From: Ralph Stuart <rstuartcih**At_Symbol_Here**me.com>
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Hood design requirements
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2015 08:17:35 -0400
Reply-To: DCHAS-L <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**MED.CORNELL.EDU>
Message-ID: 2B54D6FD-AF22-4212-BAA4-36581583556B**At_Symbol_Here**me.com


>We are looking for a design requirement for number of fume hood per researcher in chemistry labs. Is sharing of hoods a good idea? In safety point of view, we should provide adequate space for researchers to work but the energy cost will increase based on the number of hoods in lab. Please share if you have or aware of some requirements or good practices on the allocation of hood space in Chemistry labs.

This is a very interesting question that I think got lost in the glassware conversation last week. From an health and safety point of view, fume hoods are built around chemical processes, not chemists. Unfortunately, my experience is that many lab design projects are speculative in nature and it is not uncommon for less than half of the labs being built to have people assigned to them, much less the processes to be hosted in the lab identified. So it is often more realistic to design based on an estimated number of chemists than a speculative list of potnetial processes and accept that there are likely to be significant redesigns, perhaps even before the building opens.

This context makes considering operational costs during the design process quite difficult and the issue is often put to the side. For this reason, I believe that continuous commissioning of the lab ventilation system is the better approach to operating costs than trying to address them in the design phase. During the continuous commissioning, opportunities to hibernate and/or share hoods can be identified.

- Ralph

Ralph Stuart
rstuartcih**At_Symbol_Here**me.com

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