Article: Healthy at school for a few euros a day

Dutch Installation & Construction magazine, Oct-Nov 2021 edition
Air cleaner keeps everyone on their toes
Dutch school boards of many educational establishments, large and small, find themselves in a quandary. They have made an inventory of the state of the building installations and the air quality in the classrooms. They are then presented with an overview of the measures that need to be taken in order to put these in order, and the enormous costs involved. “Many boards then give up,” says Annelies de Jong, marketing manager of Euromate. “I have spoken to several parties who, especially with Corona, feel the pressure to do something about the problem, but find the financial consequences too drastic. We have a good solution for this with a simple message: ‘clean air for every pupil from €2 per pupil per month’.”
Air quality in schools is in the spotlight. Organisations responsible for it, usually school boards, receive questions from parents and from their own staff: what is the situation at my school, is the air quality sufficient, are adjustments necessary? De Jong: “When they do an inventory of the property, in 80% of the cases the conclusion is that it is not well organised. Especially with the coronapandemic and the recently started flu season in mind, the problem buildings simply have too few air changes and therefore no clean air for students and teachers. To achieve a healthy air climate, adjustments are needed that can cost up to 20 thousand euros per room, depending on the state of the building and installations and the possibilities for improvement. Even the subsidy scheme does not usually help to overcome the financial hurdle.”
Powerful and affordable
With a Pure Air Shield 3300 (PAS) from Euromate all these problems are overcome, says De Jong. “This plug-and-play air cleaner effectively filters pollution and aerosols out of the air. The device is compact but powerful enough to clean a room and to keep it clean, and it provides a better air flow. A building with natural or mechanical ventilation can be made safe at a fifth of the cost. We claim that our air cleaner can provide clean and safe air for €2 per student per month. That sounds more manageable than 20,000 euros for adapting mechanical ventilation. I can imagine that there are parents who say: I want the same for my child, we start a campaign to help pay for such a device in the classroom. Parents do this in Germany, for example, which makes it easier for schools to take this step.”
Air changes
The Pure Air Shield 3300 (PAS) can clean 600 m3 to 2800 m3 of air per hour. “This means that in a building that is equipped with mechanical ventilation according to the 2012 Dutch Building Decree, for example, you can increase the existing double capacity in air changes in stage 3 to five times in air changes. An old building will need more, especially in the cold months, because the windows cannot be opened as quickly. You can easily modulate this by changing the air during the lesson to a lower setting of 1300 cubic metres per hour at 34 dB(A) and before and during the breaks to a higher setting to purge the air. You can hardly hear it in an occupied classroom.”
Fresh all day long
The air cleaner removes 99.9997% of suspended particles and aerosols from the air and is certified by the SGS. De Jong: “Pure Air Shield is also very suitable for schools in the vicinity of industry and roads. There you often get more misery with natural ventilation. Switch it on in the evening, and it all starts fresh in the morning. We give a five-year guarantee and only work with European quality parts. And after five years, such a device will last for many years. But the main benefit is of course to the pupils and teachers. Schools are running at full capacity again, so there are dozens of them in one room. If one of them has the flu, a week later many more are home sick. Not necessary with a Pure Air Shield 3300. Everyone can concentrate for longer and the teacher can go home at the end of the day without a headache.
Air cleaner in the classroom: polluted air: red / clean air: green