Building Surveying Building Surveying Techniques

Indoor Environment Quality

Indoor environment quality is an essential part of the sustainability plan for any building or office. The
quality of the working or living environment created within a building is directly linked to the
occupants' health and quality of life. This is especially the case for societies where many people spend
a large proportion of their working life in an artificially maintained environment.

To achieve indoor environmental quality, several qualities have to go in line with each other as shown
in below figure.

Figure 1: Composition of Indoor Environment quality

The internal environmental quality of a building can be influenced by a variety of factors including:
* Thermal comfort (i.e. temperature, humidity and air speed)
* Acoustic comfort (i.e. the ability of building to decrease or insulate external noise as well as the
noise levels within the tenanted space)
* Indoor air quality including ventilation effectiveness and levels of pollutants (chemical, biological
and physical)
* Maintenance and cleaning of HVAC and process systems
* Lighting that maximises daylight whilst minimising glare and heat
* Office layout including the spatial arrangements of walls, partitions, furniture and equipment in
relation to fixed elements like windows and heating, ventilation and air conditioning.

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Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) Guidelines

Table 1: IEQ Guidelines

Perimeter Standard levels

Temperature Strive to maintain temperatures between 20 - 24 0C in the winter and 23 - 27 0C in the

summer. These values apply to occupants wearing typical seasonal clothing while doing
light, mostly sedentary work. These values are based on ASHRAE Standard 55 - 1992.

Humidity Approximately 50 - 60% relative humidly is appropriate in Sri Lankan context while 30%
relative humidly is appropriate based on the temperature ranges stated above.

Carbon Dioxide Strive to maintain carbon dioxide levels below 1,000 ppm. Levels that are 650 ppm above
ambient outdoor levels (which are normally around 350 ppm) may be an indicator of
inadequate fresh air supply and will be investigated as per section 4.79 of the Regulation.

Carbon Strive to maintain carbon monoxide levels below 5 ppm. Concentrations above 5 ppm
Monoxide indicate the presence of combustion products and must be investigated.

Outdoor Air An adequate supply of outdoor air must be provided to the workplace in accordance with
Table 2 or ASHRAE Standard 62-1989, Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality. As
a general guideline, many workspaces will require between 15 and 20 cubic feet per
minute (cfm) of outdoor air per person.

Air Distribution Outdoor air must be effectively distributed throughout the workplace. The ventilation
system must be balanced to ensure that each space within the building receives an
adequate amount of outdoor air and to accommodate the normal occupancy of each space.

Lighting Lighting must comply with WorkSafeBC minimum requirements for illumination to
ensure safe working conditions, safe passage, and identification of hazards or obstructions.
In the building, in the area closest to windows, the light level may be reduced to
approximately 1,000 lux. In the middle area its may be as low as 25 - 50 lux. Additional
lighting equipment is often necessary to compensate the low levels.

Noise Occupants should not be exposed to noise levels above 85 dB.

Surveying on Indoor Environment Quality

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Building Surveying Building Surveying Techniques

Survey on Indoor Environment Quality is a crucial part of building management as it is the first step in
managing the building's impact on its occupants. As for any building surveying, this would also be
executed from three stages.

1. Preliminary Investigation

The preliminary investigation is done in order to get an overall idea of the property. In the case
of indoor environmental quality this can give the surveyor lot of things to identify many things
that would be beneficial when carrying out the detail inspection.

• Referring Drawings: By referring to electrical drawings a slight understanding of

lighting arrangement can be taken which will be needed at detail inspection if a
variation in the lighting arrangement is proposed due to low or high illumination. From
the A/C drawings the surveyor can get familiarize with the ducting arrangement and
duct opened areas from which the fresh air is extracted.

• Information on adjoining properties: By collecting this kind of information, factors that

affect to the air quality can be highlighted if there are any industries functioning that
omit contaminants to the air during their operations. Additionally if there are noise
from external environment that can be also identified.

