live events at the venue.

The concert promoter said it will partner with Bay Properties, Inc., owners of the Castro Theater since the historic building was built 100 years ago, to both rehabilitate the building and plan the events held there.

CONTINUE READING: US Supreme Court rejects Trump offer to block release of documents to Jan. 6 special committee

In a press release posted on Another Planet Entertainment’s website, the concert promoter said it plans to implement “significant improvements to sound, lighting, production, HVAC and the theatre’s branding,” among other facets of the building.

Bay Properties vice president Chris Nasser Padian called the move “the next evolution of our historic theater” in the press release.

The publication noted the organizer’s previous work in preserving and enhancing historic buildings such as the Fox Theater in Oakland, the Greek Theater in Berkeley, and the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco.

“The Castro Theater is a beautiful building that we will be upgrading for better use in the future,” said Gregg Perloff, CEO and co-founder of Another Planet Entertainment, in the publication.

The press release said the venue would host a variety of events, including comedy, music and film, as well as community and private events.

CONTINUE READING: California could limit conservatories and promote alternatives in the wake of the #FreeBritney movement

The Castro Theater has hosted a few live concerts presented by independent show promoter FolkYEAH in recent months, but only a handful of films – including the premiere of The Matrix Resurrections – have been shown at the popular cinema since the pandemic began.

The website for the Castro, which used to contain the theater’s online movie schedule, now redirects to a page on the Another Planet website with a link to the official announcement and an email address for private event rentals.

In the past, the Castro has been a key theater for several major local film festivals, including the San Francisco International Film Festival, Frameline (the San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival), and Noir City.

Some people lamented the end of the Castro Theater’s run as an independent repertory film house on social media, including the Mission District’s Roxie Theater.

It’s a sad day for San Francisco cinema.

— Roxie Theater (@roxietheater) January 19, 2022

Castro’s Twitter post accompanying the announcement showed the negative reactions of dozens of heartbroken film fans.

MORE NEWS: California health care workers say ambulances are waiting for hours with patients outside of hospitals

pic.twitter.com/iCDBRHsSGt

— kelly p. (@k_pendergrast) January 19, 2022

The post One other Planet Leisure Publicizes Partnership with Castro Theatre House owners – CBS San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

When the Bay Area audience returns to their beloved venues, they will hear a lot about upgrades to HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning). For example, many event managers are promoting the use of 100% outside air to allay visitors’ fears of COVID.

But all that air pumping comes with complications that homes and office buildings don’t have to deal with.

“Performance areas are really tough because you blow more air and it’s louder. Curtains can pucker, ”said Matt Suidan, a senior product manager at Enpowered Solutions who has consulted with the War Memorial Opera House, Davies Symphony Hall and the American Conservatory Theater. Or any theater fog used for a special effect could be blown away.

Or, in the case of the Davies Symphony Hall, at a certain fan speed, the acoustic shells hanging from the ceiling can start moving and eventually crash into one another.

Matt Suidan, Senior Project Manager at Enpowered Solutions, stands on the roof of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco before inspecting an HVAC system. Photo: Jessica Christian / Die Chronik

More outside air also means less control over temperature, and the opera house has no air conditioning, which isn’t just a guest comfort issue.

“As far as the dancers in the ballet and the orchestra members go, they have regulations in their collective agreements on how the temperatures can be,” says John Caldon, who runs the War Memorial Opera House, the Davies Symphony Hall and the Veterans Building, three venues in San Francisco each the size of a city block.

The performance is physical, and if the temperature in the war memorial pit exceeds a certain range, for example, orchestra members are allowed to take off their jackets to prevent them from overheating. (It hasn’t got that far this season.)

When Caldon used to think about a room’s HVAC, his main concern was energy efficiency – how much indoor air he could recycle. More outside air meant more heating and cooling, which would mean more energy and higher costs for the city’s own venues.

“The overnight switch – once the CDC found out that (the coronavirus) was an airborne infectious disease – should run everything in 100% outside air, ”he recalled, noting that environmental concerns were becoming secondary. “The concern is how many times you can turn that air in a room?”

