How to create the perfect indoor environment for a building

Imagine a building, be it a school, office, or public space where the indoor environment is so hospitable that you not only don’t mind spending time there, but you actively seek to do so. It’s not so crazy to think about. In case you didn’t already know, we spend around 90% of our time indoors.

At Airthings for Business, our focus is on making spaces as efficient and healthy as possible; that means offices, schools, public buildings, and everything in between. We like to say we breathe life into these buildings. While every building is different, sometimes it’s useful to think in a dream state to know what you’re aiming for when considering the best indoor environment possible. So, this is our attempt to answer the question, “What does our perfect indoor environment look like and feel like?”. Here's how we’d create our dream space to optimize the health of the occupants and save as much energy as practical in the process.

Airthings’ dream building

Let’s take an average office building, something around 50,000 square feet. Built in the early 2000s, it looks alright from the outside but inside it’s a real fixer-upper. We like our work cut out for us because where some see an old building, we see opportunity.

The greenest building is one that already exists

Why isn’t a new building your dream space? We’re pretty serious about sustainability and our carbon footprint, and much of that footprint comes with a building’s construction. Sourcing materials, transporting them, the resulting air and noise pollution, the list goes on. In fact, close to half the world’s non-renewables are used in the construction of buildings, according to the World Green Building Council. That’s why Carl Elefante of the American Institute of Architects coined the phrase, “The greenest building is the one that already exists”.

Air quality monitors in every room

Hardly shocking, we make the world’s leading indoor air quality sensors; why wouldn’t we recommend you use them? But seriously, without an accurate picture of the air in every space in your building, you can only guess what the right changes are to improve the comfort of the occupants and save energy. Without the right data, you’re navigating the oceans without a compass. For example, Carbon Dioxide (CO?) levels are extremely important as they affect concentration, energy, and overall health. If the levels are too high, health and productivity outcomes worsen; if they are too low, you’re probably over-ventilating and wasting energy (and money).

How good should the air in the building be?

Now that every room is fitted with our top-of-the-line air quality monitor, the Space Pro: here’s a checklist of what your air quality monitors can detect, and what your readings should look like according to our recommendations:

• Carbon Dioxide (CO?): 600-800ppm
• Particulate Matter/Air pollution (PM2.5): <5ug/m3
• Volatile Organic Compounds/Chemicals (VOCs): <200
• Humidity: >30% and <70%
• Temperature: 20-22 °C / 68-72 °F
• Radon: <4 pC/Li
• Virus risk: 0-1/10
• Mold risk: 0-1/10
• Ventilation rate: 5 air exchanges per hour

The grass is greener on this side

Indoor plants can’t solve your CO? problems alone but they can help you with low humidity, especially in the winter months. We recommend a moss wall because it can regulate humidity by slowly releasing moisture over time; it’s also low maintenance and quite nice aesthetically.

An all-powerful facility manager

A building is only as good as its facility manager. Think of a facility manager like a pilot, extremely skilled, you trust them with your life, they know every inch of their plane, but most of the time the autopilot should be in control. Similar to a pilot, a well-tooled facility manager should never have to leave their cockpit. Why? Because a truly smart building management system is one with which they can control everything from one room. With our centralized Airthings for Business dashboard, a facility manager can see what's happening to the air in all of their rooms and buildings, as well as the occupancy of those rooms. Think of it as your digital air control room. And that's all without needing to travel from building to building or site to site. Just think of all the time and resources a facility manager could save.

Perfectly balanced, as all things should be

Life is about balance, and so is building management. Perhaps counterintuitively, you don’t always want good air quality- only when your occupants are there. This is the same logic as not heating your home while you’re on vacation. That’s why the most sustainable building is the one that only uses energy when it has to. So, it’s likely that between 6 pm and 7 am you don’t need to use energy in these spaces. However, we can remove the guessing game by using our occupancy sensor. We can help automate the heating, cooling, lighting, and ventilation schedules so that when a space isn’t in use, we’re not using energy on it and vice versa. In the biz, we call this demand-based, and it’s the gold standard.

On-demand

If our facility manager were ordering their ideal smart building tools it might sound like this “Can I get uuuuugh demand-based ventilation, demand-based lighting...everything demand-based actually, thanks”. The biggest potential energy savings come with demand usage. In simple terms, why ventilate, heat, or cool a room that’s not in use? With our sensors, you can measure things like occupancy to see when and how much a room is in use.

Lucky number 13

Every vent deserves an air filter. Merv 13 filters are considered the industry’s best filters. Recommended by Joseph Allen in his publication “The First Four Healthy Building Strategies Every Building Should Pursue”. Merv 13 filters are high-efficiency but also capture pollution, smoke, and respiratory particles.

WELL, LEED, and everything in between?

Naturally, all of the things we’ve listed will satisfy your WELL. That means good ventilation rates, air filtration efficiency, volatile organic compound (VOC) reduction, and moisture management, all to optimize occupant health and well-being. Getting these certifications not only proves your building is operating safely and efficiently but can also open you to green financing opportunities in the future.

A ping pong table

This has nothing to do with air quality or energy saving, it’s just fun. We would also accept a pool table or air hockey.

What’s your dream building? Book us for a call and we can talk about it. Breathing life into your buildings is what we do.