sick building syndrome Archives

Indoor Dew Point: Maintaining Thermal Comfort, Avoiding Building Damage

Posted on July 1, 2020October 19, 2021 by Lindsey Burbee

Condensation, moisture absorption and, subsequently, mold or organic growth are often a result of high indoor dew point combined with cool surface temperatures. For example, if a facility’s indoor dew point is above 60^oF, it is possible that moisture will begin to condense on cool surfaces like ductwork, chilled water supply lines, windows, or refrigeration systems. This collection of moisture can cause damage to the building, as well as to merchandise. It can even promote organic growth over time.

In addition to the risk of moisture accumulation, ASHRAE recommends maintaining a dew point below 62^oF to meet thermal comfort for approximately 80% of occupants; a dew point of 45^oF is recommended to maintain summertime humidity comfort levels.

Monitoring Dew Point

Consider this: You are a kid in a candy store with a plethora of delicious options in front of you. You sort through the store and boil your decision down to two candy bars.

Option A: The tried and true milk chocolate bar. Nothing fancy but classically delicious.

Option B: Fluffy nougat topped with caramel and peanuts, coated in milk chocolate. An exciting snack bursting with flavor.

Did you choose Option A or Option B?

If I had to guess, you chose Option B as it gives you more variety with your purchase! Now, what if I told you that the decision you just made also can apply to thermal HVAC design and dew point monitoring principals?

Option A: A design principal of maintaining 60% relative humidity (RH).

Option B: A design principal of maintaining a 60^oF dew point.

Both are similar and help maintain a healthy building, but maintaining a 60^oF dew point (Option B) is inherently better and offers a more reliable risk indicator. Using 60% RH as an indicator (Option A) is unreliable as it creates needless concern when air temperature is cool. In the example below, you can see that the amount of water vapor in the air remains the same while relative humidity concentration varies depending on the temperature of the air.

Conversely, a facility manager or building owner may have a false sense of security when indoor air temperature is above normal levels because relative humidity will decrease as air temperature rises. These reasons are why dew point should be used as a threshold of concern. Dew point will not only factor in moisture content and temperature of the air but also provides a risk indicator for condensation and moisture absorption, which should be a facility manager’s primary concern.

Using Indoor Dew Point as a Risk Indicator

If you are already using indoor dew point as a risk indicator for indoor moisture activity, then continue to do so! Specifically, look to ensure that indoor dew point remains below 60^oF during cooling operations to reduce the risk of moisture absorption, condensation, and organic growth.

If you are not using indoor dew point as your risk indicator, now is the time to do so! You could be surprised to learn that measuring relative humidity alone may not be keeping your facility safe.

If you are already noticing signs of moisture accumulation, mold or organic growth, then ASHRAE recommends implementing the following HVAC factors to reduce your risk:

Ensure that ventilated air is dehumidified to a dew point below the indoor dew point when the building is in cooling mode.
Ensure that all condensation inside HVAC components is being properly drained.
Ensure that indoor surfaces are not cooled to temperatures below indoor dew point during occupied and unoccupied modes.
Keep indoor dew point low enough to ensure that condensation does not occur on cool surfaces of HVAC components, building materials, or building furnishings.
Ensure that humidifiers are sized, installed, and controlled properly to avoid the risk of overloading indoor air with humidity.
Ensure that cool HVAC and plumbing components are properly insulated to keep their surfaces about 10^oF above indoor dew point.

These simple steps — in addition to proper HVAC ventilation, indoor air monitoring, indoor air verification, and keeping an eye on seasonal changes — can help ensure that your facility is operating in a safe manner while reducing risk of mechanical damage, moisture accumulation, or organic growth.

If you would like to learn more about ways in which your indoor air environments can be improved, please reach out to us. Please complete our contact form or contact us by phone at (513) 965-7300.

