Page 25 - NJ Cooperator Winter 2020

NJCOOPERATOR.COM THE NEW JERSEY COOPERATOR — WINTER 2020 25 Now providing Non-Stop service daily — from TWO locations: North Jersey Central Jersey Succasunna, NJ 07876 North Brunswick, NJ 08902 please contact: Chip Hoever CMCA, AMS, PCAM Vice President—Operations 732-228-8200 ext.1001 VISIT OUR WEBSITE www.matrixpmgroup.com Matrix provides full service property Management — yes, we do it all • Maintaining homeowner accounts • Full service bookkeeping incl. posting fees—bank reconciliations • Answering homeowner calls—issuing work order if necessary • Supervising maintenance projects • Watching over contractors working on the site • Periodic site inspections, including nights and weekends Visit us at Booth 311 at the Expo May 12, 2021 certain states might require a period of quarantine upon entry. Exposure to CO- VID while traveling will force you to ex- tend your stay in that area for at least 14 days in an isolated accommodation. If you become ill at your destination, you may have to seek medical care in an area away from home. Also consider quaran- tine requirements for your return home, too, whether imposed by your home state or by your work or children’s school. If your holiday plans include travel, plan for all of these contingencies as well. The Final Word Acknowledging the temptations to ignore or forget some of these recom- mendations while in the throes of re- uniting and revelry, Community Health Manager Sam Jarvis of Johnson County Public Health emphasizes the impor- tance of flexibility and communication this holiday season. In an interview with Iowa City, Iowa Mayor Bruce Teague, he explains, “During COVID, we’re gonna have to challenge ourselves just a little bit to lower our risk factors. Have the cru- cial conversations with your relatives and loved ones. Plan ahead. It’s very tempt- ing to want to see people, especially since many of us haven’t seen certain loved ones for months on end, but it’s still im- portant to be very vigilant now more than ever. Especially if you’re a person at increased risk, or your loved ones or friends are, there’s a lot to consider.” With the many options we have for virtual con- nection, we can do our best to keep ev- eryone healthy for what is sure to be an enormous celebration when the corona- virus crisis is behind us. The fewer gath- erings now, the faster we can make that happen. n Darcey Gerstein is Associate Editor and Staff Writer for The New Jersey Cooperator. It’s also crucially important to look out for your staff. Custodians, supers, and other people who are carrying out the cleaning or disinfecting are not only at increased risk of being exposed to the virus, but they are also exposed to any toxic effects of the cleaning chemicals they’re using, and should therefore wear appropriate personal protective equip- ment (PPE) and be properly trained on any new products or protocols—both for their safety, and that of residents. Infor- mation on concerns related to cleaning staff can be found on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OS- HA’s) website on Control and Prevention: www.osha.gov/SLTC/covid-19/control- prevention.html. Surface to Air The aeresolized transmission of coro- navirus presents another consideration for multifamily properties. Viral particles can linger in and travel through the air in respiratory droplets—including through heating, ventilation, and air condition- ing (HVAC) systems of a multifamily building, or through the airflow systems that are designed to mitigate spread of smoke and fire between and into apart- ments. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning En- gineers (ASHRAE) has therefore devel- oped indoor air management strategies aimed to reduce occupant exposure to infectious aerosols. Recommendations vary depending on the climate where a building is located, whether it uses a forced-air system for HVAC, and other building-specific fea- tures, but generally, according to Pro- fessor Max Sherman, Residential Team Lead for ASHRAE’s Epidemic Task Force, “Central systems in any homes give more options for doing filtration. Homes with- out central forced air systems may need to use more portable air cleaner options. In apartments with common centralized ventilation systems, it is important to make sure that air from one apartment cannot flow to another. Fortunately, most \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\[building\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\] codes in the U.S. do not allow this.” Older housing stock around the coun- try tends not to have centralized HVAC systems, but instead use radiators to heat in the winter and window-mounted or through-wall air conditioning units—or simply open windows—to cool in the summer. In fact, those of us who live in such units know that opening windows and running A/C are year-round “ther- mal comfort mechanisms” (to borrow the industry’s term). That method has an outsized energy cost, to be sure, but also might have virus-spreading potential as well. “The issue here,” explains Sherman, “is that we don’t want air to move from an individual apartment to the corridor. Because if there happens to be an infect- ed person in that apartment, then their virus-containing aerosol particles can get into the corridor to spread the infection to the larger community. Corridors in larger apartment buildings are required to be pressurized to keep that situation from happening, \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\[but\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\] if someone opens their window and a lot of air blows in from that window, it will make the apart- ment be at a higher pressure and force air into the corridor, and maybe to adjacent spaces as well.” If it seems counter-intuitive that fresh air would be a vector for the virus, it’s be- cause open windows can have a mitigat- ing effect on virus transmission as well, according to Sherman. “Of course,” he continues, “opening a window can help dilute the amount of virus in that given CLEANING... continued from page 10 continued on page 26