HCAO Requirements

San Francisco contractors and tenants (including those at the city’s international airport and port) must offer minimum health benefits at no cost to covered employees under the HCAO. The ordinance applies to employees who work at least 20 hours per week on a city contract or city property. Employees working on a San Francisco contract are covered, even if their contract work is done outside the city.

Minimum Standards
Effective Jan. 1, 2020, updated minimum standards from the Office of Standards and Labor Enforcement (OLSE) require plans to cover all services listed in California’s current essential health benefit (EHB) benchmark plan. The standards apply to employee-only coverage and don’t include or require dental or vision benefits. The OLSE also has released an updated poster that employers must conspicuously display in each San Francisco worksite by July 1, 2019.

Employers must annually obtain covered employees’ signed acknowledgment of a HCAO statement of rights. Employees may waive their coverage rights by signing the appropriate form. All notices and posters must be available in English, Spanish, Chinese, and any other language spoken by at least 5% of the employees at the workplace or job site.

2020 Limits
Besides covering EHBs, a contractor’s health plan must comply with the following standards:

• Employers must pay for 100% of the coverage with no employee contributions.
• The maximum in-network deductible of $2,000 ($200 for prescriptions drugs) must include 100% of actual expenditures that count toward the medical deductible, regardless of plan type and level.
• The maximum in-network, out-of-pocket maximum (OOPM) expense of $7,850 for 2020 must include all types of cost sharing (deductible, copays, coinsurance, etc.).
• Participants’ cost sharing must be capped at 20% for in-network treatment and 50% for out-of-network care.
• Primary care copayments can’t exceed $45.

Employers may use any health savings/reimbursement product that complies with the minimum OOPM standard, and all gold- and platinum-level plans are deemed compliant, according to the Department of Public Health’s clarifications. Employers can offer other contributory options but must make at least one plan available at no cost to covered employees that meets minimum standards.

Alternative Payment
Effective July 1, 2019, HCAO-covered employers that don’t provide minimum benefits must pay the city an additional $5.40 per hour for covered employees who live or work in San Francisco. For covered employees who live or work outside San Francisco, employers must make these payments directly to the employees. The payment is capped at $216 per workweek.

This rate is annually adjusted for inflation on July 1. Employers should remit these amounts along with the HCAO Payment Option Form. 

The post San Francisco Updates Contractors’ Well being Requirements, Pay Charges appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Seattle, Aug. 02, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Seattle, Washington –

Craftsman Plumbing introduces No Mansplaining Guarantee, ensuring respectful service for all clients. Empowers women in plumbing, offers expertise, quality service, and transparent pricing.

Craftsman Plumbing, a leading plumbing company known for its exceptional customer service and expertise, is proud to announce its groundbreaking No Mansplaining Guarantee and introduce their new CFOs, – Chief Feline Officers. In an industry where customers often face condescension and patronizing behavior, Craftsman Plumbing stands firmly against such practices and is committed to providing an inclusive and respectful experience to all clients. With this innovative initiative, Craftsman Plumbing aims to revolutionize the plumbing industry by promoting equality, respect, and top-notch service.

As the plumbing industry has historically been male-dominated, customers, especially women, have frequently faced the frustrating experience of “mansplaining.” This phenomenon occurs when a person, typically a man, explains something to someone, usually a woman, in a condescending or patronizing manner, assuming they have little knowledge of the subject. Craftsman Plumbing is determined to put an end to this practice and redefine the customer experience for everyone.

At Craftsman Plumbing, our mission is to ensure that all customers, regardless of gender or background, receive the same high-quality service and respect they deserve. Our No Mansplaining Guarantee is rooted in principles of equality, empathy, and expertise, and it reflects our commitment to fostering a positive and inclusive work environment for our team and a satisfying experience for our clients.

Here are some of the keypoints. Keypoint number 1 is Mansplaining Guarantee: Craftsman Plumbing promises that its team members will never engage in mansplaining behavior when interacting with customers. Every customer will be treated with the utmost respect and professionalism, and their questions and concerns will be addressed with empathy and understanding.

Story continues

Keypoint number 2 is Empowering Women in Plumbing: Craftsman Plumbing actively encourages gender diversity in the plumbing industry. The company’s mission is to enable women to pursue successful careers in plumbing and other fields related to the industry by providing them with equal opportunities and support.

Keypoint number 3 is Expertise and Quality Service: With a team of highly skilled and experienced plumbers, Craftsman Plumbing is well-equipped to handle a wide range of plumbing needs, from routine repairs to complex installations. Customers are able to rely on Craftsman Plumbing for first-rate service and long-term solutions to their plumbing problems.

Keypoint number 4 is A Customer-Centric Approach: Craftsman Plumbing takes great pride in the customer-centric approach it takes with its clients, which places the utmost importance on the requirements and preferences of the customers. The company collaborates closely with clients to gain an understanding of their requirements and to provide individualized solutions that are tailored to meet their plumbing requirements in an efficient manner.

And finally, keypoint number 5 is Transparent Pricing: Craftsman Plumbing believes in transparent pricing and ensures that customers receive upfront quotes with no hidden charges. This transparency helps to build trust with customers and ensures that they are aware of what to anticipate prior to any work being performed.

Despite the company’s ongoing expansion and transformation, Craftsman Plumbing is unwavering in its commitment to upholding the No Mansplaining Guarantee and fostering an inclusive environment within the plumbing industry. This dedication is reflected in the No Mansplaining Guarantee that is provided to all customers. Craftsman Plumbing hopes that by pioneering innovative approaches to customer service, it will encourage other businesses operating in the same industry to adopt equality and respect as central tenets of their operations.

To learn more about Craftsman Plumbing’s No Mansplaining Guarantee and the company’s wide range of plumbing services, please visit www.craftsman-plumbing.com. Be sure you jump over to their website and meet Oui Chef and Elvis Hank.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da_j12fPg34

###

For more information about Craftsman Plumbing, contact the company here:

Craftsman Plumbing
Dusty Hoerler
206-855-6110
dusty@craftsman-plumbing.com
4776 Shilshole Ave NW, Seattle, WA 98107, United States

CONTACT: Dusty Hoerler

The post Craftsman Plumbing Introduces No Mansplaining Assure, Setting New Requirements in Buyer Service and Inclusivity appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

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.

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.”

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