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Category: Features
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COVID-19 likely to be airborne, claim 239 experts
More than 200 scientists from over 30 countries have signed an open letter urging the World Health Organization (WHO) to take the role of airborne spread of COVID-19 more seriously. Published in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal, the letter titled “It is Time to Address Airborne Transmission of COVID-19” challenges the view held by the […]
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Opinion: Mario Balen on national licensing
HyChill General Manager Mario Balen, Affil.AIRAH, shares his views on national HVAC&R licensing in Australia. The HVAC&R trade is widely regarded to be under-recognised, poorly regulated and, on average, inadequately trained. Attempts have been made for many years to address some, if not all, of those shortcomings, with little success so far. The end result […]
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ACIF issues coronavirus recovery proposal
The Australian Construction Industry Forum (ACIF) has issued a document proposing a number of key recommendations on guiding the construction industry out of the coronavirus disruption period. In the document entitled Construction’s Bridge to Recovery, the ACIF is calling on the government to assist with the economic recovery of the construction business through a list […]
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AMCA advice on COVID-19 and HVAC
The Air Conditioning and Mechanical Contractors’ Association (AMCA) has released a position statement on the role of HVAC systems in mitigating the risks of airborne transmission of COVID-19. In the statement, the AMCA recognises that ventilation and air filtration provided by heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems (HVAC) can reduce the airborne concentration of COVID-19 […]
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HydroChem appoints new CEO
HydroChem has named Mike Lenton as its new CEO. Lenton’s predecessor, Nick Duncan, will be moving into a full-time strategy, talent-development and project role. Duncan has been credited with transitioning HydroChem to a national operation over the past 15 years. “Having recently completed 18 successful years as the General Manager of Hydro Flow, Mike is […]
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Free webinar on integrative design
Energy efficiency is traditionally assumed as a host of separate technologies to be added in order of increasing cost – the more energy saved, the greater the marginal cost of that saving. Yet as physicist Amory Lovins would counter, designing buildings, vehicles, and factories instead as whole systems could save several times more energy at […]
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Cold chain highlighted on World Refrigeration Day
World Refrigeration Day (WRD) is celebrated annually on June 26, the birth date of Lord Kelvin, after whom the absolute temperature scale is named. This year, the day will be dedicated to cold chain technology, and its vital role in food security and in preserving public health and wellbeing. Designated as the world’s biggest celebration […]
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Opinion: Can HVAC systems spread COVID-19?
By Craig Roussac, M.AIRAH. All buildings are created for people, and building owners must ensure they are safe. But unfortunately, as with most things in life, there is no guidebook setting out the “ideal” way to achieve that outcome. This is especially true in a pandemic. Over recent days, research has been published in the journal Nature that […]
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Opportunity for work-day building maintenance
With many buildings across Australia currently empty, AIRAH board member and Country Leader, Integrated Technologies – Digital Solution, at Johnson Controls Australia, Ura Sarfejoo, has highlighted the opportunity for facilities to consider upgrades to improve building efficiencies, without disruption to tenants. Sarfejoo believes that with the current low occupancy rates in buildings, the maintenance of […]
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Plants and IAQ: an ongoing debate
Late last year, doubts were cast over whether plants actually improve indoor air quality (IAQ) after new research was published in Nature’s Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. Ronald Wood PhD, BSc, from Innovative Plant Technology, has taken issue with the study in an article published in Ecolibrium. He says that a “literature review with […]
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Passive House hits prime time
As Australians struggle through another sweltering summer, more families are trying to lower their power bills through better energy efficiency in their homes. A recent report on ABC’s 7.30 delved into exactly how much Australians could be saving if they had Passive House homes. Passive House (also known as Passivhaus) is a low-energy and high-comfort […]
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Are you polluting your office air?
A team of engineers at Purdue University has been conducting an experiment to identify indoor air contaminants and ways to control them. The study involves thousands of sensors being installed in an office space called the Living Labs, at Purdue’s Ray W. Herrick Laboratories. It uses an array of sensors to precisely monitor four open-plan […]
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Meet our future leaders
AIRAH recently announced the finalists for its annual industry awards, and one category that always attracts great interest is the Future Leader. Sponsored by A.G. Coombs, the Future Leader award recognises emerging leaders in any facet of the HVAC&R industry, and may include engineers, designers and drafters, project managers and supervisors, tradespeople, commissioning and maintenance […]
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Concerns over cold-housing deaths
Better Renting has released a report that estimates low-quality housing causes approximately 140 cold-related deaths per year in the ACT. The report is titled Unsafe as Houses: Cold-housing deaths in the ACT, and compares temperature data with statistics on monthly deaths from 2009–17. The report uses data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and […]
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The big cost of the big chill
Data analytics can reduce costs for building operators by providing more accurate measures of chiller and HVAC system performance. That was the message of Dr Troy Wilson, Affil.AIRAH, Chief Data Scientist at CIM Enviro and a Research Fellow at Macquarie University, when he presented at AIRAH’s Big Data and Analytics Forum earlier this month. Outdated standards? Currently, […]
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Five low-hanging fruit of HVAC&R
The time has come to herald the sustainability solutions offered by HVAC&R, rather than focus on its challenges. That’s the message from Andrea Voigt, Director General of the European Partnership for Energy and the Environment (EPEE). As Europe swelters through one of its hottest summers on record, cooling in the form of air conditioning is […]
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Queen’s Wharf goes big on BIM
There’s a buzz in the Brisbane CBD, and it’s not just all the digging and earth-moving. It’s also the palpable sense that the $3.6 billion Queen’s Wharf project will take the city to the next level internationally. The concept drawings are certainly impressive, as are the bare numbers. The development covers more than 26 hectares, […]
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Getting natural with Michael Kauffeld
In a recent trip to Australia for AIRAH’s Refrigeration 2019 conference, Prof. Dr. Michael Kauffeld of Germany’s Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences shared his expertise on natural refrigerants. In his keynote presentation, Kauffeld detailed the HFC phase-down and what’s coming next for refrigeration, particularly with regards to natural refrigerants such as CO2, ammonia and hydrocarbons. Following his […]
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Opinion: Reducing emissions through innovation
By Iain Campbell, Senior Fellow at Rocky Mountain Institute and Tony Gleeson, M.AIRAH, CEO of AIRAH. With the hottest summer on record just behind us, climate change is top of mind for many of us here in Australia. Since 1910, our country has warmed over 1°C on average, leading to more extreme heat events, including […]
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AIRAH on Air visits UQ’s Forgan Smith Building
AIRAH has released the third episode of its podcast AIRAH on Air. In it, host Mark Spencer takes listeners to The University of Queensland’s TC Beirne School of Law for a visit to the Forgan Smith Building. The latest podcast episode is an adaptation of the December 2018 Ecolibrium cover story, detailing the Brisbane tertiary […]