Wellesley
Wellesley, MA |- Educational Institution
It was important for Wellesley to continue the tradition of the color “Wellesley Blue” for the Protector XStream Ducted Hoods.
During construction of the new Science Center, these colorful flex spaces were equipped with Echo Filtered Fume hoods so the science department could keep teaching.
This XStream high efficiency fume hood overlooks the hallway through a glass partition.
At left, a ducted XStream work space is to be used with chemicals that are incompatible with the Echo FIltered Fume Hoods on the right.
Multiple sizes of Echo Filtered Fume Hoods are joined to make room for a white board with storage below.
The Center of this room is dominated by bench space where students can work side by side. Near the fume hoods, prep space is provided.
Science Center
While the construction of the L-wing of the new Science Center began in the summer of 2018, the college moved the teaching labs into modular buildings. Low ceiling heights in the temporary space created a challenge, but with Wellesley’s strong interest in green, energy efficient technologies, Echo Filtered Fume Hoods were an ideal fit.
The L-Wing Renovation allowed for more natural light and collaborative lab spaces. Once the new wing was complete, the filtered fume hoods were moved to their new locations inside the Science Center. Smart planning allowed many of the hoods to find appropriate spaces in both the flex labs and the permanent labs, and saved the college nearly two hundred thousand dollars a year in energy and maintenance savings.
Installation: Apr, 2019
Challenge
Temporary flex spaces were required so that science teaching labs could continue to function while the large scale construction project went on. Temporary buildings, however, cannot be fitted with the same level of controlled airflow equipment that's required for the traditional fume hoods.
Working with chemicals generally creates safety complications. The solution to handling fumes within a building is to incorporate motorized blowers to draw fumes out of the building, which in turn creates a need for a certain number of air changes per hour and a safe amount of supply air to make up for the air being exhausted from the building. These demands culminate in a complicated mechanical system that would be inappropriate for a temporary space.
Later, in the permanent building, more demonstration and lab work space was required to accommodate the increasing number of science students. The increased energy demand of adding a number of fume hoods was a consideration, as well as the physical impossibility of providing the required make-up air for the number of hoods required.
Solution
Since ducting out of the temporary spaces was not an option, Echo Filtered Fume Hoods were used to retain as much flexibility as possible. Traditional ductless hoods use filters that are optimized to handle a specific range of chemicals, which doesn’t work well in a teaching lab that may encounter a wide range of applications. Echo Filtered Fume Hoods, on the other hand, use patented Neutrodine Unisorb filters, which can handle a broader range of chemicals than other carbon filters, including limited levels of solvents and even acids.
Benefits
Since Echo Filtered Fume Hoods don’t make any demand on the mechanical system, it was possible to maximize the number of hoods per student, providing more hands-on teaching spaces to work with chemicals, vapors and dusty materials.
The energy savings per hood was dramatically increased since the filtered hoods consume less than 1% of the energy demanded by ducted hoods. Wellesley managed to avoid the difficulty of increasing the operational costs by using filtered hoods.
Assuming $5000 in savings each year (See “Cost Comparison: Budgeting for a Filtered Fume Hood”), 39 Echo Filtered Hoods will generate inf $195,000 per year in energy and maintenance savings. For the 20 year expected lifetime of the building, that’s $3.9 million in savings.