Prevent Sick Buildings: Why Positive Building Pressure Matters

Posted on April 2, 2020October 19, 2021 by Lindsey Burbee

Can a building get sick? I’ll give you the answer up front: Yes, sure, most definitely — a building can get “sick.” You may ponder… “But how can a building become sick? It is an inanimate object. It doesn’t live and breathe like humans!” On the contrary, your building is a living object. The main factor making your building come alive is its people: your customers, employees, and outside partners (think mail delivery or an overnight cleaning crew). Let’s dive into what factors can make a building sick and why maintaining positive building pressure is so important in prevention.

What Makes a Building Come Alive?

First, consider what may make your building come alive (or ultimately “infect” it):

Supplies
The products you bring in (from any point of origin) may have outside contaminants or be perishable. As you know, perishables may emanate odors or fumes.
Chemicals
You must account for chemicals or cleaning supplies in their controlled rooms (where exhaust is extremely important).
Restrooms
Consider the restroom facilities. Restrooms, especially those open to the general public (i.e. in a lobby area) can encounter high volumes of traffic and behaviors that may not meet sanitary standards.
HVAC System(s)
Your HVAC system is a key element bringing your building to life. With proper cleaning and maintenance, they are designed to provide comfort on demand. Heating and cooling are crucial amenities that have grown to be a must-have and are mandated by federal and local guidelines.

When you take all these factors into account, it’s easier to understand how a building can become “sick.”

Facility Managers: How to Prevent Sick Buildings

So how can a facility manager or building owner help to prevent sickness in a facility? As a professional in the HVAC industry, my primary goal is to earn your trust to maintain the wellness of your building’s HVAC system. Think about it — you can’t control others’ actions. There is no way to determine someone’s state of health as they are in your establishment. But you can control the HVAC system and make sure it is properly maintained to be a healthy system!

A little-known fact about HVAC systems that I will stress the importance: FRESH OUTSIDE AIR IS NEEDED TO MAINTAIN A POSITIVE BUILDING PRESSURE AT ALL TIMES. What does this mean, and why is it important?

Your restaurant, retail store or office building, has many moving parts to bring it alive, has to breathe. Like any living thing, it requires oxygen to replace the carbon dioxide. The equation should result in bringing in a greater amount of fresh air than the carbon dioxide, chemicals, fumes/odors, and cooking effluents that the building creates. When this happens, there should be a slight positive pressure from the inside of your establishment that pushes outward at your doors and drive-thru windows. A proper HVAC test and balance (TAB) by an NEBB-Certified firm like Melink can help you achieve this goal.
A common oversight that people make is assuming, “My building is positive. We’re in good shape.” But how sure are they that the lungs of the HVAC system are clean and free of operational damages? Many times, I have encountered damaged and clogged filtration components within an HVAC system that may lead to costly repairs to your equipment and structural damages:

Clogged or missing outside air intake filters
Clogged, missing or inadequate air filters
Clogged evaporator and condenser coils
Clogged and inadequate fan blower wheels
Mold and mildew
Trapped small animals that lead to contaminations
Contaminated duct work that eventually shows up on the supply, return and exhaust grilles throughout the establishment

Checking HVAC ductwork for positive building pressure

All these issues work together to create a sick building. The opposite of positive pressure is that dreaded negative pressure. Every time your facility’s doors open, all of the outside air conditions are sucked into the building. These elements can be hot or cold air, humidity, airborne pathogens, and odors. The humidity attaches to the chilled supply diffusers and grilles, creating moisture buildup that drips onto your floors, tables, customers, and clients.

Checking HVAC filters for positive building pressure

Of course, it’s not feasible for a facility manager to know the ins and outs of every HVAC system of every facility he/she manages. So let us do the work for you! Melink Corporation’s T&B technicians can be your eyes and ears to help your facilities maintain positive building pressure. We are an army of application engineers with skilled LEED and NEBB certifications. Our company is nationwide and has more than 30 years of experience. Along with services that will help you on your way to a healthy building, we offer a monitoring system and demand ventilation systems that will alert you when problems or concerns arise. These services, along with reliable routine maintenance will minimize uninterrupted service to your most important people. We can help you protect your customers, employees, and outside partners from sick buildings.