Individual HVAC fan systems can be seen from the roof of the San Francisco venue, leading to various rooms in the Geary Theater of the American Conservatory Theater. Photo: Jessica Christian / Die Chronik

For Caldon and other venue managers, the pandemic meant a dive into HVAC. In May 2020, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, a not-for-profit organization, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued their first indoor pandemic guidelines. They were later modified as many buildings in extreme climates found that their machines couldn’t handle 100% outside air. Despite the milder climate in the Bay Area, more outside air poses a risk here too. For example, San Francisco fog can make equipment more susceptible to corrosion.

Still, many of ASHRAE’s original core recommendations remain, including:

• By using air filters with an efficiency of at least MERV-13, you can catch not only pollen, dust and animal hair, but also smaller particles such as from forest fire smoke as well as airborne bacteria and some viruses.
• Flush the air supply three times between occupancy times of a room, which should remove 95% of the impurities.

Craig Lichtle of Legacy Mechanical and Energy Services checks the filters on an HVAC system that leads to the auditorium of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Photo: Jessica Christian / Die Chronik

For local venues – some of which were built a century ago – these guidelines initially meant finding out whether their existing systems could meet the new standards. After months of positive results from the devices, Caldon hired a stage worker who used a laser rangefinder to calculate volume in every room in his building so he knew how much air to move.

Event managers who wanted to exceed the minimum requirements, perhaps to prove to a shy audience that they were going above and beyond, quickly learned that only purpose-built facilities like laboratories and hospitals can filter the air much finer and more efficiently.

“Some of the ideas that have been suggested from various sources ask about things that the building systems literally cannot do without completely ripping out an HVAC system and practically nearly demolishing the building, ”Suidan said. “Your ducts can only process a certain flow of air.”

Music director Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the San Francisco Symphony during the symphony’s re-opening night at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. Photo: Laura Morton / Special on The Chronicle

And a Fundraising an all-new HVAC system would be an unlikely means of raising funds during a pandemic, especially if employees have been laid off or on leave.

Perhaps for similar reasons, Alyse Falconer, who is a board member of ASHRAE’s Golden Gate Chapter and an associate principal at San Francisco engineering firm Point Energy Innovations, has not seen a surge in the HVAC business since the pandemic broke out.

“The problem is, no one goes into the offices,” she said, which means that some customers think they can delay improvement. Still, Falconer said of the pandemic: “everybody immediately became an indoor air quality specialist, which is kind of funny. It’s interesting to explain to someone like my mother what a MERV filter is. “

Craig Lichtle of Legacy Mechanical and Energy Services fits and repairs various elements of an HVAC system on the roof of ACT’s Geary Theater. Photo: Jessica Christian / Die Chronik

In many entertainment venues, high ceilings can be a virtue, but the tight seating of theaters, lecture halls, and stadiums means that HVAC interventions can do only limited things in preventing the spread of COVID-19. Vaccinations and masking are still important.

“You can have amazing airflow and someone right next to you coughs in your face,” Suidan suggested. “(The HVAC) doesn’t matter. You won’t be able to construct that away. “

That doesn’t mean HVAC can’t help reduce the risk of airborne transmission during a pandemic, but it’s difficult to quantify its role in practice, according to William P. Bahnfleth, professor of architectural engineering at Penn State and Chair of the ASHRAE Pandemic Task Force.

“We know that poorly ventilated facilities and those with no other means of purifying the air were places where infections were piled and super-spreading events,” he said. “We know more about what isn’t working than how well things actually work, and that’s a difficult concept to convey.”

Stephen Curry of the Warriors throws a pass to a teammate at the Chase Center in San Francisco during the game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

Venues also have other industry-specific concerns.

