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INDOOR AIR QUALITY BSEE
CREATING HEALTHIER BUILDINGS Is there a doctor in the building?
Can building engineers really have an impact on human health and producvity? Robin Vollert, Managing Director of Swegon Group UK & Ireland, argues that they can – and they should.
citizens with a quality built environment. As the UK embarks on its most ambitious programme of new house building since the Second World War, it must also consider the impact of poor workmanship and lack of maintenance on the quality of life of thousands of people living and working in sub-standard buildings. The global management consultancy McKinsey recently identified human ‘wellness’ as the next “trillion dollar industry”. It is also an equality issue that puts the building services industry right at the heart of the biggest social issues facing our country today and gives engineers the added responsibility of being ‘building doctors’. Delivering a quality indoor environment is a highly complex task that involves indoor air quality (IAQ); lighting designed to support a wide range of tasks while also protecting eyesight; minimal noise disturbance; comfortable temperature accompanied by healthy relative humidity, sensible levels of occupant density and measures aimed at protecting mental health.
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All of these add up to what we now refer to as indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and illustrate just how wide the remit of building engineering specialists has become. There is a lot more to our work than simply getting good quality air into a space at the right
temperature and doing so at minimum energy cost.
Challenged
uMcKinsey idenfied human ‘wellness’ as the next “trillion dollar industry”. It is also an equality issue that puts the building services industry at the heart of the biggest social issues facing our country today.
This was illustrated recently when a coalition of nine European HVACR trade associations challenged the European Parliament to completely revise the way it approaches its most important piece of building-related legislation – the European Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). Despite significant scientific evidence on the health benefits of improved IEQ in residential and non- residential buildings, the trade bodies claimed that the EPBD had not fully embraced these factors. They said
ne of the first priorities of any country aspiring to be described as ‘civilised’ must be to provide its
many of the solutions for improving IEQ across the EU – where one in six citizens are said to live in “unhealthy buildings” – were widely available and should be incorporated into the targets set by the legislation. They include: source control, dedicated mechanical ventilation technology, air conditioning, building automation and control, adequate filtration of incoming air as well as room temperature, humidity, CO2
level, and
lighting controls. As a result, the bodies called for a system of regular inspections to improve air quality and “increase consumer empowerment”. The World Green Building Council estimates that, on average, improving energy efficiency delivers annual savings of around £6 per sq m to commercial building owners. Water efficiency gives them back about £1. Reducing sickness rates can add up to £26 per sq m, but the big winner is productivity. If the indoor environment results in even a modest 5% improvement in productivity, that could be worth an impressive £307 per sq m.
Keeping people happy in their places of work is, therefore, worth a lot of money; a lot more than simply reducing energy bills. That is not to say we should start ignoring energy and water efficiency. Quite the opposite. Good efficient operation is an indicator of a building’s overall quality, but if we measure our work purely in those terms we play down our wider impact and the full potential of building engineering. The WELL Building Standard, developed in California, is starting to take hold in the UK with its incorporation into the BREEAM rating system. A WELL Certified project has the potential to add “measurable value” in terms of the health, well- being and happiness of building occupants, according to its creator the WELL Building Institute.
The Standard expresses a building’s impact in terms of monetary value and strengthens the case for adopting a holistic design approach that considers how a building impacts seven elements: the Mind; Comfort; Fitness; Light; Nourishment; Water; and Air. These WELL Building metrics are now being used to assess projects – new build and refurbishment – in 21 countries. They seek to quantify how well-being can deliver a meaningful return on investment to tenants and owners.
Performance
For example, on indoor air quality and ventilation the Standard argues that a well-ventilated office can double cognitive ability. For thermal comfort it has established that staff performance will fall by 6% if offices are too hot and 4% if they are too cold. We also have a role to play in mitigating the impact of winter cold, which is estimated to cost the NHS £1bn every year and lead to 15,000 excess deaths. The charity Age UK tells us that cold, damp dwellings bring about dramatic physiological changes such as narrowing of the airways and higher blood pressure and it is pushing for building designers
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to integrate more ‘smart’
technologies that can help overcome these problems.
On top of that, 2.9 million people in the UK live in fuel poverty. Given the right support and resources these are things our industry can tackle. Building occupants are also more aware of their indoor environment these days thanks to the availability of extensive data about temperature; air quality; lighting levels etc, on smart phones and other portable devices. In the past, few people would have given much thought to relative humidity (RH) levels, but now they can ‘see’ it and are aware that it needs to be maintained in the ‘healthy band’ between 40% and 60%. Occupants now have a better understanding of the impact air quality has on their well-being and employers are starting to better appreciate the quality and productivity implications. This makes a powerful business case for including measures for good air quality as early on in the project as possible. This requires the manufacturer to help with early stage design as a properly joined up approach is the only way to achieve the best results. A good example of where this approach is being adopted is with the Swegon ESBO tool, which allows owners/designers to select the most efficient products in a modelled space. This is a great way of capturing the manufacturer’s expertise as early as possible in the design process and should lead to the most appropriate solutions being specified.
The building services industry has the health of millions of building occupants directly in its hands and this makes our expertise in system design and installation; smart technologies, and commissioning and maintenance extremely valuable – on many levels.
uA WELL Cerfied project has the potenal to add “measurable value” in terms of the health, well being and happiness of building occupants.
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Delivering a quality indoor environment is a highly complex task that involves indoor air quality (IAQ); lighng designed to support a wide range of tasks while also protecng eyesight; minimal noise disturbance; comfortable temperature accompanied by healthy relave humidity, sensible levels of occupant density and measures aimed at protecng mental health.
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www.swegonair.co.uk BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER JULY 2018 33
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