The Hospital Microbiome Project was designed to study the progression of microbial communities present inside and nearby patient rooms in a... Show moreThe Hospital Microbiome Project was designed to study the progression of microbial communities present inside and nearby patient rooms in a new hospital pavilion recently built at the University of Chicago, both before the hospital was occupied and for nearly one year after introduction of patients and hospital staff. A suite of building science measurements, which is the focus of this work, was also designed and implemented to provide potentially meaningful data on several building environmental and operational parameters that may have influenced microbial communities inside the hospital. The building science measurement plan included characterizations of indoor air temperature, relative humidity (RH), absolute humidity, light levels, outdoor air fractions in the HVAC systems, room pressurization, and human occupancy using both beam break counters and CO2 concentrations in the 10 patient rooms and 2 nurse stations. Each parameter was measured at 5-minute intervals over the span of nearly one year, which resulted in more than 8 million collected data points. Air temperatures varied more than expected for such a typically tightly controlled environment, with surprisingly low correlations between rooms. RH and absolute humidity were highly correlated between patient rooms, indicating a strong effect from the HVAC system and little effect from occupants. Humidity was more tightly controlled during summer and winter months when the weather was most extreme in Chicago. Light intensity levels were not found to be very different between rooms and floors (which received similar solar exposure), but large seasonal patterns were apparent. CO2 was moderately correlated with non-directional IR beam-break counts at times, but not consistently. IR beam-break counters revealed large variations in patient room occupancy xv patterns throughout the study. In the HVAC systems serving each floor, outdoor air (OA) fractions were successfully calculated using CO2 concentrations measured in the outdoor air intake, recirculation air, and supply air, albeit only after periodic calibrations with data from the building automation system. OA fractions also showed distinct patterns of economizer usage with outdoor temperatures. Ultimately, this large suite of building science data will be used alongside microbial diversity data to explore correlations between indoor microbiology and the built environment. M.S. in Environmental Engineering, May 2014 Show less
