BuildingEcology.com - Hal Levin, Editor

Indoor Air Quality for Sustainable Buildings --  BuildingEcology.com for useful and reliable feature articles, for the latest news and events listings. Check out our links to the best information on Indoor Air Quality and Sustainable Buildings on the web. Our "events" page links you to IAQ and to Sustainability meetings and conferences all over the world.We invite your suggestions and comments on our resources related to indoor environmental quality, architecture, healthy buildings, and the built environment's impacts on the sustainability of human settlements.  

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The scientific evidence for a connection to moisture is the strongest. There is some evidence for certain species of mold and bacteria but it is generally far weaker for mold and bacteria. An exception, of course, is Legionella p, the cause of Legionnaire's Disease, but exposure to Legionella p. may not be dominated by bacteria found in the air.  In my opinion, certain molds and bacteria are probably involved and the moisture is quite relevant to the health-relevant exposures causing the reported health effects.

Quick tip:  What is the  key mistake have we made over the past 30-40 years that we should not repeat if possible?

Separation of ASHRAE Standard 62 (Ventilation and IAQ) and Standard 55 (thermal comfort). These are affected by and ought to be addressed by the same building solutions. ASHRAE Guideline 10P tries to get at these connections and interactions for the first time anywhere, well, except for papers I wrote a long time ago. ASHRAE Guideline 10, now out for Public Review, brings together a lot of what we know about the interactions and also discusses interactions with light and noise. There is far less known than we would like, but far more known than we tend to reflect in our standards, codes, and practices.

Feature Articles

Moving Beyond TVOC - Reasons to avoid the use of TVOC as Pass/Fail criterion for assessing VOC emissions from products

Total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOC) has a long history as a metric for determining the acceptability of the emissions of VOCs from building products and furnishings. The first significant program to rely on a TVOC criterion was the Carpet & Rug Institute’s (CRI) Green Label Program that evolved out of the Carpet Policy Dialog between the carpet industry and the US EPA. The TVOC criterion was later incorporated into the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating systems and was adopted by the commercial furniture industry. More recent VOC emission test method and acceptance standards have focused instead on individual VOCs that may pose health hazards to individuals at low concentrations. Examples of such programs in North America are the California Department of Health Services' Standard Practice (a.k.a. Section 01350), which recently was revised to Standard Method Version 1.1, and CRI’s Green Label Plus program. TVOC values are still reported, but pass/fail determinations are based on the emission levels of individual compounds of concern. There is an urgent need to expand such determinations of acceptability beyond a select number of individual VOCs to encompass the broader range of chemical emissions that may impact health. TVOC is again being proposed to fill this gap and may be appealing to many because of its presumed simplicity. In my opinion, we should avoid this temptation and move on the more difficult, but certainly achievable, task of focusing on the toxicity of individual compounds. The following are my primary arguments against the use of TVOC as a Pass/Fail metric.  Read more...

	Energy Principles in Architectural Design By Ed Dean was published in 1981 by the California Energy Commission to provide a basis for California’s licensed architects to learn about energy. The California State Board of Architectural Examiners was considering a continuing education requirement for license renewal, and it was thought that the guide could be the basis for the exam.  Read more...
	Sunshine and Natural Ventilation, lots of it as the cure for the flu? What could be more timely as H1N1 cases appear in increasing numbers around the world? An article appearing in the American Journal of Public Health describes a number of approaches to dealing pandemic flu outbreaks including the devastating global pandemic of 1918, as well as some more recent ones. It praises the approaches of placing diseased patients in “open air” environments, focusing on the benefits of exposure to plentiful fresh air and sunlight, without ignoring the importance of “scrupulous standards of hygiene” and the use of reusable face masks. As the H1N1 infection spreads now, the advice is not without relevance.
	Ozone, Filters, and SBS symptoms If outdoor ozone levels are related to SBS symptom prevalence in a building, would it be wise to install filters to remove the ozone entering the building? If using synthetic fiber filters further increased SBS symptom prevalence as outdoor ozone levels increased, would you want to use some different material for your building's particle filters? Recently published research on the results suggest that it may reduce SBS symptom rates if you reduce ozone remove ozone from outdoor air.

Feature Article - California Greenhouse Gas Tool for Buildings

California's Greenhouse Gas (GHG) tool for California is now available on the web -GHG Tool for Buildings in California. The tool is publicly available and free for download.

This is a major step forward, the first tool that provides time- and weather-resolved GHG emissions calculations.   Read more...

Feature Article - IAQ and Plants

The idea that plants clean indoor air is a sad, continuing saga fed by bad science, commercial interests, and wishful thinking. I published an article in the Indoor Air Bulletin on the subject in 1992 (available on this web site) that provides some details. Take home message: 1.   Don't use plants to improve IAQ. They don't. If anything, they pose risks to good IAQ. 2.   There is no credible scientific evidence that plants improve IAQ. The planting media has been hypothesized to be responsible for pollutant removal in some studies. The planting media alone can be expected to contribute to a limited reduction in some airborne chemical concentrations. 3.   Most advocates of indoor plant use have been funded by or are themselves providers of plants or supporting systems. 4.   If plants are used indoors for aesthetic reasons, there should be extra care to avoid moisture problems or problems with fertilizers and pesticides, all known sources of indoor air quality and health problems. Read more...