COVID-19 | REOCCUPYING BUILDINGS STAYING SAFE To protect staff from the risk of being infected by Covid-19 as they return to workplaces, buildings managers will have to adopt rigorous maintenance regimes to ensure the virus cant take hold. Alex Smith finds out why facilities managers will be key to creating Covid-secure buildings RECOMMISSIONING LIFTS AND ESCALATORS Many lifts and escalators will have been switched off for lockdown, so some precautionary steps should be taken before returning them to regular service, according to CIBSEs new guide Covid-19 recommissioning of lifts and escalators, released on 12 May Lifts with a rated load of 20 people or fewer will only be able to carry one person and observe the 2m social-distancing rule, so the guidance suggests staggered working hours to reduce peak demand on lifts. It also advises cleaning surfaces including push buttons frequently, bearing in mind that some cleaning agents may cause damage to buttons and/or cause them to stick. You should ensure the Loler certificate is up to date. Loler applies to workplaces, and requires passenger-carrying lifts to be thoroughly examined every six months. If the lift has been out of service and decommissioned properly, the lift contractor should reinstate it. A routine maintenance visit will also be useful to get the lift back into service, the guidance says. Escalators may need their drive and steps chains lubricating and make sure no foreign bodies that may cause a comb-plate trip are on the step band when restarted. T he governments plans for a return to work amid the coronavirus pandemic has put buildings reoccupation strategies under intense scrutiny. Workers want reassurance that their offices, factories and schools are safe to go back to. Their fears are reflected in a survey of homeworkers, who were asked about the possibility of returning to the office; 30% of respondents were concerned about office layouts, while 28% feared travelling in congested elevators.1 The onus for ensuring buildings are safe to reoccupy falls on the buildings and facilities managers (FMs) responsible for maintaining and operating them. They will have to ensure that systems meet statutory requirements, and that activities to prepare a building for reoccupation are risk assessed and done using a safe method of working, following guidance such as CIBSE Guide M and BESA SFG20/30. CIBSEs new Emerging from Lockdown2 guidance details the building systems covered by statutory requirements. It also has new guidance on lifts (see panel, left, Recommissioning lifts and escalators) and ventilation (see page 38). Guidance, from CIBSE and others, on creating Covid-secure workplaces includes reducing the risk of airborne particles by boosting ventilation, turning off recirculation, and ensuring negative pressure in toilets. The facilities managers will lead the reoccupation of buildings, and businesses will look to ensure they have done everything possible to make them safe, says James Campbell, partner at building services consultant Troup Bywaters + Anders (TB+A), which operates as a technical consultant to property services companies. He adds that it is important to first understand how buildings are operating: Its easy to assume a building was performing well before the outbreak, but issues that werent critical before Covid-19 may now be. We need to rectify these. Campbell estimates that around 75% of systems on projects on which TB+A is working are not performing as designed and, in some cases, he recommends that HVAC be recommissioned to identify issues. We now have to ensure the building is fully operational Its easy to assume a building was performing well before Covid-19, but issues that werent critical before the outbreak may now be and performing as it was designed, or better, otherwise peoples health is at risk, he says. (See panel, Continuous commissioning.) Austin Wikner, head of Building Services London at WSP, says that Covid-19 means maintenance will become more regular. Irrespective of good practice, the volume of HVAC maintenance will increase, and filters will have to be cleaned regularly. Generally in the UK, new buildings are well designed in terms of ventilation and being able to stop recirculation of air, says Campbell, as systems can be adjusted to be supplied with 100% fresh air. Where systems need recirculation, then filtration and air-treatment methods will need to be considered. Its important to understand where there might be spare capacity, he adds. For example, were operating on a building thats been 16 June 2020 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE June 2020 p16-18 Covid secure buidlings 2.indd 16 22/05/2020 19:27