WellAir News

Wildfires are no longer seasonal—they’re a year-round threat to public health and safety. While the immediate danger is often associated with flames and property loss, an even more insidious risk comes from the smoke that infiltrates our indoor spaces.

Wildfire smoke poses serious health risks, containing fine particulate matter, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and toxins that can harm respiratory and cardiovascular health. Even communities far from active wildfires face degraded air quality, emphasizing the need for effective indoor air protection.

The implications of ASHRAE 241 extend beyond immediate pathogen control, reshaping how building designers and facility managers approach IAQ - it aims to “future-proof” buildings.

The success of the Novaerus Protect 900 solutions in Groesbeck ISD’s early childhood spaces is clear: improved attendance, enhanced wellness for students and staff, and a healthier learning environment.

Partnering with WellAir, the Purchase District Health Department prioritized the health and safety of its staff and the public, demonstrating a strong commitment to community welfare.

The global ductless heating and cooling systems market is projected to surpass $200B by 2030, making it clear that more and more owners are choosing to go ductless for its energy efficiency, flexibility and reliability.

The PlasmaPURE 600 Series unit is uniquely small in size and can easily be installed inside the frame of the ductless unit.

Read more on how, where, and why you should install!

A recent article on Clinical Services Journal sheds light on the ultimate defense mechanisms, WellAir’s Novaerus air disinfection devices, designed to safeguard individuals from these health challenges.

Jarvis Estate Winery in Napa, California provides customers with the best of everything including world-class cabernets and WellAir Air disinfection technology. Read more about how Jarvis Estate Winery uses WellAir.

One stormy night in Texas, a lightning bolt struck Alistair's home. Fortunately, the resulting fire was extinguished but the stench of burnt plastic and chemicals stayed in the air. Alistair's neighbor — an HVAC specialist — came to the rescue, recommending Plasma Air.

In the Clinical Services Journal, experts argue that the use of air decontamination systems to improve indoor air quality should be considered as part of Trusts’ infection prevention and control strategies. They warns that hand hygiene and surface cleaning are not enough.

This technical brief provides an overview of bipolar ionization. It highlights the Plasma Air's needlepoint bipolar ionization technology, our UL 2998 verified products, along with our efficacy and safety standards.

In the covid era, indoor air quality has become an urgent global concern, but SARS-CoV-2 has overshadowed other airborne threats, particularly mold.

As the planet becomes hotter and wetter, mold is becoming a more persistent headache for schools and commercial buildings, eating up operational budgets and generating negative publicity.

WellAir's Chief Technology Officer Steve Grenon shares his experience and insight on IAQ in commercial environments. 

In a recent study, U.S. workers ranked indoor air quality as their number-one concern about returning to the workplace.

As we begin to better understand the link between IAQ and wellness, active air purification technologies, such as bipolar ionization, hold tremendous promise to make indoor spaces healthier for all.

Our own Chief Science Officer Felipe Soberón shares his experience and insight on IAQ in educational environments. 

"I've seen the profound effects that air quality can have on our health and well-being, even apart from the pandemic. If we don’t take appropriate action today in our schools, we may well look back on this moment as a missed turning point for healthy air in education."

As a part of our Elite Dealer Q&A series, we had an opportunity to talk with another successful WellAir Elite dealer, Carolina Comfort out of Columbia, SC. We spoke with Cole Mitchell, the Director of Marketing who has been with the company since 2016.

This peer-reviewed study was carried out on WellAir Air Cleaning and Purification Devices. The study highlights the number of microorganisms in the air and evaluates the effectiveness of air purifiers in reducing the rate of nosocomial infections within the ICU. 

From the EPA to high-profile properties such as One Vanderbilt, the industry is now focusing on the health and economic benefits of addressing a widespread public health risk. 

Read about the next steps to consider.

The growth of wellness travel has driven demand for hotel technology that limits the spread of allergens and other potentially harmful airborne particles. Heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems can play a significant role in improving indoor air quality and reducing allergens.

The WellAir team recently had a chance to connect with Matt Binning, the Service Manager at Alcorn Aire in Bakersville, CA, one of WellAir’s successful Elite Dealers. 

In this interview Matt explains how his company is winning by offering Plasma Air’s bipolar ionizers on every job. 

Microscopic measles particles can remain airborne and infectious for up to 2 hours and drift.

More and more evidence supports the case that Covid-19 Aerosols are infectious and more dangerous than droplets, in this blog post we take a look at how a similar debate was made around measles in the 1980s and how health officials reacted compared to how the health officials have reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Infectious Aerosols: Small but Potent

Many Covid-19 precautions — plexiglass dividers, desks spaced 6 feet apart, reduced restaurant occupancy — are premised on the notion that large droplets, generated by sneezes and coughs, pose the greatest danger to vulnerable people.

