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Poor indoor air quality costs business and industry some $20 billion annually in worker’s compensation and healthcare costs, lost work hours, and the potential for litigation, members and guests of the Central Ohio IFMA Chapter learned October 25.
This astounding economic figure was thrown out by Anne Saliers, product manager for izzydesigns of Spring Lake, MI, a company that produces furniture and seating products that are GREENGUARD certified for meeting safe indoor air quality standards.
Saliers spoke at the Fawcett Center as a representative of GREENGUARD Environmental Institute (GEI) and its continuing education program: Healthy Indoor Air Quality by Design. GEI is an industry independent non-profit organization offering unbiased, third party certification for low emitting products. It is the organization’s mission to improve public health and quality of life through better indoor air quality.
Saliers said indoor air quality is of such great importance because people spend about 90 percent of their time indoors and can come in contact with thousands of chemicals and biological pollutants at elevated levels.
While most pollutants are two to five times higher indoors, some can be 1,000 times higher, she said.
Saliers pointed out that people breathe 23,000 times a day, “and there is nothing that you consume more than air. So, with a lot of pollutants and things that could potentially impact your health, air quality is an increasing issue. Asthma, for example, is one of the things that can be caused by poor indoor air quality, and is the leading reason for absenteeism from school”
Pollutants may be responsible for, allergies, eye irritations, headaches, upper respiratory irritations, nausea and dizziness, fatigue and lethargy, sore or dry throats, and nose bleeds.
Saliers said the situation that really raised awareness of indoor air quality was the outbreak of serious pulmonary infections (legionnaires disease) among people at a hotel at the American Legion Convention in Philadelphia in 1976.
“The HVAC system had these bacteria that it was recirculating and everybody got sick. It was a terrible mess and it was years and years before the hotel was viable as income property even though the problem was corrected. It was a long time before people trusted that the building was okay.”
Also, Saliers mentioned a federal building in Washington, D.C., where an epoxy based compound was used to level flooring that had settled. The epoxy caused complaints of eye, nose, and throat irritation, and fatigue and nausea and had to be replaced with a low odor, low emission leveler. The epoxy had contaminated the carpet and ceiling tiles and the office furniture necessitating their replacement as well.
“This was very costly and took a lot of time. The building’s owners were never able to attract tenants and eventually razed the building,” Saliers said.
She said to keep things such as this from happening, facility managers need to develop an integrated approach and get everybody involved up front in new and renovated construction.
This would include the architect, designer, general contractor, occupants, and even the maintenance people to be certain the chemicals they will be using to keep the facility clean are ones that don’t create problems.
During the design stage of a building, those involved need to be sure of the location of the structure and what problems, if any, that may create. Also, the building’s occupant and use needs to be determined.
While proper location of equipment such as ventilation systems and copying machines is important, “the biggest area that can impact air quality is material selection—things going into the space like the carpet, the paint, the ceiling tile, the furniture—materials that are low emitting.”
The most important thing to remember, she said, is “wet before dry,” which means “you want to do your wet finishes first before you put in your dry material. “So, paint your walls before you put in the ceiling tile or install the carpet because anything that’s wet has to evaporate or cure. The process for doing that is releasing VOCs (volatile organic compounds) into the air. You don’t want materials in that space that are going to absorb those chemicals and re-release later on.”
In addition to GREENGUARD, Saliers cited other sources that would serve as indoor air quality resources for facility managers. They are Aerias IAQ Resource Center, www.aerias.org; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, www.epa.gov.iag/; and U.S. Green Building Council, www.usgbc.org.
Following the presentation, Becky Spohn and Kathy Vislosky received $25 gift certificates from Home Depot when their business cards were drawn from the chapter’s fish bowl.
Stephan Cooke, Programs Committee co-chair, announced that in addition to the President’s Dinner Nov. 7 at Confluence Park Restaurant, the monthly social event has been scheduled for Nov. 14 at a place yet to be determined. Cooke said members should check the Web site for location as the date approaches.