BUILDINGS, MAINTENANCE & REFURBISHMENT
How your floor finish may affect indoor air quality
Education Today hears from RICHARD AYLEN, Technical Manager at Junckers.
as it burns; and it is often the case that natural materials can be a better choice than man-made ones. Other indoor air quality issues can relate to the ventilation in the building and accumulation of CO2.
The focus upon VOCs has come about because these substances are often associated with causing cancer.
Sweeting says: “As VOCs have been linked to carcinogenicity in humans, data from the research has reinforced the need for architects to specify natural non-toxic materials that will limit our exposure to pollutants.”
A
re the floor finishes in your school affecting your health and wellbeing? Quite possibly. And it’s a question that’s being asked more frequently by building designers and estate managers in the education sector.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), including carcinogens like formaldehyde, top the list of hazardous materials, and they can be found in paints, adhesives and plastics including PVC, a material widely used in the form of vinyl flooring.
Why should we be concerned about indoor air quality?
Floors represent one of the larger surfaces in buildings which makes them influential when assessing health and indoor air quality. In a publication entitled Breathing Easy, Mary Sweeting and architects Architype published research relating to indoor air quality and pollution in schools, and its effects upon students. The publication states: “The quality of air we breathe is fundamental to our health. A World Health Organisation report in 2018 highlighted how pollution can have a particularly adverse impact on children, whose lungs are still developing, with the UK having the highest prevalence of childhood asthma among all European countries.”
The document also highlights the need for careful choice of the materials used in our interior spaces and their effect upon people’s health. As well as the substances that can be emitted from the floor, any wider assessment of the material itself must include its ability to harbour dust or to shed particles as it ages. Some synthetic materials such as PVC contain plasticisers that make the material flexible and there have been concerns about plasticisers migrating from the floor surface into human skin. In the event of a fire in the building the floor will emit smoke and fumes
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www.education-today.co.uk June 2025
If you do a search on the internet for “PVC flooring concerns” or something similar you will find extensive discussion about the properties of PVC/vinyl flooring; and you will also notice these issues are not new.
The main concerns are summarised by The Alliance for Sustainable Building Products: “In construction, there has been a focus on the potential health effects of the use of stabilisers and additives in PVC, which is used in pipes, windows and flooring. Some additives are now no longer used. These ‘legacy additives’ can also potentially cause issues for recycling. A report by (leading architectural firm) Perkins+Will investigated the potential health hazards of PVC. There may also be issues for human health, from the burning of plastics.”
Substituting synthetic floor coverings for a natural material e.g. hardwood, natural textile or stone, provides a floor low in VOCs, and one that will render the surface almost dust free if regularly cleaned. It can also be disposed of cleanly, recycled or repurposed at the end of its life.
What can we do about the problem? Of all the issues related to indoor air quality VOC emissions probably has the greatest amount of attention as far as certification and assessment schemes are concerned. This may well be driven
by the number of UK projects that are BREEAM assessed. Below are a few examples of VOC emissions testing schemes that are BREEAM approved:
The Danish Indoor Climate Labelling Scheme, which measures VOC emissions over a 30-day period. A good outcome for the test will show a downward trend in emissions over that period. For certain categories of material, the scheme also measures the amount of dust and particles the material produces.
CDPH Emissions Certificate; from the Californian Department of Public Health and based upon California Specification 01350. Similar to the DICL this scheme measures VOC emissions at intervals over a 14-day period. This scheme is approved both by BREEAM and the WELL building assessment scheme in the US. The UK Government and the construction industry have all along been aware of these issues, but the adoption of specific policies is gathering pace. One of the key policies for us in the flooring industry is the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge. This was implemented in January 2021 and includes specific targets for health and wellbeing including limits for CO2, VOCs and formaldehyde.
Concerns about indoor air quality are inseparable from concerns about the environment as both relate closely to human health and wellbeing, and the way we use materials and resources.
For most applications, there are safe floor finishes available which can be substituted for the potentially damaging ones. So, why take the risk? As awareness of these issues increases, schools and designers are becoming more selective about their choices and more concerned about the effects upon people’s health. I think we will see a continued trend towards natural materials such as timber, stone and natural textiles because they are usually better for human health.
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