Plasma Air announced its ionization systems have been selected by Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) to be deployed campus-wide as a preventative measure against COVID.

Plasma Air ionization solutions deployed in one of the world’s largest rail systems in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The norovirus is a highly contagious virus that causes stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea. It is sometimes called the “stomach flu”. A major concern related is the rate at which it can be transmitted from person to person.

Indoor air contaminants are well-known causes of absences, interruptions, and lack of productivity in students, teachers, and staff; they need clean air.

Plasma Air is leading the IAQ revolution. Our IAQ Procedure Software, PlasmaSoft, provides engineers, facility owners and operators a fast, simple and effective way to reduce expenses, while maintaining superior indoor air quality.

Outside air intake, necessary to providing proper ventilation for healthy indoor environments, presents a challenging situation when temperatures rise. It must be properly conditioned for indoor use.

Every household can benefit from cleaner indoor air! One of the best options for homeowners to improve their indoor air quality (IAQ) is to have their HVAC contractor install PlasmaPURE right into their home’s duct system.

Fifty million people in the United States suffers from allergies! As pollen, dust and pet dander run rampant through your customers’ homes, allergies can worsen. Fortunately, Plasma Air has a solution that works continuously to eradicate airborne allergens inside the home.

The dangers of secondhand smoke are so well documented that indoor public smoking has nearly vanished. Clouds of tobacco toxins are typically segregated or banned completely. But as mounting research confirms, sequestering smoke isn’t enough.

Part 1 of 2. When the world gained control over COVID-19, infection control experts didn't get a reprieve.

To the contrary, hospitals will need to confront the “pandemic lying in wait”: antibiotic resistance.

Part 2 of 2. TB is ranked as the world’s leading infectious disease killer.

Drug-resistant forms of the disease account for about 1 in 3 of all deaths worldwide caused by drug resistent infections. 

Back in the 1950s, cartoonist Charles Schulz introduced Pig-Pen, an amiable boy known for the cloud of dirt and dust that follows him everywhere. In truth, we’re all dust magnets, and this fact may play a role in the airborne spread of disease.

Volumes have been written about the massive costs, human and financial, of the infection crisis facing hospitals worldwide.

Less attention has been paid to infection spread in nursing homes, “an unappreciated hazard” poised to worsen as the population ages and antimicrobial resistance increases.

Compared to hospitals of the same size, long-term care facilities have four times fewer infection-prevention specialists. So, nursing homes must be particularly innovative in their approach.

Read the blog to learn three critical and cost-effective strategies.

For decades, Clostridium difficile infection (CDI, or C. diff) was dismissed by doctors as “annoying but easy to treat” — a common but not especially threatening cause of diarrhea and colon inflammation. No longer.

Resistant to traditional antibiotics, new strains often cause painful abdominal cramping, fever, nausea, dehydration, and severe diarrhea. Devastating for some patients, and ultimately fatal for others.

Infection-control experts agree: containing CDI is an urgent global priority, given the emergence of more potent C. difficile strains and the ageing of the developed world’s population.

However, no single strategy will suffice. Here are 4 approaches that can dramatically reduce the spread of C. difficile at hospitals and nursing homes.

Removing airborne toxins in the lab is now considered critical to IVF success. In fact, lab air quality has such a striking impact on embryo development that an international team of experts deemed air filtration “essential” for maximizing implantation and live birth rates.

Around the globe, IVF regulating authorities are paying more attention to laboratory air quality. But there’s one problem: government regulations tend to treat IVF labs as if they were surgical facilities. Requirements focus on infection control, rather than control of VOCs, aldehydes, particulate matter, and other chemical emissions, which all decrease IVF success.

As the superbug crisis worsens and the population ages, it’s a question more researchers and — more hospitals — are taking seriously.

Patients infected during surgery are 60% more likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit and five times more likely to be readmitted to the hospital after discharge, compared to uninfected patients. The cost for a single Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection acquired during surgery can reach $40,000.

Yes, the influenza virus is spread via surfaces, but just as often, it’s spread through the air. So while sanitizing doorknobs and handrails helps, containing this relentless and often deadly virus requires cleaning the air, too.

Given the huge toll the flu takes on schools, it’s always a relief for staff when winter fades into spring and the elm trees start blooming. Except for this: the end of flu season means the beginning of allergy season.

Consumer products now cause as much air pollution, in the form of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), as exhaust-spewing tailpipes. The culprit? Harmful gaseous emissions from shampoos, perfumes, lotions, printer ink, cleaning solvents, glues, hand sanitizers, and other products that contain compounds refined from petroleum.

