Journal of Indoor Environmental Quality

The story behind energy, entropy, efficiency, exergy and efficacy

We just released our long awaited simplified summary of energy, entropy, efficiency, exergy and efficacy based on our brand new presentation on sustainability and early feedback from industry leaders has been great. It’s all consolidated into a single web page – written of course in basic easy to understand language and linked back to numerous pages within the www.healthyheating.com website.

If you missed the HRAI of Canada’s annual general meeting in Kananaskis, Alberta, saw the sustainability slides posted earlier but wanted the descriptive language – well now you have it.

Also be sure to check out our updated Indoor Air Quality presentation, Inspecting Hydronic Systems and Skill Sets slides from the Canadian Hydronic Council meeting held in the spring.

World of Warmth

This week we’re featuring the works of Arno Vlooswijk , an industry colleague whom I have had the privilege of corresponding with over the years. Arno is from the Netherlands and specializes in thermography…but we’re not talking your basic everyday stuff…Arno has taken the application of thermographic images into an arena few have ventured before - spanning the range from video to large scale bulletin boards featuring our everyday world and the wild kingdom. Through his view of the world from a thermographic camera, Arno has also given much thought about mankind and has this to say about the thermoregulation system of people… “Buildings and installations should support this system, not take it over completely.” We couldn’t agree more.

He has a number of websites related to his passions (see below) and also a publisher of iPhone apps…you should make some time to see what he’s doing…it's very enlightening.

• www.worldofwarmth.com
• www.treesforgrannies.com
• www.nutscode.eu

Also be sure to check our site pages on using thermography with radiant based HVAC systems.

• http://www.healthyheating.com/Radiant_Thermography/Radiant_Thermography2.htm
• http://www.healthyheating.com/Radiant_Thermography.htm

Next week we'll be covering another fine project from Lord, Aeck & Sargent and featuring Greg Stockton from Stockton Infrared who has literally taken infrared imaging to new heights.

Optimum Environments for Optimum Health and Creativity

It’s not every day you get to read a book on building construction by a medical doctor so when, “Optimum Environments for Optimum Health and Creativity” by William J. Rea, M.D. came across our radar screen we had to dig into it.

Dr. W.J. Rea, is a thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon with a strong passion for the environmental aspects of health and disease and Founder of the Environmental Health Center (EHC-D) with clinics in Dallas and Chicago. His book first published in 2002 is well researched and illustrated with practical information for anyone designing or managing a home or office.

I give it two thumbs up for content and recommend it to all.

The only negative comment I have is actually for all publishers – hard copy books are expensive to import...make your materials available in a .pdf format - this saves on postage and duty charges which unnecessarily triples the cost of a book when importing it into Canada. In this case the book was $20 but it cost me an additional $40 for bringing it in!

Message to authors - it’s not the price of the book – I and many others would pay more for educational materials if we didn't have to pay for outrageous postage and duty charges.

Here’s a shortlist of resources to environmental health where board certified medical doctors influence the content:

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM)
Visual Contrast Sensitivity Test Center
National Institutes of Health • U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
National Center for Environmental Health 
James Craner, MD, MPH, Occupational & Environmental Medicine Internal Medicine
International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health
Note: Beginning in 2011, the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health is expanding its scope to include consumer health, a rubric we define to include the aspects of human disease and injury that are determined or influenced by exposure to consumer goods and their components, including pharmaceuticals, food additives, and other purchased products.)
Canadian Society for Environmental Medicine
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)  
World Health Organization
Where Are You on the Continuum of Environmental Health, Lisa Nagy, MD
The Human Ecology Foundation of Canada 

See also:

Current State of the Science: Health Effects and Indoor Environmental Quality - includes links to numerous other resources.

Glazed Over – Raising the Awareness to Improve Building Enclosures

Journal of Building Enclosure Design - Current Issue

Excerpt:  “In my message to you in the Summer 2009 issue of Journal of Building Enclosure Design, I discussed the need to raise awareness to improve building enclosures. I outlined several examples in that article, such as recognizing David Altenhofen for his efforts to establish Building Enclosure Councils (BECs) throughout the country, the work Congressman Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) is doing to bring awareness to the issue of high-performing buildings, the programs held at the 12th Canadian Conference on Building Science and Technology, and the December 2009 Ecobuild America Conference held in Washington, D.C.

