Visitors to the 2021 N.C. State Fair will benefit from some technology aimed at improving indoor air quality. Several buildings on the fairgrounds now have advanced technology added to their air filtration systems. The technology comes with new equipment that’s been installed with health and safety in mind, as a direct result of the coronavirus pandemic.
You could think of the new equipment as magic, but as neat as that sounds, the actual science sounds pretty neat on its own. It’s not too complicated to understand either.
The new equipment adds bipolar ionization technology to the existing HVAC systems in the buildings. Kent Yelverton, the fair manager and division director, explained it like this:
The new equipment integrated into each building’s HVAC ductwork puts a magnetic charge on particles in the air, which causes them to clump together and become large enough to be captured by the system’s filters. That means anything concerning in the air, such as a virus, is more likely to get “trapped” in the filtration system and is less likely to recirculate in the building. [Read more about how the technology works on the Global Plasma Solutions website.]
“We were able to install it in all the fairgrounds buildings that have HVAC systems that recirculate air,” Yelverton said.
At the Raleigh fairgrounds, that includes the following buildings: Scott, Exposition, Graham, Martin, Commercial and Education (which are connected), maintenance, the office and cafeteria of the Hunt Horse Complex and the fairgrounds administration building. Yelverton pointed out that the list includes anywhere employees work for extended periods on a daily basis. So added safety for employees was a factor along with improved safety for visitors and others who use the buildings.
Stickers in the windows of fairgrounds buildings indicate the new air filtration.
“In these times when we are working hard to host all the events we feel the fairgrounds can host safely and within the guidelines from executive orders and DHHS, we feel this provides additional safety and assurance that we are putting safety first for people to feel better about attending events here,” Yelverton said in January, shortly after the equipment was installed.
He added that the visitors include event hosts and vendors.
“We are successful when the people who host events here are confidant, so this is a means to add some assurance for people who come to attend events here.”
A borrowed idea from the Agricultural Sciences Center
Yelverton explained that the money for the new systems came from the CARES Act. The N.C. General Assembly appropriated some of the federal CARES Act dollars to the N.C. State Fair and the N.C. Mountain Fair in a grant to the N.C. Fair Association. The money was restricted to uses directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The State Fair received half a million dollars,” Yelverton said. “We looked at what options we had that would be appropriate use of the funds and that could get done in a relatively short period of time.”
Yelverton said he and other administrators quickly thought of bipolar ionization because it’s a feature that was added to the Steve Troxler Agricultural Sciences Center. There was a long list of other possible ways to use the funds, but most options were equipment purchases. Administrators realized that arranging the purchase and delivery of equipment would have become complicated to complete in the time allotted by the CARES Act.
Yelverton was already familiar with the work done at the ASC because he’s a civil engineer who worked on the project as director of the Property and Construction Division before moving to the State Fair. So he contacted Stanford White, the mechanical engineering company that oversaw the installation of bipolar ionization equipment at the Agricultural Sciences Center. Once the company decided the equipment could be added to the fairgrounds buildings, the Property and Construction Division approved it as an emergency project.
Stanford White oversaw the fairgrounds project also, and WATCO Mechanical was hired to do the installation. There was some worry about the availability of equipment because, although the technology has been around for decades, there was a shortage of parts to install it because more companies have been getting the equipment as they look to bring employees back to their buildings.
The experience and relationships already established through the ASC project helped the fairgrounds project move along. The new bipolar ionization equipment passed a final inspection on December 21, 2020. So anyone who’s visited the fairgrounds buildings for other events since then has likely encountered the specially filtered air.
Buildings at the N.C. Mountain State Fair/WNC Ag Center also had the equipment added. Matt Buchanan, the manager of the WNC Ag Center and N.C. Mountain State Fair, and Yelverton mentioned that the bipolar ionization will help with much more than capturing coronavirus in the air. The technology should help filter out other concerns in the air, too, such as the common cold, the flu virus or perhaps another new virus.
“There’s no telling what else may pop up,” Buchanan said. “So we’re trying to make it as safe and healthy as possible.”
