SA-12-C040 -- Contaminants in Hotel Room Exhaust Air

Hotels currently exhaust conditioned air to comply with standards such as ASHRAE 62.1-2010 (Std. 62.1). Std. 62.1 requires each hotel guest room to exhaust the toilet area, which contains conditioned hotel room air with minimal contaminant sources present when the room is vacant. Certain hotel sites have been able to obtain significant energy savings by recycling the room exhaust air through a filtration system (both gas-phase and particulate). This approach may be one way to significantly impact the total energy used by large hotel buildings. However, many engineers and property owners may be skeptical of this approach, not knowing the types and concentrations of contaminants that are in the room exhaust air stream.

In order to provide data to the IAQ industry on this concept, the authors performed direct air sampling at a large atrium hotel currently recycling guest room toilet exhaust through an air filtration system for energy savings. This air sampling included 75 common indoor volatile organic compounds targeted in the EPA TO-15 method, eight aldehydes sampled with the EPA TO-11A method, ammonia sampled using OSHA ID-188/ID-164, hydrogen sulfide sampled using CAS AQL 110, non-viable and viable fungi sampled using an active impaction spore trap sampler and an active culture plate impaction sampler, respectively. Bacteria were sampled using an active culture plate impaction sampler. The contaminant make-up and concentrations will be presented from the sampling upstream of the air filtration system.

Citation: ASHRAE Transactions



Product Code(s): D-SA-12-C040