The Chase Center, which opened in September 2019 with a sold out concert by Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony, has much larger HVAC capacity than many older performing arts venues. The system has 16 air handling units that regulate and circulate the air; 12 smaller ones the size and shape of a truck box trailer, approximately 20 feet deep; and four larger ones for the bowl that could fit several San Francisco apartments. In contrast, ACT’s Geary Theater has six air handling units, and its largest is about the size of one of the smaller ones in the Chase Center.

But the home of the Golden State Warriors still has its limits.

“Steph Curry doesn’t want to face headwinds,” said Ian McDoom, director of engineering at Chase. For the comfort of guests and talents, the center not only has to keep the temperature between 65 and 72 degrees, but also keep the relative humidity below 55%, otherwise the wooden floorboards of the basketball court could warp.

Chase Center can be seen ahead of a game between the Warriors and the Pelicans in November. Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle

McDoom’s job was to purge the air in the facility, which occupies just over 1 million square feet, at least four times an hour with 100% outside air. Achieving this, he estimates, has seen the arena’s electricity bills rise 10%, although pre-pandemic comparisons are difficult for the young establishment.

For Bahnfleth, pandemic-era upgrades could have the benefit of fueling longer-term HVAC goals from industry experts. He belongs to a group of proponents who have campaigned for better indoor air standards for decades.

“We have long known that buildings with higher ventilation rates, ie lower indoor concentrations of pollutants, are generally prone to fewer symptoms of sick building syndrome,” he said, referring to the well-documented phenomenon of poor ventilation in offices and schools cause a variety of health problems, including headaches, fatigue, and respiratory, skin, and gastrointestinal problems. Well-ventilated buildings, he said, “have a positive effect on student learning, higher work productivity. The economic impact of this amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars a year in the US, but has long fallen on deaf ears. “

Craig Lichtle of Legacy Mechanical and Energy Services adjusts and repairs various elements of an HVAC system on the roof of ACT’s Geary Theater in San Francisco. Photo: Jessica Christian / Die Chronik

His hope, he said, is that “the desire to do something about diseases like the COVID epidemic or seasonal influenza” can inspire action to “raise indoor air quality standards.” He noted that pre-pandemic standards focused on diseases and odors.

“This is a different approach than saying that we want indoor air quality that promotes the highest levels of productivity and cognitive function, and reduces other types of disease.”

The post How the pandemic is altering HVAC requirements in Bay Space leisure venues and past appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

When the Bay Area audience returns to their beloved venues, they will hear a lot about upgrades to HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning). For example, many event managers are promoting the use of 100% outside air to allay visitors’ fears of COVID.

But all that air pumping comes with complications that homes and office buildings don’t have to deal with.

“Performance areas are really tough because you blow more air and it’s louder. Curtains can pucker, ”said Matt Suidan, a senior product manager at Enpowered Solutions who has consulted with the War Memorial Opera House, Davies Symphony Hall and the American Conservatory Theater. Or any theater fog used for a special effect could be blown away.

Or, in the case of the Davies Symphony Hall, at a certain fan speed, the acoustic shells hanging from the ceiling can start moving and eventually crash into one another.

Matt Suidan, Senior Project Manager at Enpowered Solutions, stands on the roof of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco before inspecting an HVAC system. Photo: Jessica Christian / Die Chronik

More outside air also means less control over temperature, and the opera house has no air conditioning, which isn’t just a guest comfort issue.

“As far as the dancers in the ballet and the orchestra members go, they have regulations in their collective agreements on how the temperatures can be,” says John Caldon, who runs the War Memorial Opera House, the Davies Symphony Hall and the Veterans Building, three venues in San Francisco each the size of a city block.

The performance is physical, and if the temperature in the war memorial pit exceeds a certain range, for example, orchestra members are allowed to take off their jackets to prevent overheating. (It hasn’t got that far this season.)

When Caldon used to think about a room’s HVAC, his main concern was energy efficiency – how much indoor air he could recycle. More outside air meant more heating and cooling, which would mean more energy and higher costs for the city’s own venues.

