Guidance on clearing indoor air

Ensuring good indoor air quality (IAQ) means everyone breathes a little easier: occupants who experience improved health, comfort and productivity, and owners who see increased building value and reduced risk.

New guidance for achieving enhanced IAQ is available from five leading building industry associations and the US Environmental Protection Agency. The associated book and CD provide strategies needed to achieve good IAQ using proven technologies and without significantly increasing costs.

“The health and comfort of buildings occupants is too important to leave IAQ as an after-thought in design, construction and operation,” said Andrew Persily, Ph.D., and chair of the committee that wrote the new guidance. “There is plenty of experience out there to help avoid IAQ problems in buildings, allowing all of us to breathe a little easier.”

The Indoor Air Quality Guide: Best Practices for Design, Construction and Commissioning is a collaboration between ASHRAE, the American Institute of Architects, the Building Owners’ and Managers’ Association International, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Sheet Metal and Air-Conditioning Contractors’ National Association and the US Green Building Council.

The book describes 40 strategies for achieving critical IAQ objectives related to moisture management, ventilation, filtration and air cleaning and source control. It also highlights how design and construction teams can work together to ensure good IAQ strategies are incorporated from initial design through project completion.

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• Bring IAQ into the very earliest design discussions. Do not get stuck retrofitting the design for IAQ at the end of the process;
• Strictly limit liquid water penetration and condensation in the envelope, and control indoor humidity;
• Where outdoor air quality is poor, use enhanced filtration and air cleaning to provide high-quality ventilation air. Locate outdoor air intakes away from contaminant sources, and provide the means to measure and control minimum outdoor airflows.
• Select building materials and furnishings that have low contaminant emissions and do that not require use of high-emitting cleaning products;
• Exhaust contaminants from indoor activities as close to their source as possible.
• Recognise that operation and maintenance is essential to long-term IAQ, and provide the access, training and documentation needed to facilitate this; and
• Commission from design through occupancy to ensure that IAQ objectives are met.

A summary document of the Indoor Air Quality Guide – ideal for a general understanding of the importance of major IAQ issues – can be downloaded for free at www.ashrae.org/iaq.