Human beings are pretty resilient creatures. All we really need to live is food, water, shelter, and air. Of the four, air is the most immediately important – after all, you can live as long as a week or two without food, 2-3 days without water, and (depending on conditions) quite a long time without shelter. Try to do without air for more than a couple of minutes, though, and you’ll be in trouble.
Of course, as business owners, we’re not solely interested in keeping our employees alive—we also want to keep them healthy. To that end, we need to ensure that the air in our facilities is clean and as contaminant-free as possible.
We firmly believe that employers have a responsibility to provide their employees with a clean and healthy workplace, regardless of how that impacts the bottom line. But if you need a profit-driven reason, here you go: if the very air that your team members are breathing is making them uncomfortable or unwell, they’ll miss more work, have more doctor visits, and have an overall negative impact on your bottom line.
This month, we’ll look at some of the ways your facility and team members can benefit from having your trusted service professionals install air quality solutions for your business.
Why Is Indoor Air Quality Important?
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), people spend about 90% of their time indoors, where air pollutants can be 2-5 times more concentrated than in outside air. People who are most susceptible to airborne pollutants tend to spend even more time inside.
There are millions of different pollutants that can be present in the air inside your facility. Some of them come from outside – pollen, dirt, and dust that gets tracked in, smoke and particles from nearby facilities, and others. Some of them are produced inside your facility, like dust or particulate pollution from your production, fumes or irritants from chemicals or cleaning products, or fibers and contaminants that come from building materials.
The most common pollutants that can impact your team’s health include:
- Smoke, carbon monoxide, soot, and other byproducts of combustion
- Naturally occurring contaminants like radon
- Organic matter such as mold, mildew, pet dander, and pollen
- Pesticides, herbicides, and other harmful chemicals
- Lead, asbestos, mineral dust, glass fibers, and other construction materials
- Ozone
- Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) like formaldehyde, toluene, acetone, and other solvents
What Are Some of the Health Hazards of Poor Air Quality?
While some people may not demonstrate symptoms or ill effects from their exposure to low-quality air, even a small amount of pollution can cause devastating health problems for others. Regardless of the immediate effects and impacts, nobody is immune to the negative impacts of poor air quality. Someone who is regularly exposed to the kinds of pollutants listed above will experience health problems at some time or another, guaranteed.
The health impacts that workers can see when affected by polluted indoor air include:
- Irritation of the eyes, nose, sinuses, and throat
- Headaches, dizziness, and fatigue
- Asthma and other forms of respiratory distress
- “Sick Building Syndrome,” a combination of symptoms, including headaches, nausea, confusion, and general malaise, that are associated with VOCs from building materials
- Threat of cancer—exposure to certain pollutants, including tobacco smoke, radon, and many other chemicals, can dramatically increase the chance of lung cancer and other forms of cancer
- Threat of asphyxiation—carbon dioxide, propane, and other heavier-than-air gases can cause an asphyxiation hazard, and gases like carbon monoxide can cause sudden death
How Can I Improve My Facility’s Indoor Air Quality?
Policy and Procedure-based Fixes
There are a few steps you can take to improve the air quality for your team. In some cases, these solutions are policy-based:
- Adopting a 100% tobacco-free policy can eliminate the considerable hazard of secondhand smoke.
- Limiting or prohibiting the use of perfumes and scented cosmetic products can provide relief for employees who are sensitive or allergic to certain fragrances.
- Contracting with a pest control firm and adopting an integrated pest management protocol can eradicate insect and other pest infestations, reducing pollution from dangerous insect waste products and other biological hazards.
- Allowing employees (when possible) to work from home on days with a low air-quality index can help them avoid bad air outside.
- Requiring your contractor to source and use green building materials when doing renovations or other construction on your site can reduce exposure to VOCs and other pollutants.
Indoor Air Quality Systems
Changing corporate policies can only get you so far. Indoor air pollution is a regrettable fact of life, but a fact of life it is. When you’re trying to help your employees breathe a little easier at the workplace, there are a number of different technologies that can help improve your overall indoor air quality. When you partner with a reliable HVAC team, like the pros at Hays Service, they can work with you to decide what kinds of air quality solutions will work best for you.
Filtration Systems
Simple filtration can remove many airborne pollutants. By upgrading the filters on your facility’s HVAC system or installing special standalone air circulators with filters, you can dramatically improve indoor air quality.
UV Air Cleaning
Anyone who’s ever suffered a sunburn knows how dangerous UV radiation can be. For microbes like certain viruses and bacteria, a heavy blast of ultraviolet light can be instantly fatal. UV air cleaners pass air across a high-intensity UV light, deactivating viruses and killing bacteria.
Ionization Solutions
Certain particles in the air take on an electric charge, particularly soot and dust. By adding an ionization solution to your air quality system, you can more effectively trap these charged particles and clean them from your indoor air.
Humidity Control
A huge part of maintaining indoor air quality is controlling humidity. Air that’s too humid will encourage mold and mildew growth, cause excessive corrosion for tools and equipment, and other problems. Low humidity can cause static buildup, make particulate contamination worse, and play havoc with your team members’ eyes, noses, sinuses, and throats. Active humidity control will help balance your air quality for the benefit of your team, equipment, and building.
Pressure Differentials
If you have a particular room that needs to remain at a high level of air purity, establishing an air pressure differential can make an enormous difference. Setting up your HVAC system to apply more positive pressure to your clean room will ensure a continual airflow out of the room, keeping its air cleaner overall.
Pressure differentials also work the other way in hospitals and healthcare facilities: specific rooms run at a lower positive pressure, ensuring that air always flows INTO the room, effectively preventing airborne pathogens from passing into other areas.
Trust Hays For Full-Service Air Quality Solutions
Nobody knows workplace comfort and air quality better than the pros at Hays Service. Our team has decades of experience helping every type of business with solutions to their challenging air quality problems. From minor upgrades to your existing HVAC to complete integrated air quality solutions, we can reduce your indoor air pollution and get your employees breathing good air again!
We hope you and your family have a happy Thanksgiving. This year, as always, we’ll be giving thanks to our incredible clients, who have made us the region’s top choice for systems maintenance.
Breathe easy,
Coach Cal