Source Control

By far the best strategy in combating poor indoor air quality is to stop the source from producing harmful particles and pollutants.

Source control is often a cheaper to implement than the other choices available. Simple changes in lifestyle can drastically reduce the number of pollutants brought into living spaces.

Changing cleaning products and undergoing cleaning routines more often can all help to reduce the source of the pollution.

Humidity Control

This one is simple, keep humidity between 40 - 60% indoors. High humidity greatly increases the development of dust mites, mould spores and other biological pollutants.

By controlling your humidity, you reduce the risk of sore throats, asthma and father raspatory illnesses.

Improve Distribution of Air

A key factor, especially for new builds is to ensure the distribution of air is detailed in the design. The ideal being using the physics of air as we know it to maximise air flow and distribution efficiency.

Having fresh air added from the floor or base of walls and be removed via ceiling grills takes advantage of convection currents found in room spaces. This gives occupants fresh air to breathe, with the air we breathe out going up from faces to the extraction zones.

Higher Filtration or Purification

Perhaps the most spoken about in the fight against COVID-19, and for good reason.

The simple fact is that although most air filters or HVAC systems have air filtration elements, this is mainly for the sake of not allowing larger parts of dirt or dust to get clogged up in the system. The filter has very little benefit for Air Quality.

By installing high MERV rating filters with better materials and manufacturing you can vastly improve the Air Quality entering your buildings. This alongside 1 or more of the other ways of controlling air quality is the best way after removing the pollutant source to control the quality of air reaching building occupants.

Air purifiers work in much the same way as filtration. Units often with intake fans, suck in the air form a space and pass it through HEPA filters before allowing it back into the rooms space. Air purification is often and add-on to a system and is not used without other control methods.

Better Ventilation

It is widely known that good ventilation dilutes the number of particles in the air and as such is a highly used method in decreasing the risk of COVID-19.

Air Ventilation is the exchange of Outdoor and Indoor Air. Increasing this exchange simply means more fresh outdoor air is pushed into a space while the stale indoor air is pushed out of that space. Opening windows or natural ventilation can only ever do so much and is dependent on weather conditions and outside temperature.

Mechanical Ventilation is the best option to implement when improving your ventilation is high on the action list to improve a specific buildings or sites Indoor Air Quality.