COVID-19 Closures: Mitigating Damage to Unoccupied Buildings

Posted on March 25, 2020August 25, 2022 by Lindsey Burbee

Dealing with COVID-19 Closures

Many U.S. states are working to flatten the curve as businesses are impacted by COVID-19 closures. The “stay at home” or “shelter in place” orders have limited human interaction in attempt to prevent spreading the virus. Additionally, many companies across the country opted to temporarily close facilities, preventing employees from contracting the disease. With shutdowns it’s become increasingly difficult to determine a facility’s condition, or to repair any issues developing while the facility is unoccupied.

Damage to Unoccupied Buildings

Consider these scenarios that could arise in an unoccupied facility…

Humidity

Buildings in coastal regions may experience high humidity that goes unnoticed, which can in turn lead to mold growth. Imagine if the facility is a retail store. The end-result might mean thousands of dollars of damaged, unsalvageable clothing merchandise.
Think about a restaurant or bar. There may be hundreds (or thousands) of dollars of alcohol in stock, going untouched through the COVID-19 crisis. Corked bottles of wine are not exempt from the effects of dry indoor air. Extremely low humidity levels can slowly chip away at a cork, leaving room for air in the bottle and ruining the flavor. The ideal humidity level for wine storage is 60%.
Another thought for restaurant facilities: A humid environment allows mold growth to fester. The COVID-19 shutdowns began suddenly for many facilities. Did kitchen staff have adequate time to scrub walk-ins, pots, and pans? Were grease traps thoroughly degreased? These are potential breeding grounds for mold during non-occupation.

Moisture

If indoor moisture levels drop too low — like cooler climates that are shifting from winter to spring temps — wood can begin warping. For instance, wooden window frames can shrink, making them difficult to open. This can potentially create gaps that let in cold, dry air.
Low indoor moisture can also lead to peeling or separated wallpaper and cracked paint on plaster walls. What if you returned to your facility, only to realize you’ll need professional painting or remodeling services?

Mulit-Purpose

Contemplate multi-purpose facilities, like an apartment complex with retail or dining space on the first floor. Completely shutting down HVAC airflow to unoccupied businesses could lead to uneven air flow and temperatures throughout the larger building.

The bottom line: Scenarios like these will go unnoticed and unrepaired until employees return to their facilities. Only then will they uncover the damage caused by an unoccupied month.

Preventing Facility Damage During COVID-19 Closures

While these issues seem frightful, many state governments have kept issues like this in mind when mandating shelter-in-place orders. Seeing value and necessity in essential services, many states are allowing skilled trades such as HVAC technicians to continue working. During quarantine, let technicians be the eyes and ears at your facilities to ensure critical issues didn’t develop, and further delay reopening.

In addition, this downtime can also be the ideal occasion to have technicians visit the facility to address any known issues or to perform preventive maintenance. Maybe there is a repair the facility manager has been putting off because its fix requires closing a typically busy corridor or lobby area. By addressing this work now while the facility is shut down, managers can limit future downtime, employee inconvenience, and lost profit.

And as a preventative measure for the duration of this closure or in preparation of future closures, consider installing sensors to remotely monitor a facility’s indoor air quality levels through relative humidity, temperature, building pressure, and CO2 checks. A system like Melink Corporation’s PositiV® building health monitor can remotely track and trend building health, plus send alerts to the facility owner or manager when the system detects measurements outside its set parameters. While a facility may not have this in place to combat the current COVID-19 closures, it can be installed now to prepare for future unplanned closures or even a vacation (Facility managers need a break at some point, right?!).

How Do Seasonal Changes Affect Building Health?