• Discussions with owners and employees: This will guide the surveyor on the key areas
that he has to concentrate when carrying out the survey. At the discussion other parties
must be mainly questioned on the issues they are feeling while they are at the working
environment. (eg: whether the lighting levels are satisfactory, are there any distraction
from noise, have you ever noticed there are difficulties when breathing, etc.)

2. Visual Inspection

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Building Surveying Building Surveying Techniques

At this stage the surveyor’s objective is to identify the tests needed to be carried out with the
necessary locations. If this stage is omitted a time waste, labour waste and a money waste will
be occurred since the tests are carried out in every location.

Using human sensory perceptions at this inspection basic idea is taken regarding lighting levels
provided at various locations, noise disturbances if any and their causes whether it is due to an
internal reason or external, any odour felt places ,condition of the air , any Volatile Organic
Compound (VOC) emitting materials, etc.

3. Detail Inspection

As the final stage before preparing the surveying report the detail inspection is carried out on
the unsatisfactory conditions observed at visual inspection stage. The surveying instruments
listed down at the below table are used to carry out different tests to identify the prevailing
indoor environmental conditions.

• CO2 meter – To measure the CO2 level in the air in ppm.

• Flow meter – To measure the air circulation speed.

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Equipment Purposes Method Advantages Disadvantages

Whirling This has a wet and dry The rattle is - Easy to - Not very
Building Surveying Building Surveying Techniques
Hygrometer bulb thermometer for the revolved above use accurate
approximate your head in the
- Light in - Fragile
determination of relative manner of an over
weight
humidity. excited football
fan. Readings are
taken from the two
thermometers and
recorded.

Relative humidity This may be in the form This is plugged - Very easy - Much more
probe of a probe linked to a into a digital to use expensive than
moisture meter which is moisture meter via the whirling
- Ideal for
calibrated to give the a programme key. hygrometer
taking
relative humidity at a After checking the
readings in
given temperature. After equipment readings
confined
checking the calibration of the relative
spaces such
of the equipment prior to humidity are
as in
making a test, the directly available.
suspect flat
readings may be read off
areas or
with a minimum of
below
delay.
floors

Condensation An electronic tells tale A small electronic -Easy to use - The fixing
indicator able to record the tell tale which is which secures
-Reasonably
occurrence of temporarily fixed it to the wall
tamper-free
condensation in a to the wall of a face leaves
specific part of a property where it is marks.
building. The unit is though
- Not vandal or
reusable, powered by a condensation may
theft-proof
small battery, with occur at certain
concealed rest button to times during the
fool those who may wish day. In this way the
to influence the surveyor can test
information being whether
obtained. condensation does
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or does not occur.

Light measurement With the introduction of Point the light - The units -Large switch
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• Measuring of Odour

There are no hand-held odour detectors. There are no electronic noses that detect
odours. But, there are two methods to measure odour condition.

a. First, the identity of the odour compounds must be determined. Odour identity will tell
what the sources are of the odours. There are many possible sources, some of which
may not be obvious.

1. To identify odour, the environment or component of the environment (ceiling

tile for example) is sampled to collect the volatile compounds present. If a
ventilation system is being evaluated, then volatiles are collected in such a way
that shows differences in its operation.
2. The collected volatiles are injected into an instrument (Microanalytics
AromaTrax system) designed to separate the odour compounds from the
normally large number of volatiles present.
3. The separated odours are “sniffed” by a human operator and their mass spectra
are simultaneously recorded. The result is a list of all odours, their chemical
identities and their intensity contributions to the overall odour of the entire
sample.

b. Second, a method is set up that measures the target odours.

1. Volatile compounds are collected as before.

2. A specific instrumental condition is set up to quantify the separated odour
compounds.

The result will be non-subjective and give “hard” numerical values showing relative odour levels
among samples. This methodology is useful when comparing ventilation designs, when choosing
construction materials, when evaluating one location with another, when evaluating one odour
remediation method over another, etc.
After the needed tests are carried out then the report will be prepared with the observed lacking
conditions and the rectification proposals.

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