Old Texas Governor's Mansion mold story

[Guest guest]

This issue always made me furious because efforts were being made to

remediate the mold from the Mansion because of health reasons but somehow they

just

can't find the money to fix schools, offices and homes where people are sick

too. Health reasons for the known are responded to but the masses have to

fight to even get doctors to recognize that they are also sick from mold

exposure. What's wrong with this picture?

Mulvey son

Posted on: 05/15/2000

Presidential candidate Bush can breathe easy

At least in his gov’s mansion, thanks to state-of-the-art IAQ.

AUSTIN, TX — If hvac industry members are looking for a presidential

candidate with an appreciation for indoor air quality (IAQ), they need look no

further than Texas Governor W. Bush.

After seeing what some of the industry’s best consulting engineers,

mechanical contractors, and high-tech equipment did to reverse IAQ problems in

the

143-year-old Texas Governor’s Mansion during a recent renovation, the

governor

and Mrs. Bush are now staunch air quality advocates.

This was perhaps one of the most challenging and complicated design jobs I’

ve had in my 26 years in the hvac business.

“We all notice a significant difference in the quality of the air now that

the hvac retrofit has been completed,†said Texas Governor’s Mansion

administrator Anne DeBois, who has served under four Texas governors.

Previously the 9,000-sq-ft, 27-room historic mansion suffered high levels of

mold and mildew counts during Texas’ hot and humid summer months that were

not only unhealthy for inhabitants, state workers, and thousands of annual

tourists, but also responsible for unappealing musty odors.

Challenging, complicated

Volz & Associates Inc. (Austin, TX), which spearheaded the renovation

project that also included roof replacement and security updates, put together

an

hvac team that had to resolve many issues, such as:

* Ascertain how to increase outside air, dehumidify and purify it,

while getting it into the air distribution system amidst great space

limitations;

* Decide how to add humidity in dry winter months;

* Update the existing equipment and air distribution system;

* Ensure that the high profile project was foolproof; and

* Ensure all the above work met with the historical building

guidelines outlined by the Texas Historical Commission and the architect.

The IAQ problems were solved by consultants Holder, senior vice

president of Assured Indoor Air Quality (Dallas, TX); Bill , P.E.,

president of HMG & Associates (Austin, TX); and mechanical contractor

TDIndustries

(Dallas, TX).

While both consultants conceived the solutions, it was ’s firm that

performed the design work. Holder, who is an IAQ consultant, developed the

design criteria and performed the function of the commissioning authority.

“This was perhaps one of the most challenging and complicated design jobs

I’

ve had in my 26 years in the hvac business,†said , whose firm has

provided mechanical and electrical consulting on projects ranging from large

15,000-sq-ft residences to 300,000-sq-ft, $50 million commercial buildings.

Right dehumidifier, filtration system

The existing hvac system consisted of a 20-year-old double-duct, variable

air volume (vav) design with 15 zones. Equipment consisted of two 30-ton

chillers (one as a backup), one 300,000-Btu hot water boiler, and one built-up

air-handling unit.

Although less than 10% of the system’s total 10,000 cfm consisted of

untreated outside air, that introduction of air during air conditioning season

helped produce mold-mildew growth that propagated throughout the years.

The project started with a complete cleaning to rid building surfaces and

ductwork of mold, mildew, dust, and other contaminants.

To eliminate the source of biological contaminants, and Holder

realized a commercial dehumidifier combined with air purification was vital to

the

redesign. They specified a makeup air Dry-O-Tron® dehumidifier Model RK-100

by Dectron Internationale (Montreal, PQ, Canada), which the manufacturer

said has a moisture-removing capacity of 137 lb/hr.

Equally important to the air quality, however, is a multiple-stage,

gas-phase filtration system, custom designed to remove outdoor air particulates

and

chemical contaminants produced by automotive exhaust. The air purification

systems were factory-installed inside the dehumidifier, but supplied by indoor

air purification specialist Circul-Aire (Montreal).

Going underground

To arrive at an outdoor air specification that would comply with ASHRAE

standards and reverse the building’s pre-existing negative pressure (due to

the

inherent leakiness of 19th-century building techniques), a 20-cfm/person

calculation was specified for a capacity of 250 people.

Typically the building has less than 50 people inside at one time, but like

most gubernatorial mansions, the site is a frequent gathering spot for large

events that can attract as many as 250 guests.

“We started with the ASHRAE standard, but our final numbers appeared to be

enough to also satisfy our goal of reversing the building’s negative

pressure,â€

recalled .

The difficulty of adding a 12-ft-long by 7-ft-wide by 6-ft-high packaged

dehumidifier was difficult in the limited mechanical room space of the

mansion’s

6-ft-tall crawl space. A rooftop placement wouldn’t have complied with

historical landmark criteria — plus, doubted whether the roof was

strong

enough to support such a large unit.

Instead, the unit (which was custom-painted white at the factory to match

surrounding support buildings) was installed 75 ft away in a walled-off area of

the mansion grounds.

Connecting the RK-100 to the air distribution system inside the house is a

75-ft-long, 24-in.-round, PVC underground duct. It was important to pitch the

duct toward the building and outfit it with a moisture trap in the event any

moisture entered the duct, according to .

Getting at the root(s)

For mechanical contractor TDIndustries, the trenching for the underground

duct was difficult because tree roots, stones, bricks, forgotten foundations,

and other buried objects had to be circumvented to comply with historic

landmark criteria.

On several occasions, an arborist and/or archeologist was called to the site

to consult with TDIndustries’ crew. Consequently, instead of a straight duct

run, the contractor had to use several custom-made PVC elbows ranging from

30 to 35 degrees to avoid various historical debris.

“We had to call the appointed consultants [the Texas Historical Commission]

on three separate occasions because our trenching ran into roots or an old

foundation,†said Ronnie Swingler, project manager for TDIndustries,

considered

one of the nation’s largest employee-owned mechanical contractors.

While Sam Houston, a former governor and one of Texas’s most famous

statesmen, most likely suffered from the seasonably hot, humid summers, his

21st-century successors and current governor W. Bush will breathe easier

in the

new millennium.

Sidebar: Solving the dryness problem (plus installing safeguards)

The design consortium for the Texas Governor’s Mansion retrofit also had to

solve dryness in the winter months, especially since the mansion’s public

areas showcase museum-grade artifacts dating as far back as Texas’ Republic

period.

Consultants Bill and Holder felt that running water and

drains to the remote backyard location was problematic vs. installing a duct

humidifier from Armstrong International (Three Rivers, MI). It has a 40-lb/hr

capacity on the supply side of the makeup air unit in the basement.

Because a governor’s mansion is such a high-profile project, it was

important for the design to not only perform, but also to be virtually

foolproof. One

safeguard the consulting engineers built in was three variable-speed drives

(Model GPD-505) from MagneTek (Nashville, TN).

The hvac is a constant-volume system, which varies the speed of the fan to

compensate for resistance caused by dirty air filters.

Another designed safeguard is a System 600-NBC building automation system

from Siemens Building Technologies — Landis Division (Austin, TX). This

system

oversees the fans, vav boxes, temperatures, humidity, building pressure,

chillers, pumps, boilers, and dehumidifier.

The replacement equipment consisted of two boilers from Raypak (Westlake

Village, CA), that supplied the hydronic system and the domestic hot water

needs of the mansion, plus two 30-ton chillers from The Trane Company (La

Crosse,

WI). The built-up air-handling unit was renovated to provide new coils and

filters.

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