Air quality in buildings is affected by pollutants both indoors and outdoors.
We can help you to demonstrate indoor air quality to satisfy BREEAM Hea 02 credits. This is achieved with the production of both an early stage Indoor Air Quality Plan to minimise pollutants, and a regime of Indoor Air Quality Testing on completion of the build.
Air pollutants within buildings may include:
• Particulates including vehicle emissions, pollen, dust.
• Volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
• Formaldehyde.
• Combustion emissions & Gaseous oxides such as CO, CO₂, NOx, SO₂ and O3
• Airborne bacteria and micro-organisms and their spores
• Airborne inorganic compounds, such as ozone (from electrical motors), metal fumes (from soldering and welding), ammonia and chlorine (from cleaning products).
• Unpleasant odours
Ventilation
Buildings must be designed and constructed to comply with the current statutory requirements of the Building Regulations Approved Document F in the ventilation rates for extract ventilation, whole building ventilation and purge ventilation.
We also take design guidance from CIBSE guides A, B2 and AM13:200.
Indoor Air Quality Plan
Under BREEAM New Construction 2018, Health & Wellbeing credits can be secured by carrying out both an IAQ Plan, and on-completion testing. The plan should be produced at RIBA stage 2.
The intent of this plan is to protect workers on the site from undue health risks during construction and also prevent residual problems with indoor air quality such as Sick Building Syndrome in the completed building. The plan aims to describe the measures implemented to accomplish the following objectives:
- Removal of contaminant sources
- Dilution and control of contaminant sources
- Procedures for pre–occupancy flush out
- 3rd party testing and analysis
- Maintaining Indoor Air Quality in-use
Indoor Air Quality Testing
We can carry out IAQ testing to establish post construction VOC emission levels.
Testing is carried out with a site visit and requires measurement of TVOC levels over a typical time period of 8 hours. Sample tests are carried out to a determined number of rooms and results established by a further laboratory process. We only work with partner laboratories that comply with BREEAM 2018 requirements.
An entire building can usually be tested in one visit.
Would you like to discuss your project?
Call us on 0330 055 34 05 or email be@buildenergy.co.uk.