This article presents the study of a surgical block with serious deficiencies of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) located in the Hospital del Rio Hortega (Valladolid, Spain). Block characteristics were identified and symptoms reports collected from 118 workers. At the end of the initial investigation, it was concluded that there was Sick Building Syndrome. Measurements of ventilation and contaminants were made of indoor air (CO, C02, TVOC, anaesthetic gases, at six different points simultaneously) and outdoor air (hospital incinerator).
Building products have been shown to affect the perceived indoor air quality in buildings. Consequently, there is a need for characterizing the emissions from building products in sensory terms to evaluate their impact on the perceived air quality. Determining the exposure-response relationship between concentration of the emission from a building product and human response is recommended. A practical method is proposed based on an air-dilution system connected to the exhaust of a ventilated small-scale test chamber.
The effect of external pollution levels on indoor air quality is a subject of growing interest, especially with the increasing application of natural ventilation in urban areas. The analysis described in this paper allows the effects of varying external pollution levels to be estimated for any configuration of ventilation system, natural or mechanical. The analysis takes into account filter efficiency and position, internal pollutant sources, degree of re-circulation and varying fresh air rates.
In 1987, workers in the kitchen of one of the teaching hospitals in Halifax, Nova Scotia began to experience symptoms of pruritus, folliculitis, wheezing, conjunctiva/ irritation, sore throat and headache, all suggestive of an indoor air quality (IAQ) problem. Approximately 127 of 160 kitchen workers were affected over a 2-year period and the complaints included cognitive difficulties and reactivity to environmental irritants.
When outdoor air is the main source of pollutants indoors, mechanical air ventilation can be viewed as having two fronts of action in controlling indoor air quality. The first is its capacity to remove indoor air pollutants by dilution, and the second is its capability to prevent, through its pressurisation effect, the pollutant source (i.e. untreated outdoor air) from infiltrating, through the building envelope, to the occupied space.
Acceptability of clean air and air polluted by building materials was studied in climate chambers with different levels of air temperature and humidity in the ranges 18-28°C and 30- 70% relative humidity (RH). The acceptability of the air quality immediately after entering a chamber and during the following 20-min whole-body exposure was assessed by 36 untrained subjects who maintained thermal neutrality by modifying their clothing.
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