“The overnight switch – once the CDC found out that (the coronavirus) was an airborne infectious disease – should run everything in 100% outside air, ”he recalled, noting that environmental concerns were becoming secondary. “The concern is how many times you can turn that air in a room?”

Individual HVAC fan systems can be seen from the roof of the San Francisco venue, leading to various rooms in the Geary Theater of the American Conservatory Theater. Photo: Jessica Christian / Die Chronik

For Caldon and other venue managers, the pandemic meant a dive into HVAC. In May 2020, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, a not-for-profit organization, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued their first indoor pandemic guidelines. They were later modified as many buildings in extreme climates found that their machines couldn’t handle 100% outside air. Despite the milder climate in the Bay Area, more outside air poses a risk here too. For example, the San Francisco fog can make equipment more susceptible to corrosion.

Still, many of ASHRAE’s original core recommendations remain, including:

• By using air filters with an efficiency of at least MERV-13, you can catch not only pollen, dust and animal hair, but also smaller particles such as from forest fire smoke as well as airborne bacteria and some viruses.
• Flush the air supply three times between occupancy times of a room, which should remove 95% of the impurities.

Craig Lichtle of Legacy Mechanical and Energy Services checks the filters on an HVAC system that leads to the auditorium of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Photo: Jessica Christian / Die Chronik

For local venues – some of which were built a century ago – these guidelines initially meant finding out whether their existing systems could meet the new standards. After months of positive results from the devices, Caldon hired a stage worker who used a laser rangefinder to calculate volume in every room in his building so he knew how much air to move.

Event managers who wanted to exceed the minimum requirements, perhaps to prove to a shy audience that they were going above and beyond, quickly learned that only purpose-built facilities like laboratories and hospitals can filter the air much finer and more efficiently.

“Some of the ideas that have been suggested from various sources ask about things that the building systems literally cannot do without completely ripping out an HVAC system and practically nearly demolishing the building, ”Suidan said. “Your ducts can only process a certain flow of air.”

Music director Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the San Francisco Symphony during the symphony’s re-opening night at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. Photo: Laura Morton / Special on The Chronicle

And a Fundraising an all-new HVAC system would be an unlikely means of raising funds during a pandemic, especially if employees have been laid off or on leave.

Perhaps for similar reasons, Alyse Falconer, who is a board member of ASHRAE’s Golden Gate Chapter and an associate principal at San Francisco engineering firm Point Energy Innovations, has not seen a surge in the HVAC business since the pandemic broke out.

“The problem is, no one goes into the offices,” she said, which means that some customers think they can delay improvement. Still, Falconer said of the pandemic: “everybody immediately became an indoor air quality specialist, which is kind of funny. It’s interesting to explain to someone like my mother what a MERV filter is. “

Craig Lichtle of Legacy Mechanical and Energy Services fits and repairs various elements of an HVAC system on the roof of ACT’s Geary Theater. Photo: Jessica Christian / Die Chronik

In many entertainment venues, high ceilings can be a virtue, but the tight seating of theaters, lecture halls and stadiums means that HVAC interventions can do only limited things to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Vaccinations and masking are still important.

“You can have amazing airflow and someone right next to you coughs in your face,” Suidan suggested. “(The HVAC) doesn’t matter. You won’t be able to construct that away. “

That doesn’t mean HVAC can’t help reduce the risk of airborne transmission during a pandemic, but it’s difficult to quantify its role in practice, according to William P. Bahnfleth, professor of architectural engineering at Penn State and Chair of the ASHRAE Pandemic Task Force.

“We know that poorly ventilated facilities and those with no other means of purifying the air were places where infections were piled and super-spreading events,” he said. “We know more about what isn’t working than how well things actually work, and that’s a difficult concept to convey.”

Stephen Curry of the Warriors throws a pass to a teammate at the Chase Center in San Francisco during the game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

Venues also have other industry-specific concerns.

