Defines "sick buildings" and describes sensory symptoms reported. Both laboratory research and field trials have been carried out, using a mobile environment chamber, gas dosing equipment, an air analysis laboratory and computer systems. Pattern analysis of indoor air samples indicate importance of interrelationship between a large number of chemical substances and several different sensory perceptions. Lists current research.
Describes expectations people have of indoor climate. Notes that the quality of indoor climate has often taken second place to fashionable architectural and material considerations. Refers to concern for improved environment and awareness of formaldehyde, radon and other pollutants and the need for correct ventilation to achieve derived air quality. Provides guidelines for air quality, and the thermal environment in both housing and working premises.
Sedentary subjects occupied an environmental chamber (20-22 deg C, 35-50% RH) with low ventilation for 90 min. Judges (visitors) evaluated the odour of the chamber before and during, and after the 90-min period of occupancy. Odour intensity increased throughout occupancy and decayed afterwards. However, therate of decay exceeded that anticipated from ventilation rate alone. The results implied that body odour is unstable with a half-life of 55 min. This instability will influence quantitative requirements for ventilation during nonsmoking occupancy.
Demonstrates that complaints by office staff about their physical environment are not necessarily caused by physical deficiencies. Trying to reduce the level of complaints by adjusting heating ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems can therefore be an unrewarding task. Greater attention needs to be placed on - communications between management, those responsible for running HVAC systems and staff. Staff need the feeling that they can influence, if not control, their environment. Staff should also have more realistic expectations about their thermal comfort.
An account is given of what the kindergarten staff wrongly believed caused the problems and what measures they carried out in an attempt to solve them. On the spot measurements showed however what the real main cause of the problems was. Results from the comprehensive measurements of CO2 concentrations andother ventilation performance criteria in a room occupied by 12 children and 3adults are then presented.
Random samples of the workforces of an air conditioned and naturally ventilated building were interviewed using a doctor administered questionnaire. Large and statistically significant excesses of work-related nasal symptoms, irritation of the eyes, dry throat, headache, dry skin andlethargy were detected in the air conditioned building compared to the naturally ventilated building. In the air conditioned building, over 36% of those interviewed were suffering from a single symptom and few workers were symptom free.
The employees in a large office in Trondheim were complaining about headache, tiredness, sickness, allergic reactions in eye and nose, dry skin, respiratory diseases etc., and as usual they believed that their inconvenience was due tothe ventilating system. However, preliminary investigations did not verify this assumption, although it was evident that the heating and ventilating system was part of the problems. Measures included reduction of room temperature, antistatic treatment of carpets, and replacement of noisy ceiling diffusers.
The mould growth inside buildings merits study both in its own right as a natural phenomenon, and because it easily becomes airborne and might pose ahealth problem for certain individuals. The numbers and types of the airborne mycoflora inside buildings depend on air exchange with the outside and the presence of an endogenous mould population. Without intramural mould sources, indoor mould spore levels do, to a major degree, reflect outdoor levels.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the U.S. Army, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (USA-CERL) have collaborated on a project that examines the influence of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system operational parameters on the levels of microorganisms found in a simulated office space. In these experiments, fungi were collected as representative microorganisms using side-by-side sieve and slit samplers. Experiments at USA-CERL demonstrated that fan coil units are a major source of fungal aerosols in the built environment.
A matched pair of identical mobile homes, one supplied with electric heating and cooking utilities and the other with propane gas utilities, were used to evaluate, over a 14-month period, various factors which may affect indoor formaldehyde c
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