Each of these examples addressed a consistent theme: education. These examples all focused on the need to improve our knowledge base to better utilize the latest technology to advance our building systems and to gain greater return on our investments. Investing in education is money well spent.”Henry L. Green, Hon. AIA, President, National Institute of Building Sciences

Visit the National Institute of Building Sciences and download the Journal of Building Enclosure Design

RBc: Henry gets it right with, “Investing in education is money well spent.”

Somehow clients and architects need to get beyond interior and exterior aesthetics as primary driving forces in form. Why? Because there is piling up of discouraged engineers and building scientists who despite their best efforts face a constant battle over enclosures and systems attributable to what is wrongly perceived as high fee’s related to the design and management of comfortable, healthy and energy efficient structures.

Remember sustainability is branch of philosophy and there is still significant philosophical conflicts occurring between what is scientifically right (engineers, architects and interior designers) and what creative enclosure gets built (architects, interior designers and clients).

Education brings awareness to the issue of high-performing buildings but as we have all experienced, having the knowledge means nothing unless it is applied/ executed in practice.

For further commentary on this topic read:

Are you paying too much for down grades?

Radiant Based HVAC - Starts with the architecture.

Manitoba Hydro Place - A New Benchmark for Cold Climate Buildings

I’ve had the opportunity to tour a number of great projects already this year and the latest is Winnipeg’s own - Manitoba Hydro Place.

After three days of presenting the HRAI of Canada’s Indoor Air Quality Awareness program I'd have to say it is by far one of the most comfortable buildings I’ve had the pleasure of teaching in…in fact one of the most striking difference was experienced during our tour of the mechanical rooms which were extremely clean, quiet and cool – a stark contrast to the loud, dirty and hot rooms typically found in buildings across America.

I took numerous photo’s while there and have shared a few here in the blog. (t) Solar chimney, (m) Geothermal manifold, (b) Solar chimney against the smoke stack from the old power plant – my how times have changed!

A big thanks to industry colleague Rob Andrushuk, C.Tech., Mechanical Systems Specialist with Manitoba Hydro for hosting the IAQ course and for arranging the top to bottom tour and to Mark Pauls, B.Sc., EIT, Building Energy Engineer for the pre-tour presentation and walk around…outstanding!

Suggested links:
Project description and history: GreenSource, March Issue
Technical paper: Manitoba Hydro Place, Integrated Design Process Exemplar (PLEA2009 - 26th Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture, Quebec City, Canada, 22-24 June 2009)  

To learn more the concepts used in this project visit these links:

Radiant Cooling

Dedicated Outdoor Air Systems

Indoor Environmental Quality with Radiant Based HVAC System

The Power in Integration – A Must Read Proposed Guideline from ASHRAE

ASHRAE Guideline Addresses Interactions Affecting Indoor Environmental Quality

ATLANTA – A proposed guideline, currently out for public comment, would provide guidance on achieving good indoor environments by considering the interactions of air quality and thermal conditions as well as lighting and acoustics.

ASHRAE Guideline 10P, Interactions Affecting the Achievement of Acceptable Indoor Environments, calls attention to many interactions that designers might not have previously recognized or understood. The guideline opened for public comment on April 9 and remains open until May 24.

“The guideline summarizes what research and experience have taught us about the complex interplay of the wide range of factors that determine occupants’ reactions to the buildings they inhabit,” Hal Levin, chair of the committee writing the guideline, said.

Levin explains that the guideline is intended to help users understand and use existing documents that deal with indoor environments, including the ASHRAE standards related to ventilation and indoor air quality and thermal conditions with a more complete understanding of the impacts of the indoor environmental on occupants. “It can provide assistance to building design professionals and building operators by making them aware of the major interactions that have the potential to impact the indoor environment,” he said. “We believe the guideline will help draw attention to the narrowly-defined scopes of the widely-used standards and the significance of interactive effects in determining the acceptability of an indoor environment.”

