The schools' first air filters are already running

The city will equip all elementary and secondary schools, after-school care centers and youth facilities with air filter systems before the cold season.

The first 24 devices for the church school have already arrived.

Germering

- The city did not expect that: When the main committee decided at the end of July to order 162 air purifiers for the schools, nobody thought that the devices would arrive before autumn.

The opposite was the case, as Mayor Andreas Haas now said during a tour of the first installed air filter systems in the church school: At the end of last week, the commissioned company announced that delivery would begin.

The rest will follow school after school in the coming days and weeks.

The fact that the delivery is precisely tailored to each school is due to the type of order: In order to avoid a Europe-wide tender, the schools, as a budgeted institution, have each ordered the devices for themselves.

The first impression during the demonstration of the devices yesterday was uniform across the board: the systems are unexpectedly high at around 2.30 meters, but are almost inaudible when they are in operation. This low noise emission was one of the prerequisites for the order, reminded building authority representative Andreas Robrecht. He explained how the so-called Hepa high-performance filters, which are designed for a room up to 120 square meters in size, work. Then the room air is sucked in in the base of the device, which is reminiscent of a fridge / freezer combination, and cleaned with the first coarse filters. Before this air is expelled again in the upper area, it flows through a high-performance filter system, in which coronaviruses also get caught.

The filters have to be changed differently: The coarse filters are changed every three to six months, the finer ones every twelve months.

To change the latter, a specialist company must be commissioned because of the possible contamination.

From Robrecht's point of view, the devices are very user-friendly: “You don't need any operating instructions.” A motion detector on the front of the system ensures that the devices switch themselves on as soon as someone is in the room.

Air filter: the cost

The filter systems ensure that the room air is virus-free.

However, ventilation of the classrooms is still necessary in order not to let the CO2 concentration become too high.

So-called CO2 traffic lights, which are already installed in all schools, indicate when this is necessary.

The 162 ordered filter systems cost a total of around 575,000 euros.

A device is therefore less expensive at around 3600 euros than the expected 4500 euros.

The Free State subsidizes each system with a maximum of 1750 euros.

The city has to pay around 300,000 euros itself.

School clerk Filiz Gropper-Schäftner and childcare clerk Johannes Landendinger were just as impressed by the speed of delivery as Mayor Andreas Haas.

Landendinger attributed this to the timely decision of the committee and the effective administration.

According to Mayor Haas, the city has made a contribution to health protection with this investment. This helps to reduce the risk of distance or change of instruction and quarantine measures. In the case of infected students, however, the health department will ultimately decide what needs to be done.