WHY FRESH AIR VENTILATION IS KEY TO HEALTH, HYGIENE AND COMFORT IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Khalil El Ghazzi, Managing Director, Systemair Saudi Arabia, writes on the importance of ventilation in ensuring the wellbeing of occupants and operations of businesses and on how this can be achieved through good HVAC design without impacting energy efficiency goals

IN THE Middle East, fresh air should not be considered a privilege but a right. For buildings in the GCC region – be they residential, commercial or industrial – costly conditioned air is crucial to surviving scorching summers. However, it is often forgotten that having air conditioners does not mean that buildings receive fresh air, which is equally important in ensuring the health, comfort and productivity of inhabitants, and in helping meet the objectives of critical processes.

The reluctance to invest in fresh air ventilation solutions, like fresh airhandling units (FAHUs) often stems from a rather outdated thinking about cost and energy use, amongst other concerns. However, such archaic thinking fails to accommodate the myriad of innovative solutions in the market, such as recovering cooling and humidity in FAHUs through advanced energyrecovery components, many of which can ensure proper, balanced ventilation without being energy-intensive.

We ventilate, because… Before going further, let’s remember why