English

People will never live in a risk free environment. Still we must aim at minimizing all risks and most importantly risks that are imposed on without their consent or even knowledge. A building is built for and perceived as shelter - against weather and unwanted intruders, for thermal comfort, privacy and property. Health threatening risks that the dwellers of a building cannot sense or expect contradict directly the whole concept of a building.

Eighteen laboratories from 10 European countries participated in a comparison organized in the frame of the project VOCEM, a 2.5 year research collaboration among 4 research institutes and 4 industrial companies. The VOCEM project ("Further development and validation test chamber method for measuring VOC emissions from building materials and products") has been partially funded by the European Commission (Contract no. SMT4-VT95-2039). The scope of the project was to improve the procedure used to measure VOC emitted from building materials and products in small test chambers.

This report presents background to and advice on methodologies for sensory evaluation of indoor air quality (IAQ). The report gives a short introduction to sensory mechanisms and responses and to the theory of measurement underlying sensory evaluations and discusses in detail available sensory evaluation techniques. After a critical methodological analysis of some recently published documents on IAQ, sensory methods best suited for the evaluation of material emissions and of IAQ and for population response studies are recommended.

The amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in indoor air, usually called TVOC (Total volatile organic compounds), has been measured using different definitions and techniques which yield different results. This report recommends a definition of TVOC referring to a specified range of VOCs and it proposes a method for the measurement of this TVOC entity.

This report outlines the principles of a general evaluation procedure for emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from building materials with respect to their potential effects on health and comfort. Using available knowledge, the principles have been applied to a simplified case, i.e. a procedure for the evaluation of VOC emissions from solid flooring materials. The procedure IS intended for the classification and/or labeling of these materials and may serve for both voluntary and regulatory purposes.

This report provides information and advice to policy and decision makers, researchers, architects, designers, and manufacturers on (i) strategies for achieving a satisfactory balance between good indoor air quality (IAQ) and the rational use of energy, (ii) guidelines on the use of energy in buildings and IAQ currently available, (iii) significant trends in the building sector with implications for IAQ and energy use and (iv) current research concerns.

The results of the first interlaboratory comparison, carried out in 1991-92 in the framework of the European collaborative Action "Indoor Air Quality and Its Impact on Man", showed unacceptable interlaboratory discrepancies in the case of a thin layer fast decreasing source. A second interlaboratory comparison was subsequently organized and, in order to improve the agreement, the design included: (1) control of the chamber air velocity; (2) control of the source layer thickness; (3) adoption of both dilution and sink mathematical models.

In an attempt to overcome the increasing difficulty of having concise essential information on important indoor pollutants at hand, the European Collaborative Action 'Indoor Air Quality and Its Impact on Man' has published several reports amongst which a short report on radon in indoor air was published in 1988. Since then, considerable new information has become available.

Strategies for sampling chemical substances in indoor air have been discussed in a previous report in this series (Report No 6). This report gives more specific guidance for the development of sampling strategies for volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The report is divided into three sections: 

An interlaboratory comparison using three materials has been organized to assess the agreement among laboratories undertaking tests to characterize the emission of volatile organic compounds from indoor materials and products using small test chambers. The twenty participating laboratories showed the following main results. Chambers of different materials (glass and stainless steel) and of widely different capacity (0.035 to 1475 l) appeared equally suitable. The repeatability of duplicate measurements (including sampling) within each laboratory was good.