The draft of Guideline 10P is available for comment only during its public review period. To read the guideline or to comment, visit www.ashrae.org/publicreviews.

For further information contact: Jodi Scott, Public Relations, 678-539-1140, jscott(at)ashrae.org

RBc: As stated in the forward, “This guideline is intended to help people understand and use all of the documents that deal with indoor environments, such as ASHRAE Standard 62.1, Standard 62.2, Standard 55 and the ASHRAE Indoor Air Quality Guide, as a whole rather than separately. The guideline focuses on thermal conditions, indoor air quality (IAQ), and the interactions between these environmental conditions as they affect the acceptability of the indoor environment. In addition, but to a lesser extent, it also addresses mechanical energy (including noise and vibration) and electromagnetic radiation (including environmental lighting, ultraviolet and infrared radiation) as additional sources of interactions affecting the acceptability of the indoor environment as well as limitations that exist in the ability to achieve acceptability.”

We encourage readers to visit the ASHRAE site to review and comment on this document.

For a back ground study we suggest reading these pages. http://www.healthyheating.com/Defintion_of_indoor_environmental_quality.htm
http://www.healthyheating.com/Thermal_Comfort_Working_Copy/IAQ_ICQ_IEQ.htm http://www.healthyheating.com/Human_Factors/Human_Factors.htm
http://www.healthyheating.com/Definitions/facts_about_skin.htm http://www.healthyheating.com/Thermal_Comfort_Working_Copy/HH_physiology_intro.htm

Also view our ASHRAE lecture on The Human Factors in HVAC Systems

Thermally Active Surfaces in Architecture

Excerpt: “Departing from the simple question Why do we heat and cool buildings with air?, this book focuses on the technique of thermally active surfaces. This technique uses water in building surfaces to heat and cool bodies - a method that is at once more efficient, comfortable, and healthy. This technique thus imbues the fabric of the building with a more poignant role: its structure is also its primary heating and cooling system. In doing so, this approach triggers a cascading set of possibilities for how well buildings are built, how well they perform, and how long they will last: pointing the way toward multiple forms of sustainability.” Source: Princeton Architectural Press

Learn more here: http://www.papress.com/html/book.details.page.tpl?isbn=9781568988801

RBc: I’ve just reviewed this new addition to our library of recommended reading for design professionals. Author Kiel Moe is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the Northeastern University School of Architecture and has done an outstanding job illustrating the benefits of thermally active surfaces. We have been preaching thermally activated building systems (TABS) for many years and we’re pleased to see a section in this new resource from www.healthyheating.com contributor Geoff McDonell, B.Sc., P.Eng., LEED™ Ap. For more articles from Geoff use the search feature above.

The quality of this book is equal to any higher education text book on architecture, structural design, interior design and HVAC engineering with outstanding easy to understand graphics. We especially appreciate the inclusion of design details from numerous TABS projects from around the world.

A must have for the student or design professional.

Canadian Building and Health Sciences Network - Proceedings

Excerpt: "Understanding the effects of the built environment on our health is a complex business. Thorough research addressing questions such as “What is the best way to construct a house to reduce the stressful effects of noise exposure?” or “Which ventilation strategies both conserve energy and reduce exposure to potential allergens?” requires expertise from many scientific disciplines, including acoustics, architecture, biology, chemistry, engineering, epidemiology, geography, mathematics, medicine, physics, psychology, public health, and urban planning – and probably others as well. Although there exist international associations bringing together some of these disciplines, there has been no co-ordinated effort to bring together Canadian scientists to study these questions, across all building types, in the Canadian geographical and cultural context. Similarly, there are few examples of co-ordinated Canadian design guidelines, recommended practices, regulations, standards, or codes that address the full breadth of built environment effects on Canadian’s health and wellbeing.

