Effect of Renovating an Office Building on Occupants’ Comfort and Health

Abstract

An intervention study was performed in a mechanically ventilated office building in which there were severe indoor climate complaints among the occupants. In one part of the building a new heating and ventilation strategy was implemented by renovating the HVAC system, and a carpet was replaced with a low-emitting vinyl floor material; the other part of the building was kept unchanged, serving as a control. A comprehensive indoor climate investigation was performed before and after the intervention. Over a 2-week period, the occupants completed a daily questionnaire regarding their comfort and health. Physiological examinations of eyes, nose and lungs were performed on each occupant. Physical, chemical and sensory measurements were performed before and after the intervention. The renewal of the flooring material was performed after a sensory test of alternative solutions in the laboratory. Before the floor material was installed in the office building, a full-scale exposure experiment was performed in the laboratory. The new ventilation strategy and renovation of the HVAC system were selected on the basis of laboratory experiments on a full-scale mock-up of a cellular office. The severity of occupants' environmental perceptions and symptoms was significantly reduced by the intervention.

Human responses to carbon dioxide, a follow-up study at recommended exposure limits in non-industrial environments

“…The chamber was thoroughly cleaned prior to the experiments and 'baked' for one week at a temperature of 40°C to reduce any residual pollution on the inner surfaces of the chamber and its ducting. No chemical measurements were performed prior to the experiment to examine whether the background pollution level was in fact low, but many previous experiments performed in the same chamber have documented that the chamber is indeed low-emitting (e.g., Fang et al, 1998a,b;Kjaergaard et al, 1999;Pejtersen et al, 2001;Zhang et al, 2016b). The sensory assessments of air quality made by the subjects in the present experiment (see the Results section and Fig.…”

Sensory pollution sources in buildings

“…Sensory pollution loads were also reduced when felt carpet was substituted with low‐polluting polyolefine in another building (Wargocki & Fanger, 1997). There are many other examples of that kind (Wargocki et al., 1999; Pejtersen et al., 2001; Wargocki et al., 2002a; Bakó‐Biró et al., 2004).…”

Subjective perceptions, symptom intensity and performance: a comparison of two independent studies, both changing similarly the pollution load in an office

“…The same pollution source was introduced or removed from two normal office spaces, one in Denmark (Wargocki et al ., 1999) and one in Sweden (Lagercrantz et al ., 2000), in order to modify the pollution load. The source was a tufted bouclé carpet with 100% polyamide fibers and latex backing of the type that is quite common in existing buildings; it was taken from an office building with a history of SBS symptoms (Pejtersen et al ., 2001), where it had been in use for 20 years. Air temperature, relative humidity, noise level, air velocity, and outdoor air supply rate remained unchanged, and were not affected by the intervention (Table 1); the air was well mixed.…”

“…A number of studies have shown that reducing the pollution load on indoor air by removing sources of pollution decreases the number of people dissatisfied with the air quality (van Beuningen et al ., 1994; Wargocki & Fanger, 1997) and the prevalence of sick building syndrome (SBS) symptoms (Norbäck & Torgén, 1989; Pejtersen et al ., 2001). In addition to the effects mentioned above, recent Danish experiments have shown that decreasing the pollution load improves the performance of simulated office work (Wargocki et al ., 1999).…”