Poor indoor air quality can have lasting impacts on your employees’ or tenants’ physical well-being, thereby making it more difficult for them to effectively reach the end of the workday.
“The quality of indoor air inside offices, schools, and other workplaces is important not only for workers’ comfort but also for their health,” according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). “Poor indoor air quality (IAQ) has been tied to symptoms like headaches, fatigue, trouble concentrating, and irritation of the eyes, nose, throat and lungs.”
That’s why we recommend taking the following steps to optimize the air inside your workplace:
1. Recognize The Shared Responsibility Of Indoor Air Quality
Knowledge is power, and ensuring that everyone who works at the property knows how best to contribute to a healthy work environment will be to everyone’s benefit.
For example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends that building managers and/or owners ask employees to not only adhere to smoking policies, but to take individual responsibility for small daily tasks, like disposing of garbage at the end of the day. You may also consider prohibiting employees from bringing in or wearing other potentially irritating pollutants, such as strongly-scented perfumes and colognes.
2. Change Your Air Filters Regularly
The U.S. Department of Energy recommends regularly changing your air filters, and not just because “clogged, dirty filters block normal airflow and reduce a system’s efficiency significantly,” but because a clogged filter simply cannot do its job.
If your air filter becomes heavy with dirt, allergens, and other contaminants, it will no longer be able to trap and remove hazardous particulate matter from your building’s circulation. Thus, airborne contaminants will continue to accumulate and spread throughout the building, and can possibly proliferate if they are biological in nature.
3. Monitor Humidity And Spills
When it comes to the matter of pollutant prevention, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) affirms that “finding and correcting sources of dampness is a more effective way to prevent health problems than counting indoor microbes.” In other words, by mitigating humidity and managing moisture, one can more effectively avoid mold growth within their property.
For this reason, it’s imperative that employees clean up their spills in a timely manner, and building managers should inspect appliances for leaks or water damage that may otherwise go unnoticed.
4. Enhance Your Building’s Ventilation
According to OSHA, “energy conservation measures instituted during the early 1970’s have minimized the infiltration of outside air and contributed to the buildup of indoor air contaminants.” In other words, the newer the building, the more likely it is that its ability to insulate effectively is obstructing its overall ventilation.
Thankfully, there are some easy ways to enhance ventilation on a daily basis. For example, keeping your building’s air vents open and unblocked by furniture will easily allow for improved airflow. Additionally, opening up the windows during good weather — especially on two different sides of the room — may help to increase cross-ventilation in a given space.
5. Invest In An Air Quality Inspection
If you’re not sure what may be lingering in your building and causing adverse health impacts on those who work within your property, an indoor air quality investigation is an efficient and comprehensive means of assessing your workplace’s air quality as a whole.
Not only will it identify any mold, chemicals, and other airborne contaminants that are present, but it will also provide you with a detailed report as to where and, more importantly, why those hazards are there.
That being said, as a building owner or manager, having the ability to assess and maintain your indoor air quality on your own time whenever needed would be invaluable — and that’s where the InstaScope comes in.
The InstaScope is a state-of-the-art air quality assessment tool that is designed to measure the air for viruses and bacteria in real-time. Additionally, it features a user-friendly interface and is capable of sampling and comparing the air in numerous spaces an unlimited number of times.
In all, your next air quality assessment — and thus your long-sought air quality answers — are close at hand with InstaScope technology. We work closely with service providers around the country to bring valuable information to their customers. InstaScope information reports airborne particle loading for viruses, mold, bacteria, and pollen in real-time and informs solutions that will lower airborne contaminant exposure to the greatest extent feasible.
To learn more about the InstaScope and how it can help improve your indoor air quality, contact DetectionTek today by calling 720-410-7030 or emailing info@instascope.co!
