New AIVC Technote on ventilation and health

AIVC is preparing a Technote on Residential Ventilation and Health. The Technote is now under review by the AIVC. Providing good indoor air quality to home occupants can have a substantial impact on occupant health and ventilation is a key tool for achieving that goal.

Exposures in homes constitute the major part of exposures to airborne pollutants experienced through the human lifetime. Indoor pollutant sources include humans and their activities related with hygiene, house cleaning, food preparation, laundry, etc.; building construction materials, furnishing, and decoration materials; mould, bacteria, and fungi; tobacco smoking and combustion processes; as well as pets and pests.

In order to improve occupant health, we must identify the pollutants driving the health risks and identify the best control strategies for those pollutants. The Technote summarises studies that have attempted to prioritise pollutants for mitigation in the indoor environment and presents a summary of pollutants driving the health risks indoors and their sources. The Technote also describes methods to reduce exposures of contaminants using different control strategies with a special emphasis on ventilation which plays a key role in reducing exposures.

Ventilation policies should be aligned, integrated, and harmonised with regulations and standards for highly energy efficient buildings and indoor environmental quality, and consistent requirements should be developed for any of their crosscutting and overlapping criteria. There are still large uncertainties about how to best provide good indoor air quality to home occupants and the appropriate levels of ventilation for homes. The Technote will also present results of a series of expert meetings assessing research needs.