Sick building syndrome (SBS) is, in fact, well defined and well documented — “a major occupational hazard,” as one research paper put it, and a “growing problem in the United States and around the world,” according to another.

For any given case of sick building syndrome (SBS), the trigger can be hard to pinpoint. In fact, the mystery is part of the very definition of the syndrome. 

But this much is certain: SBS symptoms — headaches, nausea, fatigue, itchy skin, throat irritation, watery eyes, and impaired concentration — are linked with exposure to both chemical and biological contaminants.

It’s a terrible irony: around the globe, countless buildings that were designed for healing are actually making their occupants sick. Studies show that sick building syndrome (SBS), considered a “a major occupational hazard,” may be especially prevalent among employees in healthcare facilities.

In the summer of 1976, reports of a mysterious and terrifying infection outbreak dominated American news: 34 people died suddenly and 220 were hospitalized after visiting Philadelphia. Patients developed headaches, chest pain, chills, and fevers up to 107 degrees. Autopsies of the deceased revealed lungs that resembled Brillo pads. 

“[Antibiotic resistance] is very serious indeed – it’s killing people around the world at the rate of hundreds of thousands of year,” cautioned one infectious disease epidemiologist. “And we all expect it to get worse if something isn’t done now.”

But what can be done?

The Dirty Hand in the Latex Glove. Compliance with hand hygiene protocols remains “abysmally low,” according to the World Health Organization. And according to researchers, the hands of doctors and nurses deposit – and likely transmit – potentially harmful microbes every 4 seconds onto patients and hospital surfaces.

The presence of formaldehyde in everything from embalming fluid and hair straighteners to plywood adhesives and varnishes has prompted toxicologists and other researchers to scrutinize the chemical’s potential health impacts on a wide range of adults.

Hospitals around the world are facing a serious crisis: the spread of infection among patients.

China is no exception. “Wards have become breeding grounds for microbial pathogens,” asserts Bingwei Sun, M.D., Ph.D., a hospital infection management expert at Jiangsu University in Zhenjiang.

Three Critical Strategies for Reducing Hospital-Acquired Infection

Given these challenges, any serious plan to control hospital-acquired infections requires a combination of three strategies...

Given the massive infection crisis facing hospitals worldwide, protecting patients from pathogens is a critical priority. But what about protecting staff?

By implementing new policies and new technology, hospitals can have a considerable impact in containing measles outbreaks. Read our 4 suggestions for what healthcare facilities can do to stop the spread of Measles.

Nine days after returning home from a Mediterranean cruise, a Sardinian woman developed a rash. She visited a hospital emergency department, was diagnosed with measles, and remained hospitalized for three days. While infectious, she transmitted the disease to six people: a co-worker, a relative, three healthcare workers, and a hospital visitor.

“We need to face reality here,” says a virologist at the University of Sydney, who monitors bat viruses. “The next [pandemic] could come at any time. It could come in 50 years or in 10 years. Or it could be next year.”

The market for indoor air purification products exploded with the pandemic and it's here to stay.   

 Join the HVAC Jerks, three guys who have spent way too much time in the HVAC industry and have plenty of fun producing weekly podcasts with the most interesting people in the trade.  

When a hospital patient checks out of a room, cleaning staff disinfect every item and surface to prevent the spread of infection. The TV remote, bedframe, call button cord, trash can lid, closet handles, door knobs. Bed linens and privacy curtains. Blinds and curtain rails. Still, dangerous infections spread. 

Hospital-acquired infections have become so commonplace that patient horror stories have lost the power to shock. No hospital — not even the cleanest, most advanced healthcare facility — is immune to this epidemic.

“Trash and Dash” In this era of hospital budget cutting, cleaning crews often have far less time than the 40 to 45 minutes recommended for between-patient room disinfection — even less than the 30 minutes typically allotted to hotel housekeepers. It’s not unheard of for a hospital crew to have “15 minutes to disinfect a room between gravely ill patients.”

Over the course of human history — in ancient Egypt, in medieval Europe, in 19th-century North America — tuberculosis has surged and waned, causing pain and death on a massive scale before receding. It was during one period of recession, in 1915, that the New York Times warned of the “pressing” need to eradicate the disease.

Public health experts agree: Healthcare workers are at significant risk for catching and spreading infectious diseases, and hospitals must take “aggressive efforts” to prevent transmission of pathogens.

Healthcare Facilities should take these 4 steps to minimize infections among staff.

About half of documented aspergillosis outbreaks have been traced to construction work within or near the hospitals.

