On a recent project a maintenance team became aware of Cottonwood Filter Screens Technology and engaged their commissioning company to work with the manufacturer to develop a solution. After analyzing the problem, the manufacturer engineered a filtration solution that included a filter framing system inside the air chamber behind the louver where it was accessible from inside the building rather than mounting them to the outside of the intake louvers that were located several stories up and not accessible. The idea was to use the air intake filters to significantly reduce the amount of snow reaching the pre-filters and bag filters.
Since putting the filters in, they not only eliminated snow related damage, but they realized another benefit – The Air Intake Filters stopped cottonwood seed and other matter from pre-maturely fouling out the pre-filters during the spring, summer and fall. “It wasn’t until we saw the cottonwood seed building up on the Air Intake Filter Screens that we realized just how serious our cottonwood seed problem was. The cottonwood seed and other fibrous matter in the air was increasing our maintenance cost and significantly reducing the efficiency and service life of our filters” said the facility maintenance engineer.
The Bio-Medical building is located near the banks of a nearby river and the campus is surrounded by densely wooded areas – and where there’s water, there’s usually a lot of Poplar Trees (also known as the cottonwood tree) and other vegetation which contribute to the bio-mass in the air during the spring, summer and fall. They had become so accustomed to frequent filter changes that until they became acquainted with the Cottonwood Filter Screens, they didn’t realize that they could get more out of their pre-filters and bag filters by protecting them from heavy face loading – The best part of using the air intake filter screens is that they dramatically reduced filter changes and reduced maintenance to about 10 minutes per cleaning using a broom versus up to 4 hours to change and dispose of the filters. By Randy Simmons
