Negative air filtration is used to catch and contain hazardous particles. By passing air through a high efficiency HEPA filter, harmful airborne particles can be removed from a jobsite. Because particles are often microscopic in size, it is not feasible to expect a temporary wall alone to contain these particles. Mold, lead dust, smoke damage, and other common interior issues often require negative air filtration. As part of remediation efforts, a system of temporary barriers and air filtration is often necessary.

While remediation work may at first seem complex to the layman, it can be a DIY effort. Any instance in which jobsite particulates need to be physically separated from the rest of a room or building, negative air filtration is required. Fortunately, negative air filtration concepts are easy to learn. The standard procedure for encapsulating, containing, and removing any contaminants is as follows.

A physical barrier is first needed to separate the work area from the rest of the building. For small home projects systems such as ZipWall, which rely on plastic sheeting, retractable clamps, and resealing ZipDoors, are a cost effective, easy, and simple solution. However, for large-scale commercial projects, more substantial barriers are necessary. Using temporary barrier systems such as Edge Guard is the ideal method for commercial scale projects.

Edge Guard can be quickly erected, meets all mandated safety standards, features the exhaust ports necessary for running negative air machines, and includes a self-closing door to ensure particle containment. Once Edge Guard is installed and the negative air system is running, it effectively becomes a non-invasive door, and normal operation and business can continue in the same building unimpeded.

Once an appropriate barrier is in place, ensure that any return air vents, and any other potential sources pulling air from the jobsite are sealed. If air is being sourced from the jobsite that's being cleaned, the encapsulation effort becomes useless as particles will spread throughout the building.

With a jobsite now sealed off, negative air machines with HEPA filtration can begin cleaning the air. Continuously pulling the polluted air from the jobsite, filtering it, then expelling the air through a HEPA filter and out of the jobsite through the barrier's exhaust vent cleans, negative air machines begin improving the air quality of the enclosed space. Once air scrubbing has begun, it is important that the air scrubber is exhausting more air out of the enclosure than it is being supplied with, in order to maintain negative pressure.

When used in conjunction with manual remediation efforts such as stripping affected paint, removing contaminated materials, and using aerosolized foggers, abatement work can be safely and easily done without impacting people and other rooms in the affected building. These products can be purchased outright, as well as can be rented from services such as Northwest Abatement Rentals.