Healthy Indoors Magazine
Issue link: https://hi.healthyindoors.com/i/1507087
34 | July/August 2023 ment included two significant advances both for ASHRAE and the building industry in general. The document went beyond the obligatory mention of the word "health" in the title to include epidemiological evi- dence of health effects. Recommendations for action included not just the physical conditions of the structure to trigger ac- tion, but also three subjective criteria of oc- cupant experience. Last February, the Indoor Air Quality Association (IAQA) conference in Aus- tin, Texas, had a full day workshop and a 50-minute presentation on health in build- ings. That fact was not as notable as the in- terest demonstrated by the full attendance of the workshop and the standing room only for the presentation. Plus, an encore presentation for those who could not fit inside the room the first time. The workshop title was Application of Specific Tools and Procedures for Effective- ly and Safely Including Occupants in Home Assessments. I presented a related set of five tools along with how they fit togeth- er to form an integrated system for how to know when to include people's health in inspections and restoration, plus details on how to do so without the terrors of psychological entanglement and claims of practicing medicine. The 50-minute presen- tation was titled Healthy Home Assessment Procedure Updates: Specific Advances and How to Structure Them into a Useable Set of Tools. Recently, the ASHRAE SGPC10 com- against the offenders of the built environ- ment. It's easier to claim negligence or drunkenness by the driver of the automo- bile than to blame the accident on the lack of guardrails. Highway safety has moved beyond placing all liability on the driver, to exqui- sitely detailed requirements for construc- tion zone safety, visibility of taillights and headlights of cars, and especially of the physical guardrails. Building safety, however, is still at the stage of the Model-T automobile where horses still had the right of way and ma- nure removal was the responsibility of those who wanted to use the road for their car instead of their horse. Recent developments over the past few years, however, and especially in 2023, shows signs of moving beyond the buggy whip era of the built environment. About six years ago ASHRAE, who had exclusively addressed commercial buildings for its entire 100-plus year history, creat- ed a standing committee for residential buildings. Four years ago, they broke from another historical tradition by including the word "health" in their five-year strategic plan. Last summer, they extended that plan to six years. In other words, they are de- liberately moving beyond the horse-and- buggy rubric of "80 percent satisfaction" for occupants. In 2020, a Multidisciplinary Work Group of ASHRAE published Damp Buildings, Hu- man Health, and HVAC Design. The docu- G uardrails can have many meanings depending on context. Whether they re- fer to mountain highways, work projects, businesses, marketing, relationships, or services, they all have one common purpose: To provide a defined pathway with clear boundaries toward a particular destination. Effective guardrails can even prevent damage and harm despite misjudgment or negligence. Consider the physical guardrails on the sides, and down the middle, of highways. They can prevent head-on collisions from even a drunk driver. The built environment industry has some standards and guidelines but no clearly defined pathway toward designing, constructing, and using healthy buildings. The indoor air quality and indoor environ- mental industry has even less guidance for identifying and fixing problems affecting health of occupants. There are too many variables within each of two disparate categories: Expo- sure and susceptibility. Exposure types and amounts are varied with no consensus thresholds other than for legislated hazards. Susceptibility is so conflated with medical issues that it's typically the "third rail" of in- spection and remediation. Yet, work gets done because there is unwritten, non-defined "understanding" of what is expected and what is accepted. Enough so to at least "get by." The lack of clear guardrails is also an obstacle to claims New Guardrails Needed for Healthy Buildings