A very specific medical equipment in our project building uses oil-sealed rotary vacuum pump as primary pump and dry vacuum pump as secondary pump. The credit requirement mandates all vacuum pumps to be dry (no oil). However, this would change the design of the medical equipment and possibly have performance impact, not mentioning additional costs and the capability of dry vacuum pump.
1. Dry vacuum pumps have advantages such as maintenance free and contamination free, but is there any more critical intent of this requirement as this is listed in a "Water Use Reduction" credit?
2. Can specific medical equipment be exempted from this credit requirement?
james moler, p.e.
mgr systems engineeringturner healthcare
46 thumbs up
March 2, 2012 - 8:01 am
An oil sealed vacuum pump meets the credit intent to "reduce or eliminate the use of potable water for non-potable use in building service equipment." Oil-lubricated liquid ring vacuum pumps are specifcally permitted as sources for vacuum sterilizers. The authors may have placed the limitation on the oil sealed equipment due to the prevalence of using the medical vacuum system for waste anesthesia gas disposal in healthcare. There have been cases of vacuum pump fires in oil lubricated vacuum pumps used for WAGD.