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The REAL Costs of
Poor Indoor Air Quality
By Len
Damiano
EBTRON, Inc.
The sad fact is that most building managers and mechanical
design engineers ignore the potential for IAQ problems until they
are in the middle of a crisis. Most feel that “lightning”
will always strike someone else; that they have been using a particular
design and/or components for “20 years”, without a problem
of this nature; or that “if we have a problem, we can address
it quickly and avoid significant damages”. They all sound familiar,
akin to that list of “famous last
words”.
As history
teaches us, crises are great motivators. At that point, it is generally
too late to correct many IAQ problems without additional costs to
everyone involved with the project: from the owner, to the architect
and engineer, to all mechanical subcontractors.
“Leaders”
in our industry tend to buck tradition and set trends. They anticipate
potential problems, thereby avoiding the negative impacts of an
“incident”. They are able to accept small incremental
costs initially in exchange for significant long-term benefits.
These characteristics also describe some of the motivations that
forward-thinking employers and building operators have.
I tend
not to believe that the “competitive bid environment”
is a valid excuse for the acceptance of less-than-satisfactory systems.
When control methodology or components are known in advance to be
insufficient for the intended use, longevity of occupancy will not
be sustained, nor will it encourage the greatest efforts from occupant-employee.
These are usually rationalizations that can be easily overcome with
a little creative planning or problem solving.
For those
that really care about the design and efficient operation of their
buildings, there are four areas of significant financial impacts
that engineers and their clients need to consider in the design
for acceptable Indoor Air Quality in any building project: the impact
on productivity of the occupants, positive or negative; effects
on health of the occupants, positive or negative; the risk of litigation
and/or legal liability that may result from any negative impacts;
and, energy usage.
Productivity
Lawrence
Berkley National Labs joined with the USDOE to investigate the financial
impacts ofpoor indoor air quality in 1997. Their study estimated
that the costs in lowered productivity to the U.S. economy ranged
from $12 - $125 Billion per year. Recent studies have shown that
improvements in productivity of 3% - 20% can be expected due to
improvements in a worker's indoor environment.
Separately,
a survey among interior design and facility planning decision-makers
indicates that the respondents feel that overcrowding, followed
by IEQ complaints have the greatest negative impact on employee
productivity. Reel Grobman & Associates (San Jose, California)
conducted the survey.
According
to the report, 40% of the respondents said that overcrowding had
the greatest negative effect, while 31% cited noise. Poor indoor
air quality (19%) and poor lighting (10%) were among other factors
cited by those surveyed. However, nearly three quarters of the respondents
(74%) said they felt that workplace environmental conditions were
critical to employee productivity, while the rest said those conditions
had some impact.
While
few people doubt a connection between productivity and IEQ, there
have been few studies
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