ASHRAE Publishes Updated Ventilation Standard for Health Care Facilities

Covid stock Art for ASHRAE — The new ASRAE edition offers guidance, regulation and mandates to designers of health care facilities in light of the pandemic. The guide incorporates 17 addenda to the group's 2017 edition.

*Image courtesy of Pixabay*

ASHRAE has released an updated edition of its ventilation standard for health care facilities that has been expanded to reflect the new normal in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2021 edition of ANSI/ASHRAE/ASHE Standard 170, Ventilation of Health Care Facilities offers guidance, regulation and mandates to designers of health care facilities. It incorporates 17 addenda to the 2017 edition.

Changes include: Expanded requirements to allow airborne infectious isolation room exhaust discharge to general exhaust under certain conditions; revised scope, with improved guidance on thermal comfort conditions; and extensive modifications to address outpatient and residential sections of facilities and extensive revisions to air filtration requirements, according to ASHRAE.

The standard also contains expanded guidance on distance requirements for separation of varied intake and exhaust arrangements, coordinating with related ASHRAE Standard 62.1 data. And it offers improved guidance related to behavioral and mental health, according to ASHRAE.

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KEYWORDS: ASHRAE health care construction

Nadine M. Post, ENR's former editor-at-large for buildings, is an award-winning journalist with 45 years of experience covering trends, issues, innovations, controversies and challenging projects. Post has written about many industry giants, including 10 ENR Award of Excellence winners. And she has covered disasters, failures and attacks, including the 1993 bombing and the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center. Project stories include the redevelopment of the World Trade Center; the 828-meter-tall Burj Khalifa; Los Angeles’ Disney Concert Hall; and Seattle's Bullitt Center and Rainier Square Tower. In 1985, Post wrote McGraw-Hill's book Restoring the Statue of Liberty (1986) for the restoration’s architects—Richard S. Hayden and Thierry W. Despont.

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