Building Air Quality: Basics

Elie Tawil, PE, LEED AP

Course Outline

This course presents the factors affecting Indoor Air Quality (IAQ): sources of indoor air contaminates, HVAC systems design and operation, pollutant pathways and driving forces, and building occupants. Moreover, this course illustrates how “effective communication” between building management and building occupants is very essential in preventing IAQ problems.

This course is adapted from the EPA’s, "Building Air Quality: Basics" publication (A Guide for Building Owners and Facility Managers) and provided below.

This course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to enhance the understanding of the course materials.

Learning Objective

At the conclusion of this course, the student will:

• Identify the factors affecting Indoor Air Quality;
• Understand how temperature and humidity affect indoor contaminant levels;
• Learn about the techniques to control odors and contaminates;
• Learn about the symptoms attributed to IAQ problems and their effect on human health; and
• Establish a communication system between building management and occupants that can help prevent IAQ problems.

Intended Audience

This online PDH course is applicable to engineers, architects, designers, facility managers, building owners and all others who are interested in gaining an understanding of building air quality.

Benefit to Attendees

Attendee of this course will be able to understand how to prevent indoor air quality problems in buildings and resolve such problems promptly if they do arise.

Course Introduction

The indoor environment in any building is a result of the interaction between the site, climate, building system (original design and later modifications), construction techniques, contaminant sources (building materials and furnishings, moisture, processes and activities within the building, and outdoor sources), and building occupants. Indoor air contaminants can originate within the building or be drawn in from outdoors. If contaminant sources are not controlled, Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) problems can arise, even if the HVAC system is properly designed and well-maintained.

Course Content

In this lesson, you are required to download and study the following document:

Building Air Quality: Basics

Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you still experience any difficulty in downloading or opening this file, you may need to close some applications or reboot your computer to free up some memory.

Course Summary

This course revolves around two main topics “Factors Affecting Indoor Air” and “Effective Communication”.

Factors Affecting Indoor Air, discusses the four most important elements involved in the development of indoor air quality problems: a source of odors or contaminants; a problem with the design or operation of the HVAC system; a pathway between the source and the location of the complaint; and the building occupants.

The second part of this course, explains how an effective communication system helps facility managers, staff, contractors, and occupants clarify their responsibilities and cooperate in identifying potential IAQ problems. This part also discusses how building occupants can be valuable allies in resolving indoor air quality problems. Furthermore, it shows that effective & good communications can be promoted through a group that represents all of the interested parties in the building which is the key to cooperative IAQ problem-solving.

 

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.

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DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.

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