When people come to us for indoor air quality solutions, their questions cover myriad concerns.
“Can we monitor the air quality in our entire office campus?”
“My home is 10 years old. Is it too late to install monitoring and purification systems now?”
“How do I know if my home is at risk of a radon problem?”
“We’re remodelling our house. What should we keep in mind regarding indoor air quality solutions?”
The good news is that it’s almost never too late to get started on your journey towards clean and healthy air. Whether it’s your home or your place of work, you have the option of deploying different indoor air quality solutions. Whether the structure in question is still in the pre-construction phase, is a few years old, or is undergoing renovation, there are myriad ways in which you can ensure that your family, workforce, and/or community are breathing in fresh, clean air.
How to improve indoor air quality at home and in the office: General principles
As outlined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), there are three general principles to improve indoor air quality.
Source control: The most effective way to eliminate air pollutants is to eliminate their source or minimise their emissions. For instance, if incense sticks or strong chemical cleaning compounds are causing the problem, refraining from using these products is the best solution.
Ventilation: Most buildings nowadays have very tight “envelopes” to minimise energy loss. However, these envelopes mean that not a lot of fresh outdoor air is making its way into your building. Indoor air quality solutions to this problem include opening windows, doors, and other forms of mechanical ventilation. You can use exhaust fans in kitchens and bathrooms to dilute polluted or humid indoor air with fresh outdoor air. If you have an HVAC system, you can set it to draw outdoor air while also fitting it with air purifying filters. These solutions aren’t always effective, especially when the outdoor air is more polluted than indoor air. In many situations, however, increasing ventilation can dramatically improve indoor air quality.
Air cleaning: When you can’t prevent indoor air pollution, it’s time to clean up the air instead. The question of how to improve indoor air quality in your office or home is most often met with the answer of air purification. You can measure how well an air cleaner works based on its efficiency rate (how well it collects pollutants) and its air circulation rate (how much air it draws through the filter). Both small tabletop models and sophisticated full home/office air cleaners are available. Air-purifying plants may also help to a certain extent.
How to improve indoor air quality in the office vs at home: What’s the difference?
The general principles of indoor air quality solutions remain the same, regardless of the type of enclosed space you’re working with. Nonetheless, when you get down to the details, you find that there are some key aspects in which how to improve indoor air quality at home differs from solutions for your office.
Standards: Though indoor air quality standards are not as well defined, monitored or enforced as outdoor air quality standards, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has outlined standards for “acceptable indoor air quality”. For residential buildings, acceptable indoor air quality is defined as “air toward which a substantial majority of occupants express no dissatisfaction with respect to odour and sensory irritation and in which there are not likely to be contaminants at concentrations that are known to pose a health risk.” For non-residential buildings, acceptable indoor air quality refers to “air in which there are no known contaminants at harmful concentrations, as determined by cognizant authorities, and with which a substantial majority (80 per cent or more) of the people exposed do not express dissatisfaction.”
For indoor air quality solutions in India, the Indian Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ISHRAE) has outlined standards.
Nature of pollutants: Depending on what activities are carried out in each of these spaces, the answer to how to improve indoor air quality at home differs from that for office or commercial spaces. For instance, in homes, emissions from fireplaces and kitchen stoves will call for certain air cleaning measures. On the other hand, emissions from printers and office furniture, and the relative lack of ventilation require different solutions for offices.
Autonomy: When you feel like the air is stuffy at home, you can pop open a window. If certain cleaning products seem to leave persistent smells, you can switch them for other cleaners. In your workplace, on the other hand, you most likely have less control over the indoor environment. In buildings with central cooling or heating, you may not be able to control the temperature of the room or open windows for ventilation. This can significantly impact your experience at work.
Responsibility: On whom does the onus lie to install and maintain indoor air quality solutions? If you own an independent house, you have to take things into your own hands. If you live in an apartment building, maybe the builder has installed indoor air quality solutions, with residents and/or a building manager taking responsibility for upkeep. In workplaces, however, indoor air quality becomes a matter of occupational health. For instance, in the US, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) can get involved if work conditions, including IAQ, do not ensure the health and safety of people.
Indoor air quality solutions for common IAQ problems
Radon: Radon is a radioactive gas produced by the breakdown of uranium, usually in the soil. Since the air pressure inside homes is usually less than the pressure in the soil surrounding its foundation, radon makes its way in through openings like cracks in the foundation. Radon is among the leading causes of lung cancer, but you cannot see or smell it. So the only way to detect radon is to use specific equipment.
Before you can fix a problem, you have to assess or measure it. That’s why the first of indoor air quality solutions for radon is testing. You can either purchase a radon test kit on the internet or from home improvement stores or you can hire a professional who can measure and mitigate the problem.
If there is, indeed, a radon problem, you can install a radon reduction system. While deciding how to improve indoor air quality at home with such a system, you should consider the initial radon level, installation and system operation costs, the size of your home, and the type of foundation.
Mould: Moulds are fungi that reproduce through spores. Invisible to the naked eye, these spores float in the air and when they land on wet surfaces, you can get mould growth. Outdoors, this isn’t a problem but indoors, mould can be responsible for allergic reactions and trouble the eyes, skin, nose, lungs, and throat even of people who are not allergic.
You can’t get rid of all spores from the air, but if there is no wet surface for them to land on, they will not grow into mould. So the first indoor air quality solutions for mould include controlling moisture indoors – ventilation and regular cleaning can help. If there is already mould growth, you should clean the mould and also fix the moisture problem. You can clean up the mould yourself or hire a professional to do so.
Carbon monoxide: Colourless, odourless and toxic, carbon monoxide may be emitted by unvented kerosene heaters, leaking chimneys, gas stoves, tobacco smoke, automobile exhaust, gas-powered generators, and other such sources characterised by combustion. Its effects can range from fatigue and chest pain to impaired vision and brain function to even death at very high concentrations.
The primary indoor air quality solutions for CO are source control – installing outdoor-vented exhaust fans over gas stoves, not idling the car inside your garage, using proper fuel when you have to use a kerosene heater, etc. You should also install carbon monoxide detectors at strategically selected spots to prevent CO poisoning.
PM2.5, PM10, VOCs, CO2, ozone, and other common indoor pollutants: For all other indoor air pollutants that pose a risk to your health, you should install high-quality indoor air quality monitors. These IAQ monitors give you an accurate, real-time assessment of the quality of your indoor air. Associated softwares also allow you to manage your air quality data and observe trends over time. Continuous indoor air quality monitoring is a non-negotiable in any enclosed area that claims to be safe for people to inhabit.
When problems related to the above pollutants are detected, the indoor air quality solutions deployed range across source control, ventilation, and air cleaning. Filtration is an important part of the latter approach. You should ideally select air filters with a MERV (minimum efficiency reporting values) rating of at least 13. HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filters are the gold standard, with a MERV rating of 17 or higher. When your building has an HVAC system, it can be upgraded to meet these standards. In the absence of an HVAC system, you can use portable air purifiers.
In many countries around the world, authorities don’t rely on individuals or households to individually filter and purify their drinking water. Just as municipal authorities provide clean drinking water, some experts believe that it’s time we begin to work towards a similar approach to clean indoor air. Until then, we should continue to take the measures that we can and demand healthy air – from our communities, workplaces, business owners, and public authorities.
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