However, numerous outbreaks, including the one that struck Seattle Children’s Hospital, don’t stem from construction. Many have been linked instead to improper operation or poor maintenance of air ventilation systems. In one case, four German newborns in the NICU became infected, and three died.

When Covid-19 struck, overrun ERs lacked staff to care for infected patients. They had insufficient personal protective gear. Experts also wrongly assumed SARS-CoV-2 did not spread via the air. As a result, Covid-19 ripped through hospitals.

No hospital, in Hungary or elsewhere, is immune to the spread of dangerous infections among patients. Each day, an estimated 1.4 million patients worldwide contract an infection while hospitalized. Each year in Hungary, more than 15,000 hospital patients become infected, and hundreds die from their infections. Hospitals chose to install Novaerus.

Infection outbreaks have been traced to all kinds of contaminated surfaces: sinks, computer keyboards, supply carts, stretchers, IV poles, telephone handles, stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, ultrasound machines, ECG leads, and ventilators. It's time to clean the air.

VRE, CRE, C. diff., CRKP — healthcare facilities have no shortage of dangerous bacteria to contend with. Among the most worrisome in this alphabet soup of superbugs: MRSA.

Surfaces can become contaminated with MRSA by the touch of a colonized or infected person— or when airborne MRSA particles settle on these surfaces.

As mounting research confirms, airborne MRSA droplets hover in healthcare facilities and play a role in MRSA colonization and infection, especially via a patient’s nasal cavity and respiratory tract.

Dental clinics are at greater risk for indoor air pollution because of the materials used in treatments. Among the most toxic may be methyl methacrylate, a monomer of acrylic resin used in dentures and cement.

In 2018, three children developed invasive aspergillosis, a severe and aggressive fungal disease, after undergoing surgery at Seattle Children’s Hospital. The hospital traced the Aspergillus fungus, cleaned and sealed potential air leaks. Air-quality testing showed no further traces of the mold.

“We believed that the work we had done to those rooms had solved the problem,” a hospital official announced.

They were mistaken.

Walk around a dental clinic and the dominant sounds — drilling, scraping, suctioning, spraying — are less obvious indicators of airborne pathogens. But make no mistake: the air inside dental clinics, contaminated by aerosols and splatter from all the noisy treatments, spreads a range of harmful microbes.

Unsurprisingly, costs spike by $6,000 to $30,000 per patient when an infection is caused by a superbug. Compared to first-line medications, the last-resort drugs required to treat these infections are more expensive and more toxic, triggering side effects that require additional treatment.

In 2014, an outbreak of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE), a bacteria dubbed the “nightmare superbug,” struck 40 patients in five West London hospitals.

In the end, the outbreak took 10 months to contain, and the financial cost was enormous: 1,206 bed-days lost and €1.1 million ($1.2M) spent.

MRSA is hardly the only pathogen posing a grave danger in the ICU. Critical-care patients are also at high risk for resistant fungal infections such as aspergillosis. Spores spread as they are launched airborne during hospital construction.

The intensive care unit —with its beeps and buzzes, IV lines and ventilators — offers stark reminders of the perils facing its vulnerable patients.

But some of the gravest threats to ICU patients are silent and invisible: the pathogens floating in the air and coating the bed rails, doorknobs, and countless other surfaces.

Though the majority of NICU infections are bacterial, nosocomial viral infections have been widely reported, including outbreaks of syncytial virus (RSV), influenza H1N1, rotavirus, adenovirus, enterovirus, and norovirus.

Late one summer at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, routine microbiological surveillance revealed in over four weeks, 23 newborns tested positive for adenovirus. Not a single NICU patient had been infected with the virus the entire previous year.

While extreme spikes in air pollution generate headlines, many regions deal with PM2.5 crises on a daily basis. 91% of the world’s population lives in areas that do not meet World Health Organization air-quality guidelines, raising high stakes for hospitals.

Hazardous air is not just a periodic or outdoor threat; pollution is a continuous health crisis worldwide, and building interiors, including hospitals, are no safe haven from airborne toxins.

In orthopedic and cardiothoracic operations, in particular, “the risk of surgical site infection is strongly correlated with the amount of airborne bacteria being present in the operating room and the surgical field."

Surgical site infections (SSI), the costliest and most feared of all healthcare acquired infections, plague hospitals worldwide. Most SSI cases — perhaps 80% to 90% — infections are triggered by pathogens that descended from the air.

Aerosol Transmission of Covid: More Prevalent than Presumed

Prodded by scientists worldwide, both organizations eventually agreed aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was possible in community settings and perhaps not rare. But even today, top scientists warn the impact of long-range spread has been vastly underestimated.