Posted on March 9, 2020August 25, 2022 by Lindsey Burbee

Seasonal Changes and Building Health

As we transition from dry, cool winter months to hot, humid summer, you may be saying, “Woohoo! Bring on the heat!”. However, seasonal changes can affect building health. Specifically, the summer season presents major problems for facility managers and building owner. This is because their buildings’ HVAC systems struggle keeping up with increasing cooling loads and extremely humid outdoor air.

Just as spring plant life sprouts, HVAC mechanical issues can pop up with warmer temperatures. Poor indoor conditions, like high indoor relative humidity, negative building pressure, CO₂ buildup, and temperature fluctuations are some examples.

Staying ahead of these issues before they become noticeable, costly problems is crucial when considering the overall health of your building and its HVAC systems.

Humidity: A Common Seasonal Issue

At various facilities, a common issue that comes with changing seasons is humidity. Specifically, humidity can be difficult to maintain at a comfortable level.

Condensation on building window, a seasonal building health issue. — *Condensation in office building*

In the winter, the heating mode on air handling equipment can heat or evaporate the existing moisture in the air to reduce the overall relative humidity as outdoor air is brought into the building. However, in the summer, the opposite occurs: the air handling equipment cools the building space and doesn’t heat or evaporate the moisture out of incoming air. This combination of high relative humidity and indoor dew point ultimately creates conditions that promote condensation or organic growth within the facility.

A Year-Round Solution for Indoor Building Health

The most cost-effective solution to verifying and ensuring long-term indoor building health is with a sensor capable of measuring key building health metrics like differential pressure, relative humidity, dew point, temperature, and CO₂.

By gathering data on building health metrics, the facility manager can quickly verify on-site conditions in real-time. As a result, they gain peace of mind knowing their buildings meet engineering specifications per design. In addition to these benefits, sensor data gathering gives users the ability to track and trend building health over a long-term period.

Using Data to Plan for Seasonal Building Health Changes

Getting and staying ahead of maintenance doesn’t need to start with expensive truck rolls and frequent site visits. Instead, sensor solutions provide inexpensive, effective avenues to implement proactive mindsets. Collected data can be aggregated into easy-to-use online portals, capable of summarizing, visualizing, and diagnosing issues on site. Allowing users, the ability to predict HVAC performance for a lasting solution.

Get ahead of the changing seasons by verifying your building is healthy today!

How Indoor Air Quality Influences Wellness

Posted on March 9, 2020October 19, 2021 by Lindsey Burbee

Indoor air quality (IAQ) can influence the cold/flu season. According to the American Medical Association, 50% of illnesses are caused or aggravated by polluted indoor air. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) believes this is because indoor air contains two to five times more pollutants compared to typical outside air.

While the average person spends 90% of their time indoors, many groups of people considered to be “high risk” spend even more time indoors. These populations include but are not limited to babies, the elderly, and those with health conditions. So when you consider the ample amount of time people are spending indoors with potentially polluted air, it is easy to understand how IAQ can be linked to sickness. In fact, IAQ poses such a large risk to human health globally that the EPA recognizes it as one of its top 5 health hazards.

Sick building showing indoor air quality

While most people think that poor IAQ is easily noticeable because they can sense it through vision or smell, this is not normally the case. Many times, the IAQ in a facility may be poor because the CO2 level is far higher than recommended. Typically, a “safe” level of CO2 is between 400-1,000ppm, but levels can reach as high as 2,000ppm. At this high level, occupants can experience headaches, sleepiness, decreased cognitive function, and increased heart rates.

To ensure that CO2 levels are kept in check, it is best to have a building health monitor (such as PositiV) installed to examine these levels. If the CO2 level is above the 1,000ppm mark, it is best to examine the outside air intake on the air conditioning equipment to ensure the facility is receiving the proper air changes per hour and enough fresh air is entering the facility.

