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54 DC VELOCITY NOVEMBER 2015 www.dcvelocity.com
Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE),
which identify six factors that help
determine how comfortable a per-
son feels: air temperature; radiant
heat (heat emitted by warm objects
such as lighting fixtures, machinery,
and people); air speed; humidity;
clothing insulation level; and met-
abolic heat, which increases with
activity.
“All six of those together really
drive whether or not a person’s com-
fortable, or whether or not they’re
going to have heat stress,” says
Taber. “For example, if you have to
wear two full layers of clothing for
safety reasons and you’re doing high-ac-
tivity-level work, then the temperature at
which you’re going to go into heat stress
is going to be dramatically lower than if
you’re wearing shorts and a T-shirt and
you’re engaged in light activity and there’s
a nice breeze blowing. So, temperature
alone doesn’t really define it. It’s a com-
bination.”
Studies show that productivity starts
to drop when the perceived temperature
rises above 77 degrees Fahrenheit, says
Taber. Heat stress—heat-induced phys-
ical problems that can include cramps,
heat exhaustion, and heat stroke—can
become a problem when temperatures
reach the mid-80s.
FIND THE ROOT CAUSE
Although DCs often look first to fans,
a better approach to remediating heat
issues is to step back and try to determine
the root cause of the problem, Taber says.
His company usually looks first at the
ventilation or exhaust system when eval-
uating a client’s facility, he reports. “If the
building does not have sufficient exhaust
that takes the hottest air off the ceiling,
the other solutions really don’t work as
well,” he explains. “If you’re not bringing
fresh air in low (and) you’re not exhaust-
ing hot air up high, then that heat tends
to build up (near the ceiling).”
Other possible root causes include poor
roof insulation and lighting that emits too
much heat—or even the number of work-
ers in a space or the clothing they’re wear-
ing. Focus on the changes that will give
you the biggest return, advises Neuwirth.
Neuwirth recommends starting by asking yourself what’s putting off the most
heat. Often, the answer is an internal heat
source, such as lighting or motors from
conveyors or other equipment. Solutions
could include replacing motor-driven
conveyors with nonmotored gravity units
or replacing old-fashioned metal halide
lights with light-emitting diode (LED) or
fluorescent lights, which give off less heat.
Sometimes, it’s necessary to isolate the
source of heat from the rest of the building. Taber cites a project where a large
oven was throwing off a huge amount of
heat. “Rather than exhausting air out of
the whole building, we isolated the oven
