General Indoor Air Quality Assessments
VERTEX’s Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) assessments employ our expertise as the first step to evaluate IAQ problems through:
- Interview with building occupants and building managers/engineers to determine the nature and location of complaints
- Prepare site specific assessment protocol to address particular concerns. A typical assessment includes:
- Visual inspection (interior and exterior) of the structure,
- Collection of general IAQ parameters (i.e., Temperature, Relative Humidity, Carbon Dioxide, and Carbon Monoxide), and
- General visual inspection of the HVAC system
Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) deals with the content of interior air that could affect health and comfort of building occupants. The IAQ may be compromised by microbial contaminants (mold, bacteria), chemicals (such as carbon monoxide, radon), allergens, or any mass or energy stressor that can induce health effects.
Recent studies have indicated that:
- Most people spend more than 90 percent of their time indoors.
- Building users will be healthier and more productive when indoor air is kept fresh and free of unhealthy fumes, chemicals, particles and biological contaminants.
- Up to 30 percent of new or remodeled commercial buildings may have unusually high rates of health and comfort complaints from occupants that may potentially be related to indoor air quality.
A number of well-identified illnesses, such as Legionnaires' disease, asthma, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, and humidifier fever have been directly traced to specific building problems. These are called building-related illnesses.
There is no single manner in which these health problems appear. In some cases, problems begin as workers enter their offices and diminish as workers leave; other times, symptoms continue until the illness is treated. Sometimes outbreaks of illness occur among many workers in a single building; in other cases, health symptoms show up only in individual workers.
Based on the investigation findings, VERTEX can also provide the following:
- Written specifications for, and oversee implementation of, required corrective action
- Expert witness testimony