Faced with requests for guidance on how to design, construct, operate, and maintain healthful indoor environments, the NRC Institute for Research in Construction (NRC-IRC) began in 2005 to develop the Canadian Building and Health Sciences Network (CBHSN). The network is intended to facilitate the development of collaborative teams that will conduct innovative, interdisciplinary research intended to improve the health of Canadians by improving the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of the built environment."

RBc: We highly recommend our readers download and read the proceedings.
http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/obj/irc/doc/pubs/nrcc51222/nrcc51222.pdf

Other suggested readings:

Indoor Environmental Ergonomics
http://www.healthyheating.com/Human_Factors/Human_Factors.htm

Healthy Buildings Conference
http://www.healthyheating.com/IEQ_Radiant.htm

Alvar Aalto as a Healthy Building Architect
http://www.healthyheating.com/what_makes_a_good_%20architect.htm

Predicting Residential Exposure to Phthalate Plasticizer Emitted from Vinyl Flooring: Sensitivity, Uncertainty, and Implications for Biomonitoring

Predicting Residential Exposure to Phthalate Plasticizer Emitted from Vinyl Flooring: Sensitivity, Uncertainty, and Implications for Biomonitoring Xu, Y., Cohen Hubal, E.A., Little, J.C.

Excerpt: Because of their substantial and widespread use, phthalates have become ubiquitous environmental contaminants (Koch et al. 2003; Weschler and Nazaroff 2008; Wormuth et al. 2006). More than 3.5 million tons of phtha¬lates are used worldwide each year, primarily as plasticizers in flexible polyvinyl chloride (PVC) products (Cadogan and Howick 1996). Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) is an important phthalate, with more than two million tons produced globally each year (Lorz et al. 2002). About 90% of phthalates are found in numerous consumer products, including floor and wall coverings, car interior trim, cloth¬ing, gloves, footwear, wire insulation, artificial leather, and toys (Afshari et al. 2004; Bornehag et al. 2005; Müller et al. 2003). DEHP is mainly used in PVC products such as vinyl flooring (VF), where it is typically present at concentrations of about 20–40% (wt/wt) (Clausen et al. 2004; Deisinger et al. 1998). Because phthalate plasticizers are not chemically bound to the product materials, they are emitted slowly into the surrounding environment (Müller et al. 2003; Wormuth et al. 2006) and have become widely recognized as major indoor pollutants.

Source credit: Environmental Health Perspectives

(pronounced THAL-alates)

RBc: other useful readings include: Current State of the Science: Health Effects and Indoor Environmental Quality 

Also available at the above page:

1. Elements That Contribute to Healthy Building Design
2. In Search of a Common European Approach to a Healthy Indoor Environment
3. Childhood Asthma and Environmental Interventions
4. Improving Indoor Environmental Quality for Public Health
5. Bringing Green Homes within Reach: Healthier Housing for More People
6. Associations between ambient, personal, and indoor exposure to fine particulate matter.
7. The Relationship of Housing and Population Health: A 30-Year Retrospective Analysis

Fresh Air in Your Home - What the Government is Doing to Make it Right

Canadian researchers work diligently to close the gap between indoor air quality and tight home construction.

Energy efficiency is becoming a key component of modern-day construction as homeowners are searching for the most tightly-built, energy efficient homes on the market. It’s a huge change from 60 years ago, when home construction was looser, with more opportunity for air and energy to escape. But with these air-tight improvements, comes a hidden catch — one that many homeowners don’t even know about. The tighter a home, the less energy escapes. But tighter construction can affect airflow and indoor air quality as well, and not for the better. Despite the importance of clean air inside the home, Canadian homeowners know very little about indoor air quality, and probably know even less about the role that construction can play in ensuring the quality of the air inside their house. But there could be a reason for that — very little accessible scientific data exists on the subject. That’s something the National Research Council Institute for Research in Construction (NRC-IRC) is currently trying to remedy, with an ongoing study called the Indoor Air Initiative, led by the NRC’s Indoor Environment Program.

Download the full report.

RBc: We had an opportunity to interview the researchers on this project, you can read about it in the Sept/Oct Issue of HPAC Canada.

See also: How your lungs work.