A Restaurant used CO2 and Ventilation Monitoring to Manage Covid Risk

Home » A Restaurant used CO2 and Ventilation Monitoring to Manage Covid Risk

Client
Full Moon Thai, Dublin restaurant

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Our Solutions
AmbiAir: IoT connected indoor air quality solution, it includes Ambilytics
Challenge
With indoor dining returning and the knowledge that Covid risk can be managed with good ventilation, Full Moon Thai, a restaurant in Dublin city centre wanted to ensure that their ventilation was and remained at a sufficiently high level to ensure the health and safety of staff and diners.

Approach
The restaurant venue is conducive to good ventilation, with high ceilings and few obstructions to air flow, so after the Ambisense team assessed the site in person, they recommended that only one AmbiAir device needed to be installed.

The process began with a phase of discovery. The management needed to gather the data to understand the current ventilation situation; if there indeed were any issues around ventilation, and if required, what behavioural or operational changes would maintain good levels of ventilation.

Results
Over the warmer months, the doors were kept open, and windows opened as required to increase the ventilation – this was very effective, and you can see in Fig 1 below that CO2 levels remained, other than the occasional spike which prompted quick mitigation action, below a healthy 800ppm (shown by the orange line).

Fig 1

However, once it became colder and the doors and windows could not be left open all day issues arose, and the restaurant was regularly seeing periods of sustained high CO2 in excess of 1500PPM (Fig 2).

Fig 2

This led Ambisense to review the data in detail with the restaurant manager. He created an action plan to increase ventilation which was centred around both the live data and predictive data alerts. This would then notify staff in the restaurant when a high-risk scenario was likely to occur and allow them to take appropriate mitigation measures. These could be as simple and low-cost as ensuring all windows were open, any mechanical ventilation was being used, and the doors opened.

The following week another review session was held carried out by the manager and significant changes in the CO2/ventilation levels was seen. Compared to the previous week, the risks had been dramatically decreased (Fig 3).

Fig 3

Conclusion
The Ambisense team recommended, and implementation was agreed by restaurant management, that this constant cycle of discovery and dynamics would be built into the internal operations of the restaurant to ensure that, over the long-term, they are providing as safe a space as possible for their customers and staff.

The results from using AmbiAir, made them look at the table layout and usage, and create a new approach that would keep the CO2 levels at lower, healthier levels while still ensuring good use of the space.

Being able to see the data remotely has also meant that the restaurant manager did not need to remain on-site to assess operations, rather he could contact the staff if a CO2 spike occurred. It also let him assess when there is an increased number of customers that have not been logged into the booking tool, with the increased CO2 levels, indicating higher occupancy and increased business.