Ventilation
Home office comfort for hybrid working
While workers have returned to the office since COVID restrictions were liſted, many of them are still only working in the office part of the time. Hybrid working is on the rise and looks to be here to stay. With more people working from home than before and cooler autumn days upon us, many of us are spending more time inside our homes with the windows closed. This affects indoor air quality and also means we are more aware of noise. Natasha King, RMI product manager at Vent-Axia, looks at the options to improve indoor air quality without compromising on noise levels.
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ccording to the Office for National Statistics, the proportion of people hybrid working is on the rise. In early 2022, homeworking had more than doubled in the UK compared to pre-pandemic levels. Since then, hybrid- working has risen from 13% in early February 2022 to 24% in May 2022 – almost a quarter of workers. Meanwhile, the proportion of those working from home exclusively has fallen from 22% to 14% in the same period, around one in seven working adults. And of those who worked from home, either part or full time, over three- quarters said it improved their work life balance.
With homeworking looking set to stay and
everyone spending more time indoors at home going into autumn and winter, a comfortable home environment is essential. Good indoor air quality (IAQ) is crucial for a healthy and productive work space and demand for silent products is on the up too. The World Health Organization says that our world is too noisy and that it’s harming our health, so home workers are looking for a comfortable and quiet space during the working day and an oasis of calm when they are not working. Both of these factors are driving the need for effective, silent ventilation, which is a great opportunity for wholesalers to expand their business and grow sales.
Choosing a quiet fan Natasha King 16 | electrical wholesaler November 2022
So, what are the features and benefits that wholesalers should look out for when choosing what to stock? There are many fans on the market that claim to be quiet, but what actually is quiet when it comes to fan noise? A good place to start when selecting which quiet fans to stock is to check the sound level in decibels [dB(A)]. An average extract fan operates at 35dB(A). This is loud in a confined space. Fortunately, there are now fans on the market that are only slightly louder than the sound of a pin dropping. For example, Vent-Axia uses its own sound laboratory to ensure the fans they design are exceptionally quiet with its Silent Fan range being the quietest on the market, offering ultra-low sounds levels of just 12dB(A), quieter than a whisper. Meanwhile the Vent-Axia Lo- Carbon Svara runs at only 17dB(A) on low trickle and the Vent-Axia PureAir Sense offers silent continuous operation at just 19dB(A). The Silent Fan and the Svara have both been awarded a Quiet Mark, the independent global certification programme associated with the UK
Noise Abatement Society charitable foundation, which recognises the quietest solutions to unwanted noise. Third-party accreditation like this is a useful selling tool for wholesalers. To check whether a quiet fan has a Quiet Mark award wholesalers can visit the online directory at
www.quietmark.com.
Reducing sound levels There are other ways of reducing sound levels
ewnews.co.uk
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