Experts from across the industry have come together for a new global campaign that aims to ramp up awareness about the crucial role of ventilation to maintaining health and wellbeing
The inaugural World Ventilation Day has launched with a warning about the limited levels of public understanding concerning the health impacts of poor IAQ.
A panel discussion held by industry body BESA to mark the occasion warned that there was a massive role for the industry to improve understanding about the significance and value of ventilation specialists and technology. This value was linked not only to the health benefits of tackling airborne pollutants, but also around ensuring the comfort of occupants on better insulated buildings.
George Friend, Chair of the BESA Ventilation Hygiene Group, said during a panel discussion that the public either largely ignored or were unaware of the seriousness of poor air quality on their lives. This lack of awareness has meant the public were often accepting substandard ventilation at a level they would not tolerate from other vital building functions.
He said: “There is no way, say if you went into a public building and got some water from a tap, that if it came out brown or cloudy, then you would drink it. You would instead raise the problem with the building owner.”
“But we no idea in most of these buildings we go into – these public spaces – about what there is in the air.”
Knowledge and confidence
Mr Friend said that it would be vital to provide occupants and building users with the knowledge and confidence to challenge and request clear information on the air quality within indoor spaces. This would also allow occupants to call for action where there are any issues with poor ventilation.
The issue of improved public awareness is one of the main aims for the World Ventilation Day campaign that will be held each year on 8 November.
The BESA panel discussion looked at the theme of making ventilation – often an invisible issue in regards to the wider functioning and safety of building systems – something more clearly seen and understand by both the engineering industry and building users alike.
Colin Timmins, director of technology sectors with BEAMA, said the trade body had been running its ‘My Health My Home’ campaign for several years The campaign looks at the impacts of air quality on health. It also provides advice and resources on measures to improve domestic air quality.
Mr Timmins said that BEAMA was currently looking to play up the importance of ensuring effective ventilation is present alongside work to insulate and make buildings more efficient to retain heat.
He said: “Quite rightly, we’re trying to insulate our homes to reduce energy use, but at the same time, we are making them more airtight. But if you do not address ventilation at the same time, then you are just creating health problems that way.”
Another aim of its campaign was to ensure the Building Regulations were being followed with regards to installation and performance.
A particular concern was that systems may be installed incorrectly and then fail to operate effectively in terms of performance and noise.
Mr Timmins added that the issue of public awareness must be at the heart of any campaign to improving ventilation in buildings. He cited the World Ventilation Day campaign as an important example of work to have the importance of ventilation more clearly understood.
He said: “I think people in their own homes need to understand what sort of problems indoor air quality can cause. They will need to look at what solutions that can be used to address this. Politicians need to make sure – and this is starting to happen – that when work is being done with insulation that they ventilate at the same time.”
“Then we need to make sure those ventilation solutions are installed correctly. If we can get all of those things right, we can move forward. But there is still an awful long way to go.”
Data impact
Adam Taylor of IAQ certification body AirRated said that an increase in the availability and types of data being measured in buildings offered a vital step forward for monitoring and understanding what makes ventilation ‘good’.
Part of the challenge for understanding IAQ issues were that occupants and individuals have too often been reliant on information provided by building operators, Mr Taylor added.
However, Mr Taylor said that a growing number of technologies were being made available to track and monitor air quality. He cited the recent example of the acquisition by tech giant Google of a large data company that provides information on outdoor air quality at an increasingly local level could lead to a clearer public understanding about what they may be breathing in at a workplace.
Tools such as these could see more active campaigns and questions being asked of building operators about what they are doing to mitigate pollutants entering a building in areas with poorer air quality, he added.
Mr Taylor argued still too little information was being made publicly available to determine and understand IAQ in different buildings.
He said: “At the moment, there is still not enough legislation about how people display indoor air quality in their buildings.”
Mr Taylor said he expected public pressure to increase for the government to start to require clearer and more readily information on buildings about air quality.
