Case Study: East Porter schools leverage Airthings for Business to improve indoor air while reducing energy costs

How did four schools in Indiana use Airthings for Business to reduce CO₂ levels, improve student satisfaction and the health and wellbeing of their students, staff and colleagues? Not to mention $23,250 in Energy Savings. Read our case study to find out!

“Airthings for Business have been a great tool for helping us to maintain and enhance the air quality in our buildings.”
- Craig Kenworthy, Facilities Director

Background

The East Porter County School Corporation, located in Northwest Indiana, serves schools in Kouts, Morgan Township, and Washington Township.

Challenge

Highly rated public school district East Porter consists of 2,488 students in grades K-12 with a student-teacher ratio of 15 to 1¹.  Their focus on high quality education has always been their number one priority, so naturally they sought to better understand their indoor air quality data and how it was impacting:

• Faculty and student performance and health
• Energy costs 
• Equipment functioning 

Covid-19 further reinforced their urgency. Ascertaining which indoor air factors are of concern and could potentially be contributing to airborne virus transmission was now a must. They needed the data so that they could address any issues in order to make staff, students and parents confident in reopening schools for in-person learning.

Solution

By installing the Airthings for Business solution, East Porter was able to monitor a full range of indoor air quality measures that helped them identify faulty positioning on several dampers that were causing elevated CO₂ levels.

Initially, they made manual adjustments and once improvements were verified, they applied logic to automate the positioning adjustments saving several hours of manual work per day. 

With the combination of CO₂, humidity, temperature, and occupancy sensors in the Airthings devices, East Porter was able to identify areas to better improve their indoor air quality prior to the pandemic. When COVID-19 hit, East Porter was equipped with data to help evaluate where vulnerabilities existed. This enabled them to take action to reduce possible airborne transmission through the insight provided by Airthings new Virus Risk Indicator.

Results: healthier air & energy savings² 

• Reduced CO₂ levels by 165 ppm
  
  
• $23,250 in Energy Savings realized by Morgan schools with the assistance of Airthings for business solution
  
  
• 210 hours/year reduction in manual work eliminated by automating morning startup logic

Sources:
1.niche.com/k12/d/east-porter-county-school-corporation-in/
2. Results collected from the annonymized Airthings data with their permission in 2020-2021.