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Alison Withers
Copyright (c) 2010 Alison Withers Paying attention to the air quality is generally accepted to be one of the main ways of ensuring people are working in a comfortable environment. There are two reasons why it's significant. The first is the employer's duty of responsibility to the building's occupants under Health and Safety legislation. More importantly, however, is the effect a so-called "sick building" can have on productivity. It doesn't matter whether the building is a school, a hospital, or a commercial or public sector office. Although a number of factors, from upholstery to humidity, the prevalence of computers to office layout have been identified as potential causes of a sick building, one of the main factors is air quality. Health and Safety analysis has found that sick building syndrome is more common in air-conditioned buildings, where more than 55% of staff report symptoms and it has been shown to affect the level of absenteeism. Maintaining the quality of the air circulating in your building by having a regular schedule of air duct inspection and duct cleaning therefore makes sense especially when, as in an air conditioned building, air is being circulated in what's effectively a closed and sealed system. Dust particles, bacteria, moulds, excess moisture and fibres can all affect the efficiency of a duct system, especially because part of what it's designed to do is to extract pollutants from the building's environment to keep the air clean. If people persistently complain of suffering from irritation to the eyes, nose and throat, skin irritation or rashes, headaches, lethargy or irritability and inability to concentrate it's likely that poor air quality in the building is a factor. You have some evidence that their cause is something in your building if their symptoms go away after a person has been away from the building for a few days. When you consider that most people spend more than eight hours of every day in their work environment it makes sense to help them stay alert, awake and able to perform to the best of their ability. It could affect the level of care they can give patients in a hospital, and also the patients' recovery time. It's plainly more desirable in a school that pupils are alert and teachers can keep them focused and able to learn unhampereed by something like air quality. Office work can sometimes be repetitive and tedious, but also in situations like call centres can be stressful when staff are dealing with an angry or irritated caller. It's obviously important to you that staff in a customer-facing environment representing your business or service can maintain a calm, helpful and professional persona. The implications for your organisation's continued good name and ultimately profitability are obvious. However, there's another reason why maintaining and regularly cleaning duct systems can affect profitability. As new regulations are introduced for employers, which will mean work buildings will have to demonstrate energy efficiency and emissions into the enviroment, and equally if you have a system that's not performing to maximum efficiency and could be adding to your energy costs, duct systems working at peak efficiency are going to become even more important in controlling your overheads. Investment in regular duct maintenance and cleaning therefore makes sound commercial sense.
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