If your work requires you to stay in an office for 8 hours a day, you’ll easily see just how important it is to have a good ventilation system. The feeling of breathing in fresh air indoors instantly changes your experience inside a building. More than just comfort, a building’s ventilation also has implications for your health. Thus, good ventilation is very important in ensuring that your building is safe for people to stay in.
Preventing Air Pollutants and Health Issues
A bad ventilation system could allow pollutants to remain inside the building and be inhaled by people who have existing conditions like asthma and sinusitis. These indoor pollutants could also trigger other respiratory irritations like allergies.
Because these contaminants keep on circulating indoors, you can expect bacteria to build up on areas like vents. More importantly, your poorly ventilated building can become the breeding ground of dust mites which also contribute to asthma and other respiratory discomforts like sneezing and a runny nose.
Furthermore, poor ventilation is notorious for causing carbon monoxide poisoning when you keep fuel-burning appliances indoors. Because this involves gas, there is no easy way for you to detect that you are already inhaling a harmful amount. The common instance is that people only realize they are ill once they start to feel the symptoms. This is then a crucial example of why you need to install a good ventilation system to prevent health issues before they become worse.
Certainly, with the way stagnant indoor air can hold in place harmful contaminants, it can be even more dangerous than the polluted yet moving air outside.
Controlling Indoor Temperature and Humidity
Indoor air quality is determined by indoor temperature. With a good ventilation system, you have more control over airflow. That said, you are also able to provide fresh air inside your building without negatively affecting other equipment like your heater and your air conditioner. This is very important because buildings, especially, commercial ones house a lot of people. Consequently, you can expect that it will feel stuffy and overcrowded without good ventilation.
When you ensure that there is fresh air circulating, you do not only make a more comfortable environment for the people in the building, you also ensure that they have fewer distractions and they can work in a much more relaxed place.
Humidity also has something to do with temperature. When you do not maintain the temperature inside your building, you can expect molds to form on different surfaces. Not only does this pose a health risk, it also causes smells that definitely make staying inside the building unpleasant. On top of this, the resulting moisture can also cause surfaces to rot and destroy the furniture and equipment you have inside the building.
Definitely, with a good ventilation system, you have better control over natural processes that may occur like condensation.
Ensuring Productivity Inside the Building
In relation to the aforementioned factors, good ventilation is strongly correlated with how people inside the building can do their work. Of course, with poor air quality, you can expect that there are reduced productivity and less satisfaction from the work done. The same could be said if the building were used for other purposes like education. You cannot expect learners to focus and gain knowledge effectively if they constantly feel hot or if their eyes are watering from allergies.
Ensuring productivity is then especially important with buildings that are located in places where natural ventilation in itself is already a challenge. This is basically what you experience when your building is located beside a road or a highway. Thus, to ensure fresh air, you have to invest in getting a mechanical solution to create a good ventilation system for your building. Yes, this can be costly but, with how most buildings are located in polluted areas now, it becomes all the more important to set aside a fund in order to keep people safe and comfortable.
If you need more reasons to ensure that you have a good ventilation system in your building, all you have to understand is that a building is a place that people want to be habitable. For example, just think of how you don’t want to shop in a mall where you constantly feel suffocated because of the lack of fresh air. The same can be said for other commercial buildings where, as the owner, you have to ensure the safety of your tenants.
More than that, there are solutions out there that cost less than you think. One of these cost-effective solutions is Underfloor Air Distribution (UFAD) that is gaining popularity among architects and engineers. This is because UFAD does not just make for improved air quality, it also allows design flexibility and energy efficiency. To end, a good ventilation system is not too far out of your reach and can be achieved under a budget. Thus, with how beneficial it is for your building, investing in it is one of the best choices you can make.