The Chase Center, which opened in September 2019 with a sold out concert by Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony, has much larger HVAC capacity than many older performing arts venues. The system has 16 air handling units that regulate and circulate the air; 12 smaller ones the size and shape of a truck box trailer, approximately 20 feet deep; and four larger ones for the bowl that could fit several San Francisco apartments. In contrast, ACT’s Geary Theater has six air-handling units, and the largest is about the size of one of the smaller ones in the Chase Center.

But the home of the Golden State Warriors still has its limits.

“Steph Curry doesn’t want to face headwinds,” said Ian McDoom, director of engineering at Chase. For the comfort of guests and talents, the center not only has to keep the temperature between 65 and 72 degrees, but also keep the relative humidity below 55%, otherwise the wooden floorboards of the basketball court could warp.

Chase Center can be seen ahead of a game between the Warriors and the Pelicans in November. Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle

McDoom’s job was to purge the air in the facility, which occupies just over 1 million square feet, at least four times an hour with 100% outside air. Achieving this, he estimates, has seen the arena’s electricity bills rise 10%, although pre-pandemic comparisons are difficult for the young establishment.

For Bahnfleth, pandemic-era upgrades could have the benefit of fueling longer-term HVAC goals from industry experts. He belongs to a group of proponents who have campaigned for better indoor air standards for decades.

“We have long known that buildings with higher ventilation rates, ie lower indoor concentrations of pollutants, are generally prone to fewer symptoms of sick building syndrome,” he said, referring to the well-documented phenomenon of poor ventilation in offices and schools cause a variety of health problems, including headaches, fatigue, and respiratory, skin, and gastrointestinal problems. Well-ventilated buildings, he said, “have a positive effect on student learning, higher work productivity. The economic impact of this amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars a year in the US, but has long fallen on deaf ears. “

Craig Lichtle of Legacy Mechanical and Energy Services adjusts and repairs various elements of an HVAC system on the roof of ACT’s Geary Theater in San Francisco. Photo: Jessica Christian / Die Chronik

His hope, he said, is that “the desire to do something about diseases like the COVID epidemic or seasonal influenza” can inspire action to “raise indoor air quality standards.” He noted that pre-pandemic standards focused on diseases and odors.

“It’s a different approach than saying that we want indoor air quality that promotes the highest levels of productivity and cognitive function, and reduces other types of disease.”

The post How the pandemic is altering HVAC requirements in Bay Space leisure venues and past appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Alternative band Charming liars shared an emotional new live video for their track “loser. “Check it out here now: youtu.be/ZlON2zQUvvM. “Losers” is the latest in the band “Live sounds from 2020“Video series filmed in an LA warehouse late last year and showing”In the mirror of the blood,”“influence“,”ACCUSE,” and more.

Charming Liars recently announced their new EP Sequence 2: The After, should appear this summer. Lead single “Afterglow”Is out now and can be streamed here.

Fans can look forward to hearing new music live this December when Charming Liars tour with the English rock band The Hunna. The tour begins December 3 in San Francisco and includes stops in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, New York, and more. For a full schedule of dates, see below, and tickets are available now at www.charmingliars.com/tour

Charming Liar is:
Kiliyan Maguire – vocals
Karnig Manoukian – guitar, production
Mike Krüger – bass

For more information, please visit:
Website: http://www.charmingliars.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/charmingliars
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/charmingliars
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/charmingliars

Sequence 2: The after-track listing:

1. Afterglow
2. The haunted one
3. Beautiful roses

Upcoming tour dates with The Hunna:
12/3 – San Francisco, CA @ Bottom Of The Hill
12/4 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy
12/6 – Denver, CO @ Globe Hall
December 8th – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
09.12. – Chicago, IL @ Schuba’s
10.12. – Toronto, ON @ Velvet Underground
12.12. – Philadelphia, PA @ The Foundry
12/13 – Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
15.12. – Washington, DC @ Union Stage
16.12. – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom

Download a high resolution press photo here.
Download high-resolution single images here.
Download a high resolution tour admat here.

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The post Charming Liars Shares Transferring New Dwell Video “Losers” – Music-Sports activities & Leisure Journal appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.