Chemistry Just Shut it Contest Reduced Fume Hood Heights by ∼50%

The Just Shut it Fume Hood Contest occurred July 21st to August 8th over the summer in Ekeley, Cristol and CIRES with the support of Environmental Health and Safety, Facilities Management and the Chemistry Department. This contest is designed to encourage lab members to close their fume hood sashes and practice safe fume hood behavior. Green Labs visits all participating labs randomly throughout the contest to measure the height of the fume hood sash.

Fume hoods constantly remove conditioned air (heated in the winter or cooled in the summer) from the laboratory and exhaust it from the roof. This air is energy intensive to replace. Thus, while critical to safety in the lab, fume hoods are likely the largest energy consumer in a lab. Closing the sash on your hoods will benefit safety in your lab and building. If your lab has Variable Air Volume (VAV) fume hoods, closing the sash will also save significant energy by minimizing the loss of conditioned air from your lab. The new Chemistry and Applied Math building will have VAV fume hoods. Cristol and Ekeley currently do not have VAV fume hoods.

The two winners of this contest were the Damrauer Lab and the Bouwman Lab based off a raffle drawing. 
 

The above figures show a ∼50% average decrease in fume hood sash height.