Dynamic August Commercial News

Wood met with Arthur LaBrie, an owner of Magical Beginnings. Wood explained to LaBrie how high efficiency air filtration could provide a much better level of indoor air quality and how an effective filtration system could help to reduce the flu and colds that had caused a high absentee rate at the school. In addition, it was likely that improved IAQ could prevent children with asthma from experiencing symptoms that frequently led to asthma attacks requiring the use of nebulizers. Wood further explained to LaBrie that all the occupants of the school building could experience a feeling of well-being, free of cleaning product odors and sub-micron particulates which are the cause of respiratory system irritation, including airborne bacteria, viruses and VOCs.

Wood provided LaBrie with a Dynamic CT-500 console air cleaner on the condition that he install it in his own bedroom, sleep with it on for a week, and see if he and his wife noticed an improvement in their well being and quality of sleep. The next week LaBrie, an asthma sufferer, was so impressed that he immediately installed the Dynamic Air Cleaner in the Infant Care Section at Magical Beginnings. Of the eight infants in the center, three often required nebulizers. Weeks passed without symptom responses that required nebulizers.

LaBrie was sold on IAQ. He promptly followed Woods' recommendations and purchased commercial HEPA vacuums, a rug shampoo machine, and replaced cleaning products with only "green" cleaning products. Today, Magical Beginnings remains an immaculate child care center catering to infants, toddlers, and pre-school children.

According to La Brie, the children and staffers are better protected from airborne illnesses at school than they are in their own homes. He cites examples of children arriving with asthma and/or other respiratory impairment symptoms of some sort and after 20-30 minutes in this "magical" environment their symptoms disappear! Staffers have echoed the sentiment.

Wood recently took prospective clients to Magical Beginnings for a tour of the three-story facility. As they were leaving the facility, one commented, "I've never before been in a room with seven babies without smelling a single odor."

System Configuration: Retrofitting the Dynamic Air Cleaning System

In 2001, the Magical Beginnings building was heated by baseboard radiant hot water and had only limited air conditioning in the main interior rooms only for the summer's hottest weather. No mechanism existed to provide complete air circulation within the building and there was no fresh air intake mechanism available. The facility was fully carpeted, and all rooms had access to hallways with doors kept closed for fire code compliance. The challenge was how to re-circulate and filter the air within the interior spaces. Unfortunately this type of installation which does not lend itself to central filtration is common in older commercial buildings including many schools and other public buildings.

The solution involved extending the supply ducts near each doorway, through the ceiling above and into the hallway above. A return register was installed in the first floor hallway wall adjacent to the air handler. A fresh air intake was installed on an exterior wall near the air handler. Lastly, the center was encouraged to run the fan before, during, and after the center was open.

One inch Dynamic Polarized-Media Electronic Air Cleaners are installed in the return grilles on the first and second floors of the center. There are four Dynamic CT-500 console units in the largest rooms, each providing extra air changes with filtration, and one CT-500 in the Infant Care Section to provide even more air changes per hour. The combined filtration mechanisms provide the infants with a higher level of protection, and this achieved remarkable results. The three babies that had required nebulizers during the day to alleviate asthma symptoms no longer required the frequent use of nebulizers.

For additional information, contact Drew Wood at Drew@KidsIAQ.org, or Linda Hassapis at MagicalBegin@yahoo.com.