Shut the Sash: Key to reducing your hood’s energy consumption?

The "Shut the Sash" campaign above is courtesy of Esco, taken from their facebook account.

I can’t help but write of course about the latest abuzz in the scientific community and that is about the “Shut the Sash” competition that is being participated and promoted by major schools in the US and is being caught like a flu in some other parts in Europe. The goal of this campaign is to raise awareness among laboratories about the importance of shutting the sash when a chemical fume hood is not in use or if the operator is away for more than 5 minutes.

The campaign of course aims to reduce energy wastage with fume hoods consuming three times more energy than an average home in the US. That's because fume hoods move large quantities of conditioned air directly outside which in effect put's more work on the air conditioner (or HVAC system) to maintain the desired temperature, hence, the energy wastage. The amount of energy wasted is totally huge and imagine the savings your lab is supposed to have for other priorities or important matters.

I absolutely salute those labs who participated in this campaign, more so to those who took this seriously by staging inter-laboratory competitions. Now that you know, will you shut the sash?