While teachers, parents, and students struggle with the question of returning to school campuses this fall, one school in Bellevue is preparing to welcome students back, when it is safe to do so, confident in the steps they have taken to help mitigate exposure to COVID-19. 

As COVID cases continued well into the summer months, administration at Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, an independent, Catholic, day and boarding school for middle and high school girls, contacted their mechanical preventative maintenance contractor for help in determining ways to reduce pathogen exposure in classrooms and dormitories.

Hermanson Company’s Brad Sharp, Testing, Controls & Commissioning Manager, had begun researching the efficacy of both ventilation and surface-based therapies months earlier.  Sharp, who has over twenty years in indoor air quality training and remedy implementation, had determined the combination of HVAC based Needlepoint Bipolarity Ionization (NPBI) and increased filtration to be the most effective option available.  Sharp and his team had already installed functioning systems in a large corporate complex and medical clinic with promising results.

NPBI creates negatively charged ions (also known as anions) as air passes through a high voltage electrical charge inside a cartridge strategically installed in HVAC ductwork. The ions clump molecules together making them easier to capture by denser ventilation filters. The ions also rob virus, bacteria, allergen, mold, and odor molecules of their hydrogen and render them inactive without creating harmful ozone!

The NPBI technology is an example of biomimicry. The negative ions created in NPBI are the same phenomenon that occurs in nature around rapidly moving water.  The force of water creates negative ions.  Anyone who has been hiking and came upon a waterfall or stood on the seashore near crashing waves recalls the fresh air surrounding those natural spaces.  This is also one of the reasons a morning shower is so refreshing.