Contents
We understand why, with the development of building technologies, buildings began to cause illness in their inhabitants, how they tried to deal with it before and what they are doing now
Toxic Building Materials
In the early 1900s, buildings were most commonly constructed from wood, stone, mud bricks, and other natural materials. They were environmentally friendly, safe, and allowed outdoor air to circulate regardless of people’s desires. Over the next century, building and finishing technologies changed significantly: plastics, synthetic carpets, adhesives, asbestos and vinyl appeared. The new materials were far less breathable and often released toxic compounds.
How has the energy crisis affected construction?
The global energy crisis of the 1970s prompted architects and engineers to design buildings more and more airtight so that heat does not escape through cracks in the walls and consumers do not overpay for heating. This contributed to the emergence of new approaches to managing the internal climate. Mechanical HVAC systems were becoming more common.
People started to get sick because of the buildings
Designed to ensure the safety and comfort of the building began to threaten people’s health. Every day, people entered sealed buildings held together with solvents, glue, chipboard, and drywall and spent long hours there, breathing in the stale air and harmful chemicals. Poor lighting caused headaches and eye irritation. Noise and vibration caused nausea and dizziness. And all sorts of air pollutants caused many diseases of the respiratory system. If someone picked up a virus in a sealed building, the microorganisms lingered in the air for a long time, spreading infections. When HVAC systems weren’t cleaning the air properly, or the airflow in a building wasn’t organized properly, mold, bacteria, and viruses could spread and infect occupants.
As a result, reports of “office illnesses” crept into the media. And in the early 1980s, the WHO even coined the term “sick building syndrome” to describe the collection of symptoms caused by the by-products of modern construction.
A problem with odor perception
Most people are able to notice that the lighting is too dim and rusty water flows from the faucet. However, recognizing bad air is much more difficult. For example, we may not notice high levels of carbon dioxide in the room until the end of the day, when the head starts to hurt, the face burns, and it becomes increasingly difficult to perform intellectual tasks.
Ian Kull, an environmental engineer specializing in indoor air quality in Chicago, points out: “Our sense of smell is only able to determine indoor air quality in extreme cases, such as when there is a rancid or musty smell of mold. If you evaluate air quality on a five-point scale, people can recognize twos with a minus and fives with their noses. But we won’t catch a four with a plus or a three with a minus.”
“Sick Building Syndrome” and the courts
In the 1990s, people affected by “Sick Building Syndrome” began to massively file class action lawsuits against engineers and architects. The courts satisfied them and found the creators of the houses guilty, forcing them to pay compensation to the victims.
This wave of lawsuits has led to a massive overhaul of building regulations. The new regulations set limits on the materials that architects and engineers could use in HVAC systems. Sachin Anand, an engineer who runs a Chicago-based green building company, says: “Construction firms were afraid of litigation. So most of them have made meaningful changes [in design and building materials] that have resulted in healthier indoor climates across the US.” By the early 2000s, complaints of “sick building syndrome” had faded from public view.
Return of the old problem
The most serious and dangerous symptoms have ceased to bother people. However, the health problems associated with bad indoor air have not gone away. Studies linking indoor air pollution to:
- worsening of cardiovascular diseases;
- cognitive decline in the elderly;
- an increase in the level of chronic respiratory diseases;
- increased risk of lung infections and cancer;
- an increased risk of developing infectious diseases – measles, tuberculosis, chickenpox, influenza and pneumonia.
In schools, high levels of pollutants and carbon dioxide have led to poor academic and cognitive performance and poor student health.
The pandemic has revealed problems
A huge number of students, office workers, residents of apartments and nursing homes regularly breathed poor-quality air. People complained, but rarely protested, about the health risks involved. This is exactly what COVID-19 came into. It quickly became clear that the coronavirus is especially good at infecting people in enclosed spaces with poor ventilation and poor-quality air filtration.
Health authorities eventually publicly acknowledged that tiny particles of fluid produced when coughing or sneezing can transmit COVID-19 through the air. However, scientists told the public about this danger even earlier. As a result, people have become much more attentive to the air quality in the rooms where they spend a lot of time.
Brett Singer, environmentalist and air quality expert at Berkeley, states: “The pandemic has been a big call to action. The only question is whether it will be enough to bring about the necessary structural and cultural changes [in the construction and design of buildings].”
How to control air quality in buildings
Indoor air quality management tools fall into three categories and are often not used in the most efficient way. Scientists believe that to create healthier buildings, it is necessary to pay due attention to each tool and use them all in accordance with modern environmental and medical standards.
Ventilation
Ventilation replaces stale air in a building with fresh air. It can be carried out with the help of ventilation devices and shafts or simply by ventilation through open windows and doors. Increased ventilation has a tangible effect, Kull says: “The more outside air you bring in, the more health and productivity benefits you get.”
On the other hand, ventilation is expensive, especially during seasonal temperature fluctuations. Heating or cooling a large volume of air consumes a lot of energy and money. Therefore, building owners sometimes ventilate them less during the dead of winter and summer.
Purification
Air purification removes particulate matter (including viruses, mold, and bacteria) either throughout the entire HVAC system or by using individual devices in different rooms. The filters of the latter are easier to upgrade to capture small infectious fragments.
However, filtration does not remove volatile organic compounds from the air; this requires ventilation. And standalone devices can be very noisy. Kull says that in schools, for example, teachers often keep them on the lowest setting, which greatly reduces their effectiveness.
Pollution source control
This method includes avoiding the use of materials, objects or devices that emit pollutants. For example, they include certain building materials, types of furniture, harmful cleaning products, and some gas-burning appliances.
Source control requires contractors to select sustainable building materials or switch the building’s utilities from gas to electricity, Kull said. All of these solutions can be costly or complex.