Buildings Magazine - January 2017

AIR TESTING is a critical part of being proactive with IAQ. Testing and analyzing air – in conjunction with physical inspection and strong communication – will help you provide the best air for your building.

The researchers found that crisis response was 97% higher in green conditions and 131% higher in green buildings with enhanced ventilation, strategy skills 183% and 288% higher, and information usage 172% and

299% higher.

One key influence on lower
cognitive abilities in poorly ven-
tilated buildings is carbon diox-
ide. Bud Offermann, President
of Indoor Environmental
Engineering in San Francisco,
notes, “People’s productivity
and cognitive ability degrade
at elevated CO2 concentra-
tions. You have improvement
in cognitive abilities when you
increase the ventilation rate
past the ASHRAE guidelines in
Moreover, poor ventilation
and filtration can contribute
to Sick Building Syndrome.

Pollutants, dust, pathogens and
other materials in the air that
trigger respiratory issues can
proliferate illness in a building
and exacerbate absenteeism.
If untreated, poor IAQ
can have critical costs. The
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention cite $225.8 billion
in productivity losses linked to
absenteeism, equating $1,685
per employee.
Fisk suggests the use of econ-
omizers because they “increase
the average ventilation rates
a great deal – they can double
them – and they save energy.”
Measures like this can offset
some of the costs associated
with bringing in healthy air, and
they will continue to do so in
terms of productivity.
“If you can tweak the per-
formance of the individuals
that you’re paying by even a
little bit, you’re making a big
impact on the bottom line,” says
Simon Turner, CEO of Healthy
Buildings in Lake Forest, CA.
Ultimately, taking a more proac-
tive approach to IAQ will yield
WHEN THE VENTILATION
RATE OF AN OFFICE
BUILDING INCREASES, so
does the performance of
the occupants. The lines
in the graph predict that
performance of office
work will rise at increasing
ventilation rates relative to
baselines of 15, 20 and 30
cfm per person.