As winter approaches, the air begins to settle down, getting denser and converting into fog. In cities, the dense air gets mixed with pollution and becomes smog. As we all know the outdoor air quality eventually affects indoor air quality, its utmost essential to take care of indoor air quality especially when it comes out of HVAC system throughout the day. Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) can be defined as the nature or quality of air as it affects the health and well-being of building occupants. As per EPA & National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH), and others, show indoor pollutant level may be 10 to 100 higher than outdoors.
Good indoor air quality (IAQ) in your office premises provides a comfortable and healthy environment for the occupants to work, learn, study, etc. Therefore, it is important to ascertain the IAQ status in the premises. It is essential to establish and demonstrate the comprehensive IAQ audit approach for public buildings. The systematic approach involves the measurement of physical parameters (temperature, relative humidity, and concentration of the suspended particulate matter), monitoring of the concentrations of selected chemical indicators carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, ozone, and total volatile organic compounds, and the measurements of biological indicators (bacteria and fungi).
Apart from these dust, pollen, skin particles, Volatile Organic Compounds, formaldehyde, asbestos and pesticides, human skin, hair, human off gassing etc., cleaning processes sweeping, dusting ,and vacuuming, cooking gas, oil burning, smoking are the factors that keep polluting the indoor air throughout the day.It’s very likely that the comprehensive audits may indicate some situations of common IAQ related problems in office premises, namely: (1) insufficient ventilation rate, (2) too high particle concentration; and (3) poor filtration effectiveness and hygienic conditions in most of the air handling HVAC units.
Call EPSCO India for IAQ audits of your business premise. We perform thorough audit and accordingly, a set of recommendations for the improvement of IAQ conditions are advised to the office owner/ facility managers.