Get A Pulse On Your Building

Posted on February 1, 2020December 14, 2022 by Lindsey Burbee

In today’s world, we are surrounded by smart phones, watches, cars, and other devices that are becoming further integrated into our lives. These smart sensors and technologies are helping day-to-day tasks become more efficient. To improve energy efficiency in commercial buildings and restaurants, these smart sensors and technologies can be applied in a similar manner.

Like a Fitbit that monitors and trends personal health metrics, sensors within a building can monitor and trend overall building health. With these smart sensors, important building health metrics, like relative humidity, CO₂levels, temperature, and pressure, can be measured to paint a picture of building health and HVAC performance. With data from the sensors, facility managers can identify improvements regarding building health, energy efficiency, and occupant safety and wellness within their building. PositiV, Melink’s exciting innovation in the world of building health, equips facility managers and building owners with a tool they need to verify building health and HVAC performance.

There are a variety of tell-tale signs of an unhealthy building like wet, dripping diffusers from high humidity, lower occupant cognitive ability from excessive CO₂levels, or a strong incoming draft at an open door caused by improper pressure or HVAC balance. These problematic unhealthy building signs can be addressed before becoming a costly, major issue. With building performance data, a facility manager or building owner will easier understand when building health begins to decline and identify corrective actions for the issues before they cause further problems.

A Fitbit won’t directly prevent a heart attack or make someone healthy, but it does arm its wearers with knowledge that is needed to live a healthier lifestyle. Similarly, building sensors won’t make a healthy building space, but they will equip its users with the information needed to create and sustain a healthy building space. It’s up to the manager or owner to take necessary corrective actions, but providing the data to help them make the proper decisions is the first step to improving overall building health.

Healthy Buildings & Employee Performance: The Next Revolution ?

Posted on January 24, 2019October 19, 2021 by Lindsey Burbee

Do you want to optimize your employees performance by 299%? Increase cognitive ability in strategy development by 288%?

Yes! Of course, we all would love to fully optimize ourselves and those around us to maximize our potential and impact on the world. What if the answer was all around us, literally allowing us to live, and also invisible. According to new research focused on indoor air quality in the work place, there is a tremendous opportunity to move beyond “green” buildings and ensure we work in “healthy” buildings.

Source: Natural Leader: The Cogfx Study

The COGfx Study, while limited to 24 participants, demonstrated that improved indoor environmental quality doubled cognitive testing results in buildings with enhanced ventilation versus conventional buildings. The study distinguished between three building types; Conventional, Green, and Enhanced Green. Within these building types the focus benchmarks were Carbon Dioxide levels in parts per million (ppm), ventilation rates expressed in cubic feet per minute (CFM) per person, and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) in micrograms per cubic meter. It’s also worth noting that building used was already a LEED Platinum certified facility, thus there’s likely more room for increased scores when comparing older existing buildings.

Source: Natural Leader: The Cogfx Study

The study explores the decrease in energy efficiency, which could be viewed as a negative, however relative to the increase in employee productivity and lost time due to sickness the savings can be dwarfed. The noted increased cost per occupant in energy consumption is $400/year, however the study suggest a 6 x return in sick leave reductions alone relative to the increased energy cost. Factor in the potential for increased productivity for one of the biggest operational cost for any company, the people, and the energy penalty is worth the investment.

While Melink is focused on energy efficiency, we’re also not blind to the impacts of IAQ and built our corporate HQ as a LEED Gold facility, later upgraded to Platinum. In addition to the LEED standards, we also monitor in door CO₂levels via sensors and increase ventilation rates via a HVAC purge sequence once the room exceeds 800 ppm in CO₂. On average, the general office area CO₂ levels hover around 600 ppm and are aided by the addition of live plants which produced an average drop of 100 ppm in CO₂.

This focus on IAQ has led us to the development of a new product, Melink PositiV, to help ensure proper positive building pressure and CO₂ levels in commercial buildings. The aim is to provide a simple solution for one of the biggest problems in all buildings, restaurants and retail locations; negative building pressure. The standalone device will monitor pressure, temperature, relative humidity, and CO₂levels and provide a picture of building health and trends.

