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Indoor air quality
Combining IAQ with smoke detection for building safety
Marco Di Nubila, off ering management director for advanced detection solutions at Honeywell, explains why it’s time to rethink the management of indoor air quality — and how smoke detection systems may off er an unexpected solution
T
he past two years have seen indoor air quality (IAQ) understandably become a greater consideration for businesses and building owners. The importance of eff ective building ventilation and IAQ strategy gained
awareness during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and this consideration has not gone away. Honeywell research demonstrates that 48% of the general workforce in the UK state they would leave their jobs if their employer does not take measures to create a healthier work environment, including improving IAQ. Creating healthier air quality starts with monitoring and measuring key IAQ parameters as you can’t change what you don’t measure. Monitoring the levels and concentration of VOCs and other indoor air pollutants often requires a series of sensors situated throughout a building that can accurately measure levels and feed data back to a central building management system. Sensor technology has advanced to a point where IAQ sensors are relatively inexpensive and can be mounted discretely onto walls or in air ducts, but the challenge comes from the upkeep and maintenance. Many building operators cannot aff ord the time and cost to recalibrate and adjust sensors as needed over time. IAQ sensors need to monitor
pollutants, even in very small concentrations to give an accurate measurement. In addition, when you consider particulate matter, or PM, you are dealing with incredibly minute particles — measuring from 2.5 microns in diameter (fi ne PM, PM2.5) down to 1 micron in diameter (ultrafi ne PM, PM1). Sensors need to be calibrated properly to detect these tiny particulates, and then subsequently recalibrated every 6–24 months to maintain the required level of accuracy and avoid producing unreliable data. It’s this recalibration that
presents the challenge to eff ective IAQ management: from speaking with facilities managers, many do not calibrate the sensors as often as they should. This is due in part to the technical requirements of the task, and in part to the time- consuming nature of frequent maintenance. With IAQ an increasingly
prominent consideration for businesses and employees
alike, monitoring it is critical. The question is how do you make the measurement and monitoring of IAQ parameters easier for facility managers to complete. One consideration is incorporate it into another critical system, smoke detection. This is an apt comparison, as the technology behind advanced, aspirating fi re and smoke detection can help ease some of the biggest challenges for managing IAQ. Many businesses have moved towards active fi re protection in recent years, leading to an uptake in aspirating smoke detectors. These systems draw air samples through a series of pipes to detect microscopic molecules of smoke, allowing them to detect fi re before smoke may be visible or is noticed by traditional passive detectors. This approach to active air sampling can also be ideal for IAQ measurement, with it providing lower installation costs for buildings that are already using — or are planning to use — aspirating smoke detection systems. Incorporating active IAQ monitoring into aspirating smoke detectors can also
make it possible to curb the need for frequent maintenance and calibration and even use a more powerful IAQ sensor that can measure down to PM1.0. For example, Honeywell recently launched its VESDA Air solution, which incorporates a fi ve-in-one IAQ sensor into the VESDA-E line of aspirating smoke detectors. Rather than being a sensor that requires recalibration, the VESDA Air uses a plug-and-play air-sensing cartridge that is simply replaced, similar to how a home printer ink is replaced, making it easy for a facility management team too. This approach eliminates the technical and maintenance barrier of IAQ sensing without compromising on accuracy, simultaneously reducing total cost of ownership by driving down both maintenance and installation costs. As IAQ becomes a more
prevalent concern for businesses, fi nding an eff ective approach to managing it — without high costs — increases in importance. Combining IAQ and smoke detection into a single system off ers an eff ective solution to many of today’s practical IAQ challenges, setting a good standard for the future of building safety.
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