Is Your Business Haunted Or Is It Something Worse??

Posted on October 31, 2017October 19, 2021 by Lindsey Burbee

Has your business experienced…

Zombie Levels of Productivity

Poor levels of fresh outside air leading to insufficient IAQ can decrease air quality. According to a study done by Harvard University, productivity levels can be increased by up to 61% when the proper amount of air quality is introduced into the space, and can be increased by 100% when doubling the ventilation.

Chills Running Down Your Spine or Sweaty Palms?

Improper heating and cooling due to an unbalanced building means air is distributed unevenly which creates temperature variation. Hot and cold spots around your building are probably signs of an unbalanced building, or are they??

Something Strange in the Air?

Air drafts can be caused by too much air being delivered to certain areas and then the air moves between rooms in order to reach an equilibrium of pressure.

Musty Odor Means Something Is Lurking

When air isn’t cycled properly through the building on a regular basis and you let the humidity get too high, you provide a breeding ground for bacteria and mold. Considering the average adult spends 92% of their time indoors, that means a lot of time breathing in these gross pollutants!

Mysterious Noises No One Can Explain

Have you been startled by an abrupt sound somewhere in your building that you can’t pinpoint? Poorly sized belts or pulleys can cause RTUs to squeak as they are operating, and duct leakage has been known to create some creepy noises as well.

Doors Opening and Closing With No One There

Pressure differentials caused by an imbalance of air being delivered to certain rooms can make doors open and close on their own.

Don’t call Ghostbusters just yet! There is a good chance you building is not actually haunted but instead just needs a good balance. Many of the above culprits can be easily fixed, and will not only improve your building’s health, but the health and productivity of everyone inside (one study shows estimated productivity benefits from increased ventilation could be as high as $6,500 per person per year!). Learn more on what a building balance is here or contact us for more information on how to get rid of the pesky (and creepy) issues you are having!

3 Steps to Troubleshooting Your Facility’s HVAC With Onsite Staff

Posted on August 19, 2015August 25, 2022 by Lindsey Burbee

HVAC Troubleshooting

Have you identified that your facility is experiencing a potential air balance problem? You might be experiencing hard to open doors, uncomfortable temperatures, poor smoke capture, odors, drafty areas, or any combination of the other common sick building symptoms. The inevitable question now is, “Who can resolve this best?” Bringing in your facility’s mechanical contractor may be your first instinct but troubleshooting with your onsite managers is actually the best place to start. Work through the following questions with your facility’s day-to-day manager:

1. Is the equipment running?

As basic as this may come across, it is absolutely crucial to check if all HVAC equipment is operating. Check grilles to see if air is being blown out or sucked in. Check roof equipment, can you hear the fans from the RTU, MUA, or EF units spinning? Have the manager record and communicate findings.

2. Check the Thermostats

Navigate to the wall mounted thermostats and ensure they have the proper set points. Often, a thermostat is installed and connected to the system and then left alone. When this occurs the thermostat is left at factory settings which is often set at a random temperature. Your staff can follow the directions on this thermostat to program it for the desired temperatures. As well, check the thermostats for “Fan ON.”

3. Check the Circuit Breakers

Check indoor and outdoor circuit breakers. Observe tripped or “Off” breakers. DO NOT flip the breaker on. If tripped or left off, there’s likely a reason for it and you don’t want to risk frying the electrical systems. We recommend calling an electrician for this type of deficiency.

Armed with your findings from these simple tests, you can save some money with a Do-It-Yourself fix. It’s possible that the journey back to a healthy building ends here. But if the problem persists, it’s time for the level of technical know-how. Call the mechanical contractor. With your observations to these preliminary steps above, you can approach your mechanical contractor with information that will help them to better understand your situation and get you closer to achieving a healthy building.

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